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• For a so called 'man of peace' and impartiality Bono appears to have taken a very biased view in regards to the Iraq War especially with his stars and stripes stunt. Becoming pals with Bush and Blair only reinforces that, who are his political advisors?. What ever happened to the white flag he used to carry?. Well done to Larry Mullen for not allowing the entire band to look like total fools and hypocrites. Bono should remember that people on BOTH SIDES died for 'no good reason' and also lost families in their arms. Did Bush or Blair?

  Posted by Eamon Scott at 5:28 PM | 28/12/2008 | Report Abuse

• Many times I've wished Bono just stick to music. I know he means well in regards to Africa, but he should stick his profession. It looks bad when he lives the millionaire's life all the while helping the poor.

  Posted by Betty at 8:12 PM | 29/12/2008 | Report Abuse

• Africans and U2 'fans' also 'help' Bono and his band as well as they do themselves, lets have an equal distribution of credit come on. King would be turning in his grave wouldn't he? Every poet is a thief as they say. As for accepting a knighthood from the so called Queen of England, (she's not my 'queen' pleeeaaase! "We're an 'Irish' band and we're proud to be Irish." yeah right. Multi millionaire so called 'philanthropist' yeah it looks pretty bad

  Posted by micheal at 10:31 PM | 29/12/2008 | Report Abuse

• i fully agree with larry,bono should stick to music and let politicans do there job.

  Posted by olly doyle at 7:24 PM | 30/12/2008 | Report Abuse

• At times I've heard athletes, musicians and other "celebrities" go on and on about their pet causes. Sometimes the people genuinely care about the issues their talking about and sometimes they put on a facade in efforts to make themselves look good. With Bono it appears that he's genuine. I don't agree with him on everything, but I give the man credit for not sitting in his mansions and saying to hell with everyone else. After all, as the greatest philosopher of all time once said "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?" Bono seems to be willing to work with just about anyone who is willing to reach out and help the less fortunate, and in many cases dying for lack of medical care--that is easily available to you and I. Unlike a lot of musicians, I believe Bono will be remembered 100 years from now for the difference he made in the world, where other musicians (if they are remembered at all) will only be remembered for a good tune or two.

  Posted by RvL3 at 2:30 PM | 01/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• "No man is my enemy..." Not to get too preachy here but I am well aware that many of U2's following is by label "Christian". Didn't many people criticize Jesus for the company he kept???

  Posted by Christopher Smith at 5:33 PM | 02/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• Unfortunately I think something will have to give. I think Bono will make the RED project his permanent full time job and U2 will be no more. I have a hunch this will be their last album.

  Posted by SAM at 1:38 AM | 03/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• I would add how disgusting it was for Bono to keep telling Americans that they're are inherently the greatest people in the world and the make excuses for Blair and the Bush administration's criminal actions by painting them as "well-intentioned" when they certainly were not.

  It would be one thing if Bono just stuck to Africa, but he's gone on record as using a kind of cheap language of nationalism to get petty Americans to agree to his "save Africa" schemes by applauding their murder of Muslims. I was saddened when Bono was on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno in 2001 and proclaimed Afghanistan a righteous war, when thousands were dying from bombs and were imprisoned, as we later learned on tenuous evidence, and he never recanted.

  He also said, in a 2007 or 2008 Rolling Stone interview, that those disillusioned with America over Abu Graib and Guantanamo were wrong to think that. This was the very time when America and U2's right wing and moderate fans had to question their roles as citizens and voters in the "war on terror" (which is just an excuse for neo-colonialism and pro-Israeli plans) and there was my former hero -- who rightly criticized American Cold War brutality in Latin America, the South African apartheid, and called for Pinochet to be tried for his crimes -- now egging fascism on.

  Bono is a politician who has made the wrong compromises -- a deal with devils, including Bill Clinton, who moved America toward more fervently supporting the Israeli occupation, prevented UN action during the Rwanda genocide, and both exploited America's fear and hatred of Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi people who were ruthlessly bombed in his tenure to look statesmanly and signed the extraordinary rendition laws that Bush exploited once he came into office.

  I applaud Larry for speaking up.

  Posted by Muldfeld at 5:44 AM | 03/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• I'm American and am far more offended by the "friendship" with Bush - even if Bono did shame him into being generous, isn't Bush an even bigger war criminal?

  In any event - nice one, Larry.

  Posted by C.M. at 10:54 PM | 03/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• Mudfield, are you pro Hamas, who want's to destroy
  Israel and drive the jews in to the sea ?
  ISRAEL have the right to defend it's self.
  Of course occupation is wrong, but Hamas don't want
  peace, even Israel stops the occupation

  Posted by peet dutch at 4:10 PM | 04/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• I have never once in my life heard an African person refer to themselves as a 'pet cause'. What a deeply condescending and devaluing interpretation by so called 'European philantropist do-gooders', who's distinctions between the so called 'rich' and 'poor' are based on economic fortune determined by the values of financial institutions, and not conduct. 'Christianity' teaches us we are all of equal worth. Any perception that would suggest otherwise is a delusion of grandeur or an inferiority complex.

