John le Carré has just joined openDemocracy's matching funds campaign with a generous gift.

On January 15^th we announced grants worth £35,000 for openDemocracy, provided our readers match that amount.

Now, John le Carré and his wife, Jane Cornwell, have offered a further £5,000 from the Cornwell Charitable Trust, raising the target to be matched to £40,000 (€60,000 or $80,000).

At the beginning of January 2003, when the war with Iraq was imminent, John le Carré published a protest in openDemocracy.

He wrote:

"The rights and freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded...Bush tells us that those who are not with him are against him. I am not with him."

John le Carré predicted, correctly, that the war would be "everything Osama could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams." Americans, he wrote, were being "daily misled by their leaders and by their compliant corporate media".

"Where's the hurry?" le Carré asked. "Iraq is a vile dictatorship, and Saddam is a monster who sits on the world's second largest oil reserves. But there is ample time to consider how to unseat him before we plunge into this predatory and dishonest war."

openDemocracy is proud to have published prescient warnings from John le Carré and the many other writers who have debated the Iraq war and other critical issues on our pages. Whatever the concerns of 2007, our writers and readers will continue in this spirit. Please join the discussion and please help to ensure that the web's best source of independent debate and comment continues.

Join John le Carré: support openDemocracy!

With many thanks,

Isabel Hilton
Editor,
openDemocracy,
17^th January 2007

We are at the start of what threatens to be another turbulent year: an escalating war in Iraq, the wider Middle East crisis, global climate change, the challenge of China, instability in Africa - we all have our own lists.

But on all these issues, openDemocracy strives to publish fair, thoughtful, original and important articles. We look for diverse points of view, intelligent analysis, and rigorous debate. We avoid the empty rhetoric and position taking that too often substitutes for debate. That is why our readership continues to grow and openDemocracy is a reference point for so many readers, journalists and opinion makers.

openDemocracy is free to read - and is read around the world by many who could not afford to pay, as well as by those who can. It is not, of course,free to produce. We maintain our independence through the support of people who believe in what we do.

We have received a generous offer of support from the David and Elaine Potter Charitable Foundation and I am writing to ask you to help us accept it. They will match any individual donation sent to us by readers and supporters, up to £25,000. We have a further offer from the Open Trust of £10,000, which gives us the chance of doubling a total of £35,000.

So if you donate in this campaign, the value of your donation is doubled. If you value our independent voice, there has never been a better moment to support us.

We are using a quick, efficient and secure service for charitable giving - one in the UK and one in the US. Anyone in the world can use them. Just click here.

Thank you for reading openDemocracy, and thank you for helping to ensure that you can continue to do so.

Isabel Hilton
Editor,
openDemocracy,
15^th January 2007