High life
Target Hollywood
Taki
New York Good old Hollywood. I knew that as soon as the shooting started it wouldn't fail to disgust. The first person — and I use the word broadly — to denounce the efforts of the captured pilots was one Margot Kid- der, a bad B-movie has-been. Not far behind comes Susan Sarandon, alas a good actress, but one who in my opinion would do anything in order to get some cheap publicity.
But these 'women' are ageing badly, and their rhetoric against the war has risen proportionally to their sagging breasts and floppier bottoms. Mind you I'm not attack- ing them for protesting against the war, even Hollywood types should be permitted to do that, but for the manner of their protest.
The brave pilots who are being tortured as I write this must be the noblest we have to offer, and to hear Kidder calling them names another of her kind, Jane Fonda, once called American pilots captured in Vietnam makes my blood boil. So much so in fact that I did something I haven't done in years. I attacked a protester and almost got myself back into the clink.
The irony of course is that I was against the war, that is until it started. Now I find criticism of the war tolerable, but dispara- gement of those fighting it criminal. And there is further irony. Under Islamic law established in the seventh century, rules protecting PoWs are specific and extremely humane. But under the guise of self- defence, the Iraqis are doing something right this minute that certainly the Ger- mans didn't during the second world war, and nor did the Soviets. The North Ko- reans started it, but it was perfected by Fonda's friends.
I guess the reason I'm outraged at seeing pilots paraded around, humiliated and tortured is the lack of precedence for it until Vietnam. My favourite film is La Grande Elusion, and although it was fic- tion, it was nevertheless very close to the truth. That was 75 years ago. My father told me how well Italian PoWs were treated by the Greeks, and eventually the Greeks by the Germans. Those were sup- posed to be the bad old days, when gays were called queers and women were told to be quiet when they uttered stupidities. In these compassionate times, we tolerate Hollywood phonies insulting noble men fighting for a noble cause. If only a Scud had the range to reach Hollywood, and with a payload of biological gas to boot.
Not that the networks have been much better. Ted Koppel wondered — however gently — why the pilots broke so soon after their capture. Boy, would I like to bet him his yearly salary that he would break quicker once I got him alone. Gunga Dan Rather and Pointless Peter Jennings are angry because the Pentagon has not given them total access. As far as I'm concerned, they have far too much access, to the public.
Needless to say, we also have some tough guys over here. The toughest of the tough is one Stephen Solarz, a congress- man from Brooklyn. His warlike fury scared even little old me, and made Abe Rosental sound like a peacenik. The trou- ble is that Solarz not only has never served this country, he led the peace movement in the Sixties. Now he's screaming for blood on the floor of the Congress, the very blood he wanted saved 20 years ago. It's a funny place this America.
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