Posted 12:44 PM by Paul
War & Peace

War getting surreal. The Americans seem to be wondering around Baghdad like a marauding band of football supporters taking pot shots at whatever takes their fancy, particulary Arab journalists. Not so good at winning hearts and minds. It all looks a bit aimless.
,which is useful for the White House as they can blame any mistakes on the individual field commanders.

A photo appeared in the Guardian showing some US Marines wearing war paint. Obviously part of an esprit de corps thing like the US Marines at Arnhem in 1944 who all had Mohican haircuts. The 2003 men looked a bit like Death Metal fans or perhaps members of a Kiss tribute band. BBC TV showed shots of an A10 tank buster lazily swooping through the skies bombing one of Saddam's ministry's. No anti-aircraft flak at all. Far from having WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, so far at least, it looks like the Iraqi army has less firepower than a medium sized Christian cult in the Montana hills.

Yesterday my friend Ian rang me to ask if I wanted to go to a fringe (American Translation: Off off Broadway) play written and directed by a friend from his old drama school. Ian went to RADA and has been on stage and TV since the late 70s. The play was called War Crime. Now normally I would avoid this type of worthy sounding agit-prop like the plague, bit I decided to go anyway. I had not spent time with Ian for a while and I thought that it was an opportunity to excercise my brain which has been in neutral gear for the last few weeks.

The play was fantastic. Well written, well acted and totally devoid of cheap moralising and obvious heroes and villains. Even the US airman who dropped the cluster bomb on the Serbian waitress as she lay in her bed thinking about buying some new trainers had a sympathetic side. She is being tried from the other side of the grave for being complict in Serbain war crimes but then the whole thing is turned on its head. I won't spoil the punch line. So there it is - War Crine by David William's. Go see it if it is in your town. If you are a producer who wants to stage it go to www.warcrime.org.uk and get in touch with these people. They should be encouraged.