That was the original title of the HBO film Richard referenced here. I watched it last night and before I comment on it, I just have to say how much I like the ad from HBO:
To say that the film didn't show the general much sympathy would be to wallow in polite understatement. Of course the man deserves none and while the film will probably not be shown as the Wednesday matinee at the Pinochet Foundation, it impressed me as being an accurate accounting of the events surrounding Pinochet's arrest.
Who comes off badly here? Pinochet, of course . In addition to being arrogant, he does an impressive job of faking his dementia and disability, both of which he managed to recover from the instant he touched down on the tarmac in Chile. Margaret Thatcher comes across as a shallow, manipulative upper-class twit (hey, that's how I remember her). Jack Straw gives new meaning to the word feckless - and manages to piss off his son.
There's a great example of the banality of evil in the film. Early on, Pinochet wants to visit the garden of the house where he is staying, but the female cop assigned to him advises him that he is forbidden to go there. He threatens her with going to her superiors and she stands firm. She warmed to him and later,as she drives by a protest near the house, comments "Don't they have anything better to do?"
What made her change her mind? He apologized for his earlier behavior. While this would hardly serve to satisfy those whose lives Pinochet and his regime wrecked and the survivors of the disappeared and murdered by his minions, in the film it humanizes him - in her eyes - turning him for her into a benign grandfatherly figure, about as far from the reality as one can get.
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