It was during a rather muscular interview with CNN that Roger Waters explained why he displayed the image of Joe Biden in his concerts in the middle of other clichés of Donald Trump, in particular, with the title “Criminals of war”.
The artist is on a North American tour ‘This Is Not A Drill’ since July. And during his concerts are displayed on giant screens these people whom he considers to be war criminals, specifying on the image of Joe Biden that he does not “just getting started“.
He explains these choices at the microphone of journalist Michael Smerconish (who admits to being a big fan of Waters’ music but does not necessarily align himself with all his political points of view): “[Joe Biden] is fueling the fire in Ukraine, to begin with, and it’s a huge crime. Why does the United States not encourage Zelensky, the president, to negotiate, to remove this need for this horrible war which kills… who knows how many Russians.“
Smerconish then responds to Waters that he “reverse the problem“and that the artist”wrongly blames the party that was invaded“. Waters disagrees and defends his position by continuing: “Well, take any war. When does it start? What you have to do is look at history, and you can say, ‘Well, it started that day.“
“You could say this one started in 2008 – this war is basically about the action and reaction of NATO wanting to push to the Russian border, which they promised not to do when [le dernier dirigeant de l’Union soviétique, Mikhaïl] Gorbachev negotiated the withdrawal of the USSR from all of Eastern Europe.“