Editing John le Carré (section)

===US invasion of Iraq===
In January 2003, two months prior to the invasion, ''[[The Times]]'' published le Carré's essay "The United States Has Gone Mad" criticising the buildup to the [[Iraq War]] and President [[George W. Bush]]'s response to the [[September 11 attacks|11 September 2001 terrorist attacks]], calling it "worse than [[McCarthyism]], worse than the [[Bay of Pigs Invasion|Bay of Pigs]] and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the [[Vietnam War]]" and "beyond anything [[Osama bin Laden]] could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams".<ref>{{Cite web|last1=Meier|first1=Andrew|title=Coming in from the Cold|url=https://www.bookforum.com/print/2304/the-many-masks-of-ex-spy-and-novelist-john-le-carre-16789|access-date=15 December 2020|website=[[Bookforum]]|date=January 2017|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=le Carré |first=John |title=Opinion: The United States of America has gone mad |url=http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0115-01.htm |access-date=8 February 2011 |newspaper=[[The Sunday Times]] |date=15 January 2003 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101204033616/http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0115-01.htm |archive-date=4 December 2010 }}</ref> Le Carré participated in the London [[protests against the Iraq War]]. He said the war resulted from the "politicisation of intelligence to fit the political intentions" of governments and "How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin Laden to [[Saddam Hussein]] is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history".<ref name="dn111010">{{cite web |title=Exclusive: British Novelist John le Carré on the Iraq War, Corporate Power, the Exploitation of Africa and His New Novel, "Our Kind of Traitor" |url=https://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/11/exclusive_british_novelist_john_le_carr |website=Democracy Now! |access-date=17 December 2020 |language=en |date=11 October 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=John le Carré, Iraq War Critic and Legendary Author of Spy Novels, Dies at 89 |url=https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/14/headlines/john_le_carre_iraq_war_critic_and_legendary_author_of_spy_novels_dies_at_89 |website=Democracy Now! |access-date=17 December 2020 |language=en |date=14 December 2020}}</ref>

He was critical of [[Tony Blair]]'s role in taking Britain into the Iraq War, saying: "I can't understand that Blair has an afterlife at all. It seems to me that any politician who takes his country to war under false pretences has committed the ultimate sin. I think that a war in which we refuse to accept the body count of those that we kill is also a war of which we should be ashamed."<ref name="dn111010"/>