  Do Africans 'need' to know it is 'Christmas'? Do They all believe in 'Father' XMas like Bono and Bob. Surely they should decide what it is that they believe instead of the annual indoctoration. Give them what the require through fair negotiation not religious imposition. I don't think it snowed in Africa this Christmas Bob.

  'Africans' have given much up to 'Europe' but it is not acknowledged as 'charity' is it?, as they did not have the control.

  Posted by Micheal Prat at 5:22 PM | 04/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• Do U not realize that Bono is the closest deity to God we are goin to get in 2009? X

  Posted by carl craven at 12:39 AM | 05/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• Dearest God Bono, luv 2 meet u in Grogans sometime..........Bozo X

  Posted by carl craven at 12:45 AM | 05/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• peet dutch,

  Is there anything Israel can be criticized for without the critic being essentially labelled anti-Jewish and bundled with the Nazis? US media is constantly making excuses for the Israeli ethnic cleansing, colonization, and occupation of Palestinians. It is constantly either exploiting the memory of the Holocaust to frighten would-be dissenters from criticizing what any rational person would see as flagrant human rights abuses or getting politicians like the Clintons or media people like Anderson Cooper to go along with it to look like sympathetic heroes.

  Like native Americans facing white settlers, Hamas is an understandable expression of resistance. Hamas is only 20-some years old. The crimes of the people of Israel were committed from 1948 and have never stopped. I'm sure many marauding native Americans wished the white man had never come and even hated them. The vast majority of Israel's citizens have sold their homes elsewhere to steal the land from Palestinians.

  Hamas wants land back up to the 1967 borders, the right of return, and sharing Jerusalem and the rights given any state -- including the right to not be blockaded. Under these conditions, Israel would exist. It's convenient to say Israel doesn't have to meet even a minimal form of these conditions, just say Hamas is unwilling to compromise, and use that as an excuse to continue the occupation.

  The truth is that Israel has gotten away with murder and mass war crimes. Terrorism is terrible, but so is murdering people with supposedly civilized weapons and constantly reducing Palestinians life until it is so desperate and miserable that many join Hamas.

  The cause for the current conflict and Hamas' rocketfire is Israel's blockade -- something largely ignored in the US media -- which is an act of war. Of course the pro-Zionist movement has Americans brainwashed or wishing to exploit any act of resistance to Israeli brutality as barbarism. Israel made the mistake years ago and keeps making it. It could have prevented Hamas from forming by treating Palestinians with humanity and decency and it could have moderated Hamas by allowing it to form a functioning government instead of using the West to sabotage its right to rule under democratic elections. How many war criminals, like Ariel Sharon, have ruled Israel and been accorded that respect.

  Posted by Muldfeld at 9:33 AM | 05/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• I should add that there are many regrettable things Hamas does, such as an increasingly Islamic fundamentalist set of demands on its own people, but Israeli politicians are guilty of the same. We cannot demand of the Palestinians a higher degree of morality than we accord the israelis.

  Posted by Muldfeld at 9:35 AM | 05/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• Coming from the other side of the pond from U2, I think Larry should watch it when he comments on Bush not knowing better....as a matter of fact from my position it seems to me that Blair was Bush's B___h. This does not discount the fact the Blair acted in a fascist and totalitarian manner....but Bush did as well, and it was Bush who set the precedent by ignoring the UN and the world and invading Iraq under false pretenses. Larry unfortunately inferred that it's ok for an American to be stupid and not a Brit, his argument would have stronger had it looked at who started the whole debacle. As for U2, I have been a loyal fan since the beginning, even seeing them in clubs in Ireland in the early 80's. The rage goes as the cash comes, angst and satiation don't mix often very well. It is commendable the work that the whole band has done for causes, but watching Bono cosy up with the world's number one war criminal in my mind, Bush, was enough to make me turn off the music...and I haven't turned it back on.

  Posted by Col at 12:51 AM | 07/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• Bono doesn't sing to an arena, he sells to them. He is not a rockstar, he's a salesman. When the salesman calls himself a rockstar (especially to politicans) he's just selling another line so they don't see he's actually a politician.

  Salesmen, like politicians, don't have friends, they have constituencies. Without constituencies they cannot consume. Salesmen are consumers of economy. Politicians are consumers of good will.
  Bono had to pay his constituency, Blair and Bush, with good will or he wouldn't get their economy.
  In the same way, Bono must pay the top 10% richest people (you and I) with good will (music, rockstar persona and red products) or he won't get our economy. Who else has had the ability, audacity and foresight to SELL charity to the world's greediest inhibitants on behalf of the world's poorest? Genius.
  Does Bono get along with Blair? Probably. Probably as much as Willy Loman would get along with Bill Clinton.

