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.
I'll give her this much: We're not the first country to experience terrorist attacks. We're just one of the few that fight back. The UK is to be commended for rooting out IRA lunatics over the years. But what this woman apparently hasn't taken into account is the fact that not only did three thousand people die--THEY DIED WITHIN HOURS OF EACH OTHER. Three thousand people died IN ONE DAY!
And when she says that "people forget" about the attack on Maggie, people are already forgetting that 9/11 even happened! Or you get people like Ron "Truther" Paul saying it was our fault. And notice how she sounds like our government wasn't attacked. Yes, our government was attacked, but because of the bravery of several people, that attack was thwarted. Otherwise, we might still be rebuilding the White House.
To think that people like Doris Lessing and AlGore and Yassir Arafat and Jimmy Carter are the kinds of people that are receiving the (Ig)Nobel Prize--the same award that was given to great people like Martin Luther King and Albert Schweitzer and Neils Bohr--then it has truly sunk to the bottom of the barrel in value.
