Perle of great price
From Lord Black of Crossharbour
Sir: I regret that Taki's habit of lapsing occasionally into absurdly offensive comment stirs me again to respond to him (High life, 29 March). He was kind enough, about 12 years ago, to invite me to a party to celebrate Western victory in the Cold War. He was well aware at that time — I
know because we talked about it — of Richard Perle's great contribution to that victory. To compare Richard Perle to Taki's caricature of President Clinton as a cowardly draft evader has no basis in fact. It is also unseemly coming from someone whose principal exposure to militarism consists of bibulous adoration of Hitler's Wehrmacht. In his enthusiasm as a military historian, Taki should see that the present campaign in Iraq is more than worthy of von Manstein, and that Richard Perle has been instrumental in its success. I appreciate Taki's qualities, and am glad our relations have survived his claim of two years ago that Israel's raison d'être was the massacre of Palestinian children and that the United States air force was commanded by Mossad. But he is straying into areas that require more intellectual rigour than the mélange of pacifism and Third Reich faddism that seems to work while hobnobbing with eurotrash and exchanging blowhardisms with Pat Buchanan, Conrad Black London E14
Previous page