  The problem is that we consume anger when it comes to Bush and Iraq and apathy when it comes to Africa and feel like we took action because we made a comment on a music website.

  Posted by ushka ver at 9:02 PM | 07/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• Silly comment board politicians: Bono doesn't sing to an arena, he sells to them. He is not a rockstar, he's a salesman. When the salesman calls himself a rockstar (especially to politicans) he's just selling another line so they don't see he's actually a politician.

  Salesmen, like politicians, don't have friends, they have constituencies. Without constituencies they cannot consume. Salesmen are consumers of economy. Politicians are consumers of good will.
  Bono had to pay his constituency, Blair and Bush, with good will or he wouldn't get their economy.
  In the same way, Bono must pay the top 10% richest people (you and I) with good will (music, rockstar persona and red products) or he won't get our economy. Who else has had the ability, audacity and foresight to SELL charity to the world's greediest inhibitants on behalf of the world's poorest? Genius.
  Does Bono get along with Blair? Probably. Probably as much as Willy Loman would get along with Bill Clinton.

  The problem is that we consume anger when it comes to Bush and Iraq and apathy when it comes to Africa and feel like we took action because we made a comment on a music website.

  Posted by ushka ver at 9:05 PM | 07/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• Well..., it´s very difficult to judge the "case Bono"... I really understand Larry´s point of view, but I also understand Bono...I agree with Larry and you that he´s often in bad company, because there´s no question that Bush and Blair have done horrible crimes in Iraq. But Bono is so concerned about Africa that he has to do EVERYTHING to help these people. Without having contact to the most influential politicians he can´t reach his goal. No other celebrity works as hard as Bono and no other celebrity is criticized as much as Bono. ( And when he spends a few days on a yacht he also get´s some accusations...)
  You can say what you want, but at least there´s a man who has the ability to show us FACTS: 29m African children go to school. The One Campaign (I´ve signed the petitions) has achieved that the EU provides 1b Euros for African farmers. A great organization called (RED)WIRE saves lives with the help of subscribers.
  As C. Smith already said on Jan.2nd, Jesus was also in bad company. It´s very dangerous to compare Bono with Jesus, because I know that the "Bono-and-Jesus-story" has already gone too far for a few times. But like Jesus Bono tries to talk to EVERYONE.

  Posted by Mea Bonamusica at 9:04 AM | 08/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• Did he talk to the people of iraq before he took to flying the american flag?

  Did he abandon his talk about 'equality' when he accepted a knighthood from the so called 'queen' of England reinforcing social heirarchy and the legitimacy of the 'British Empire' a deluded aristocracy that contibuted to slavery and exploitation in Africa.

  Contrary to his lyrics of love and anti-materialism Bono is a greedy pompous businessman who promotes himself alongside anyone to keep himself in the limelight and feeling important. No longer a paying 'fan'.

  Posted by peter gowan at 12:54 AM | 09/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• Did he talk to the people of iraq before he took to flying the american flag?

  Did he abandon his talk about 'equality' when he accepted a knighthood from the so called 'queen' of England reinforcing social heirarchy and the legitimacy of the 'British Empire' a deluded aristocracy that contibuted to slavery and exploitation in Africa.

  Contrary to his lyrics of love and anti-materialism Bono is a greedy pompous businessman who promotes himself alongside anyone to keep himself in the limelight and feeling important. No longer a paying 'fan'.

  Posted by peter gowan at 12:54 AM | 09/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• I think it was Edge who once said that there are a few different sorts of Bonos and I agree with him. I would say that I see five very contradictory Bonos: B1 has met Bush and Blair, B2 is a millionaire who doesn´t pay any taxes, B3 writes and sings intense songs, B4 cares about Africa, B5 loves his family.
  Like everybody else here I also have some problems with B1 and 2. It would be the easiest thing to light a fire, throw my whole U2 collection into it and pour a bit petrol over it...But I´ve been a fan for almost twenty years and I can tell you what some songs still give me: shivers.
  All I can do is to see Bono as a HUMAN BEING. And like every human being he also has some mistakes. Who am I to judge?

  Posted by Mea Bonamusica at 11:47 AM | 09/01/2009 | Report Abuse

• I´m sorry to appear here again, but I realized too late that my words about "B2" (see comment above) are wrong. Unfortunately I ignored the difference between the private person Bono and the business U2. I´m sorry for having written such a crap.

  Posted by M.B. at 8:25 AM | 11/01/2009 | Report Abuse

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