[supernoodles!]

Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing has said that the 11 September attacks were "not that terrible" compared to the IRA's terror campaign.
"Some Americans will think I'm crazy... but it was neither as terrible or as extraordinary as they think," the writer told Spanish newspaper El Pais.

The 88-year-old added that "people forget" the IRA bomb attack on Margaret Thatcher's government in 1984.

Lessing won the Nobel prize, worth £763,000, honouring her 57-year career.

Five people died and 34 were injured when an IRA bomb exploded in a Brighton hotel where leading members of the Conservative party - including Mrs Thatcher - were staying for its annual conference.

'World calamity'

The author conceded that "many people died and two prominent buildings fell" in the attacks on New York's World Trade Center in 2001.

"They're a very naive people, or they pretend to be," she added of Americans.

Lessing, whose novels include The Golden Notebook and Memoirs of a Survivor, also branded President George W Bush "a world calamity".

"Everyone is tired of this man. Either he is stupid or he is very clever, although you have to remember he is a member of a social class which has profited from wars."

The writer also said that she "always hated Tony Blair from the beginning".

Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for her "fire and visionary power", and is due to collect her award at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December.

[officialleafan]

Doris Lessing is some boring old has-been who needs to move on from Margaret Thatcher and start thinking about what has happened more recent. I know the World Trade Center attack happened in 2002, but i remember that before i remember anything that Margaret Thatcher did.

[Hugo]

Originally posted by officialleafan
Doris Lessing is some boring old has-been who needs to move on from Margaret Thatcher and start thinking about what has happened more recent. I know the World Trade Center attack happened in 2002, but i remember that before i remember anything that Margaret Thatcher did.

2001 to be accurate.

[Noel]

Living in Ireland and stuff, and sorta experiencing the aftermath of the IRA, I can safely say 9/11 was far far worse. Compared to 9/11 the IRA are a bunch of hoodlems.

[XxShortyxX]

I think 9/11 was the worst thing I have ever seen, what made it so sad and terrible was the fact tha over 200 people (that they know of) jumped to the deaths. That person is tlaking bollocks.

[Shaun]

I can somewhat empathise with what she's saying...the whole IRA terrorism wave over a prolonged period...but none of it can really match the atrocities of 9/11, and the aftermath it's had on us.

[bananarama]

It simply shows what a mockery nobel prizes are....Now if it were a prize for the biggest half wit she would win hands down.....

[officialleafan]

Who likes Margaret Thatcher anyway. Silly woman!

[Lauren]

Originally posted by officialleafan
Who likes Margaret Thatcher anyway. Silly woman!

Everybody that voted her in.

Also, it wasn't even Thatcher making those comments so why direct hateful comments towards her? She hardly deserved to be bombed if thats what you're insinuating.

[geoking66]

As much as I don't like Margaret Thatcher, she did do a shitload for the UK and was quite a powerful woman. Don't forget that she helpe invent frozen ice cream packaging (seriously, she did).

I was in the World Trade Centre on 9 September 2001, and it was quite an odd memory now. There was a pavilion between the two towers with a small restaurant and huge bronze globe with Atlas on it, some kids asking their dad who was taking a lunch break which taller was taller and their smiling mom, some ferries with college kids going to Hoboken to get drunk, the multitude of cars that is New York, and a sense that this was just a different place. But to know that thousands of people died just where you were standing two days before is just such an extraneous feeling and it's quite saddening.

[Shaun]

No dissing Margaret Thatcher. She was brilliant.

[supernoodles!]

wow,you were actually there?you must feel so lucky

[geoking66]

Originally posted by supernoodles!
wow,you were actually there?you must feel so lucky

I was, my dad (who normally worked in Midtown) went down there for the day because of a business conference so my mom and I decided to take the train into NYC and meet him there.

[CookieDough3000]

Originally posted by bananarama
It simply shows what a mockery nobel prizes are....Now if it were a prize for the biggest half wit she would win hands down.....

Oh, you've read her work?

Originally posted by officialleafan
Who likes Margaret Thatcher anyway. Silly woman!

Anyone with any understanding of what we call 'history'. You may have heard of it. If not, I recommend you start with 'the Winter of Discontent'.

[J.C.]

I'm not familiar with the career of Doris lessing but her remarks will rightly be considered highly offensive to all the families of the 3,500 people who died in the 9/11 attacks. It seems an extraordinary way of expressing her dislike of Mr Bush.

[Holograms]

I dont know her <3

[xXxCharlottexXx]

Not that bad?! It was one of the worst terrorist attacks ever!

[flavaflav66]

the attack did not need to happen the situation is terrible now because bush and his army are in afghanistan and iraq

[spacebandit]

While 9/11 was a "spectacular", in the venacular use to describe it, and most certainly an atrocity.

I wouldn't want to second guess what lessing said but in a way I can understand what she means.

9/11 was a single attack

the IRA bombed, shot, murdered innocent civilians in NI and the British mainland for over 25 years in a concerted campaign of terror.

I can remember what it was like genuinely living month after month wondering if today could be the day you got yours - I lived twice in my childhood years in areas were attacks happened, my father was a service man. In fact in Woolwich I missed the Kinds Head bomb by about 20 minutes. heard the bomb and made my way back up the hill and watched as the soldiers from the barracks across the road were pulling out the injured and covering the dead before the ambulances arrived. The first time in my life I knew what real fear was, and I didn't see the actual incident only the aftermath. But that is what terrorism is all about, and children are the perfect target


Most of the IRA's money, lest we forget... came from America.

yet we didn't have the kind of civil liberty crackdown we are experiencing now, which makes me more than suspect that a lot of the current climate of fear is government created as a form of control.


Having lived through that period, Muslims and Islamic attacks in Britain do not scare me - but what our government is doing in the name of and with the excuse of "protecting" us ........ most certainly does.