New York
According to Virgil, Libyans are ‘a people rude in peace and rough in war’. The old boy wrote this a couple of thousand years ago, so we have to cut him some slack. And he was obviously not speaking about the present rabble. As far as I’m concerned, most Libyans are human biohazards. The media have played up their fighting abilities, but it’s all show and boast. Afghanis they are not. The Libyans were the only trophy the great Italian army ever won down south, the Abyssinians having held them to a tie.
About 45 years ago, Count Volpi di Misurata invited me to lunch in Monte Carlo and told me over oysters and champagne that his father had won his title on the battlefield. When I told my dad this, he laughed out loud. ‘Volpi was Mussolini’s finance minister and a very rich man, and the closest he got to a battlefield was when his wife and the relatives he left out of his will squared off in his house.’
Old dad, like many Greeks of my generation, never took Italians seriously where fighting was concerned. They gave us an ultimatum, John Metaxas refused it, they attacked us, and the next thing they were running for their lives across Albania towards home begging for help from the Wehrmacht. We know the rest. But they did beat the Libyans, and Virgil must have been drinking when he called the Libyans rough. Rough in manner, yes, rough against the weak, yes. But let’s not make them out to be some kind of Spartans.
Did Gaddafi get what he deserved? Of course he did. The Queensberry rules do not apply for monsters like him. My concern is not the way he died — like a coward in a sewer pipe — but the remaining Gaddafi filth who have so much moolah and are trying to buy their way to safety and comfort as I write. Saif is a marked man and will most likely try Zimbabwe, where his father’s twin — only worse — will welcome him while picking his pocket. The two I would like to see face justice are Hannibal and Aisha, both the embodiment of evil and moral dilapidation, both as cowardly as they come and known to torture defenceless women servants. Hannibal had his heavies cuff them and beat them, even when abroad; his sister disfigured a tea server for life by dousing her face with boiling water after the poor girl dropped a cup. But these repellent monsters have access to billions, and one doesn’t have to look far to see to what lengths governments will go to welcome billionaires no matter how much blood they have on their hands or how crooked they are. Just look at our very own Tony Blair or the American tycoons who until now genuflected before them.
And speaking of Uncle Sam, the TV networks should be ashamed of themselves. All this week they have given saturation coverage to the Madoff family, probably the most disliked bunch since the Manson gang. TV in America looks to satisfy the lowest visceral needs, hence the Madoff saga invading our drawing rooms non-stop. The Madoffs come across as vain, greedy, dysfunctional and out to play the victim.
Although very well off, the son, two daughters-in-law and the wife are selling their story and the great American public is buying it. They’ve come up with a failed suicide story that smells to high heaven. They’re shilling a couple of books proclaiming their innocence and their victimhood. It’s a sordid business and it was timed perfectly.
Here’s the latest Madoff con. In September, Manhattan federal judge Jed Rakoff threw out 9 of 11 counts brought by Irving Picard — the trustee seeking money for former Madoff customers — against the owners of the Mets baseball team. (Madoff’s very close buddies.) He judged that the ‘clawback’ should apply only to the two years prior to Madoff coming clean. This ruling lets the Mets owners off the hook — two very shadowy characters called Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz. It not only severely limits the amount the trustee can recover from the shadowy ones — only 386 million big ones — it also lets the two shadowy ones keep around 750 million greenbacks that Madoff threw their way during his heyday of stealing. The two-year cap is a scandal in itself and it stinks to high you know what. The trustee argued that the clawback should go back at least six years and, by limiting it to two, the judge is reducing monies available for victims by many billions.
But it gets worse. Under the six-year rule, the disgusting Madoffs would have to give back a total of $141 million. A two-year statute would require the disgusting ones to return just $58 million. You do the maths, dear readers. I failed maths at Blair but got lucky during the final exam after some vigorous coaching from Mr Koth. So I did the maths and the ghastly Madoffs will retain 83 million greenbacks of other investors’ money. If this is justice, give me the kind the Libyans applied on Gaddafi père.
After the publicity blitz by the disgusting ones, look for discreet appearances — slowly at first — orchestrated by PR types, and a few trips to London perhaps, always for charity, of course. Sunny Marlborough is in New York shilling for a new roof for Blenheim. What better way to start the rehabilitation by contributing to his roof. And they wouldn’t even need to fly over the pond.
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