You regulars might have notice a certain amount of erraticism (is that a real word?) around here recently, so, sorry, sorry, sorry but it was those bloody "events, dear boy, events" again. So now, having been 'awol' for a while, I have been forced to smooch around OPBs (Other People's Blogs) to seek grist for my mill and as always Waka Waka Waka (sole prop: Malcolm Pollack) always has something of interest and intelligence to read and thus I have stuck with my usual tactic of only nicking from the best!
Malcolm spotted that Piers Morgan had actually written something rather perceptive concerning the film American Sniper. The fact that it was in The Daily Mail, the Memsahib's paper-of-choice and which, therefore, I read daily, and that I had completely missed it gives you some idea of the harrassment I have suffered recently. Now I must confess - I seem to be doing nothing else these days! - that I have been rather rude about Mr. Morgan in the past, not for any particular reason but because everybody else is rude about him. My pal Richard once sent me a quote from another dislikeable man, Stephen Fry, who said: "I thought 'countryside' was the act of killing Piers Morgan." However, it is mostly my American e-pals who complain the hardest and loudest having, as they do, to suffer his TV programmes. To be fair to myself, I did once watch one of his 'sleb' interview shows and I thought - and wrote - at the time that I thought he handled it extremely well.
Anyway, here are a few of his comments on Clint-baby's latest movie:
Kyle was just told to go and do his job; to aim his expert eye through the eye of a high-powered rifle barrel and shoot people – before they shot him or his fellow soldiers.
It’s what snipers are paid to do.
We may not like it because it’s a dirty, horrible, blood-thirsty job.
But then war is a dirty, horrible, blood-thirsty thing. (My brother is a senior officer in the British Army and has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. So I need no lectures on the horrors of battle, nor on the courage of those who serve their country.) The only thing that matters in war is winning, and fighting within the rules including the Geneva convention.
Kyle was an abrasive, uncompromising character. His book, on which the movie is based, is not for the faint-hearted and makes no attempt to pacify those who worship at the altar of political correctness.
He described killing as ‘fun’, admitted ‘I wish I’d killed more’, and said of Iraqis: ‘I hate the damn savages.’
None of which is very nice, but since when did we demand ‘nice’ from our snipers?
If I can manage to see the film I will judge for myself although I am not looking forward to the experience. Even so, Morgan makes some very shrewd points, not least his final lines:
He repeatedly risked his life serving his country in some of the most dangerous terrain on earth. And by doing his job so well, better than anyone in his country’s history, he saved many American lives.
We should reserve our ire for the politicians who ordered him into the war in the first place.
THEY, if you opposed the Iraq War, are the real villains.
HE is a hero. A flawed hero, perhaps, but still a hero.