Brit Actor Apologizes For Calling Soldiers “Wimps”
Ah … let’s cut the gay jolly thespian Prince some quarter. He makes a few redeeming points in his mea culpa about accepting the realities of war.
By Stephen Adams - TelegraphUK
Rupert Everett, the actor, has made an unreserved apology for calling soldiers “wimps” and suggesting they went into the Army to torture prisoners.
The star of My Best Friend’s Wedding, 49, caused consternation with his attack in The Sunday Telegraph.
In an interview to publicise his new film The Victorian Sex Explorer, in which he plays the renowned explorer Sir Richard Burton, he said: “In Burton’s day they were itching to get into the fray. Now it is the opposite. They are always whining about the dangers of being killed. Oh my God, they are such wimps now!
“The whole point of being in the Army is wanting to get killed, wanting to test yourself to the limits. Now you have to fly 15,000ft above the war zone to avoid getting hit. I don’t think there is any point in having wars if that’s how you’re going to behave. It’s pathetic. All this whining!”
He went on to say: “The whole point of being in the Army is going to war and getting yourself blown up. That and p—ing on prisoners. Yet we all get shocked by Abu Ghraib.”
But on Monday he issued a lengthy statement apologising “without reserve” to the “many in this country, and hundreds and thousands of others across the world who have lost their brothers and sisters, their fathers and mothers to the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and all the countless others”.
He explained he made his remarks to compare war now to war in Victorian times, saying: “I compared his longing to get into battle to the way we engage in war today. Then death was glorious. Today it is what it really is. Each and every death is a terrible tragic loss.”
The point he was making was that while in Burton’s day war was portrayed as “romantic or exciting”, it actually “creates terrible suffering everywhere, and today we go into it with our eyes open.”
He said: “To be a soldier one needs that special gene, that extra something, that enables a person to jump into one on one combat, something, after all, that is unimaginable to most of us, as we are simply not brave enough.”
Furthermore he admitted: “I also talked flippantly about torture and our attitude towards it. I apologise.
“However it seems to me that embracing war means accepting its underbelly as well, torture and the unspeakable violence that spirals from the battlefield to its surroundings. You cannot be politically correct in a war. My flippant and irresponsible behaviour arises from a deep frustration at the fact that we seem to be continually making war, dreaming up new ones, instead of doing everything we can to avoid them. Again I apologise without reserve to anyone who has been insulted by my remarks.”
Everett’s father is a retired Army major and he said in his interview that “two of my forebears, maybe three, got VCs in Afghanistan.”
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I’m just surprised he was able to pull the cock out of his mouth long enough to make the comments in the first place.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:40 pmWow, a gay guy calling soldiers wimps. Isn’t that an oxymoron?
June 10th, 2008 at 2:49 amNot too concerned with the flatulence from his stretched anus.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:30 ami know this is off point, but if you haven’t seen him in the “cemetery man” your missing out, zombies, hollow points, tits, and great story line.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:36 amI happened to know a few young Brits some decades ago ; they told me that they had contracted their enrollement in the army to get a paid job, as the Brit army is a professional one. Therefore the “patry” defense wasn’t their first worry. This might explains the opinion that the people gets nowadays about their army (not alone in The UK) ; the army duty isn’t a whole population concern anymore as it was when there was a national conscription, but more of play-station war-games addiction for disjoncted brains. This general opinion came with the 1968 generation.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:57 amSeems that this is changing slowly from now.
Dan(the infidel)
My thoughts exactly. a queer calling soldiers ‘wimps’. incredible.
These people always seem to get a free pass once they explain why they said the things they did. just frustrated with war and how we are always trying to create new ones.
June 10th, 2008 at 5:50 am