clocker bob wrote:
??? So you are saying that we were right to invade??

I think the invasion itself was justified. The actual manner in which it was carried out was debased by the participation of companies like Kellogg, Brown and Root, and so forth, but that's not to say that Hussein didn't need to be eradicated along with all of the psychotic nuts and toadies who surrounded him.

And, yes, I'm aware that the administration had ulterior motives in invading Iraq. You know that I am. I highly distrust the administration, as you also well know.

But the invasion itself, while completely bungled and mismanaged almost from the get-go, was justified.

clocker bob wrote: Who created the power vacuum? I don't think anyone on the left is saying that the US is solely to blame for the sectarian violence- are you arguing that the invasion and occupation are not the primary reasons for it?

I think a sizable amount of people are saying that very thing, and I think it's also callous and empty-headed.

While the "occupation", which has been handled horribly, is a major cause of the strife, there are also deep, historical (mainly religious) causes which are equally as important.

clocker bob wrote:
Are you saying Hitchens did not cheerlead for the war? Because it would be ridiculous if you are.

And he's crazy. He's a sideline sitter who lusts for great wars- therefore, a fascist.

Methinks you get off a little too much on being self-righteous on this issue. "Cheerleading" for the war is hardly how I'd put it--he carefully and consistently gave reasoned defenses for his positions. Whether those positions were valid or not, in no way is it equivalent to, say, the sort of "cheerleading" against the invasion engaged in by empty-headed and moralistic repeaters of cant that can be found at any anti-globalization rally.

He's a writer. It's his job to take positions on controversial issues. Don't get on some imaginary high horse.

ezra klein wrote: In a 2003 interview, Hitchens said the events of September 11th filled him with "exhiliration."

His friend Ian Buruma, the writer, told me, "I don't quite see Christopher as a 'man of action,' but he's always looking for our defining moments--as it were, our Spanish Civil War, where you put yourself on the right side and stand up to the enemy." Hitchens foresaw "a war to the finish between everything I love and everything I hate." Here was a question on which history would judge him; and just as Orwell had (in his view) got it right on the great questions of the 20th century -- Communism, Fascism, and imperialism -- so Hitchens wanted a future student to see that he had been similarly clear-eyed (He once wrote, "I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences posthumously.)

Absorb that: This isn't about 9/11, or "Islamofascism," or repression in the Arab World. It's about Christopher Hitchens. It's about his need for an enemy great enough, dark enough, sinister enough, and threatening enough that he can match the exploits and courage of Orwell's unpopular, often courageous crusades.

It explains, too, why Hitchens and so many like him are quick to inflate the dangers posed by Islamic extremists, to make threats out of enemies and existential dangers out of garden variety terrorists. If they don't, if they allow al Qaeda to remain a degraded organization with limited operational capacity that should be mopped up through diligent law enforcement strategies, then where does that leave them in the eyes of history? Orwell battled against Communism, Hitchens is going to take a brave posture against 27 bearded nuts who want white men to leave their lands?

Of course not. So in his writings, "Islamofascism" subtly becomes communism circa-1962, an expansionist, attractive ideology bristling with nuclear weapons and demands that can neither be understood nor negotiated. It does that because nothing else is equal to the challenge of Christopher Hitchens:

"[My critics] want me to immolate myself, and I sincerely believe that, for some of them, when they see bad news from Iraq, the reaction is simply 'This will make Christopher Hitchens look bad!' I've been trying to avoid such solipsism, but I've come to believe there are such people.

Good job on dodging inflated self-regard. Hitchens literally believes this is about him. That what happens in Iraq reflects on him. That those who oppose it are quaking before Hitchens' moral clarity, and watching the IEDs for anything that will discredit this brave, occasional Slate columnist.

[/quote]

This entire news article has the rank odor of a piece solely dedicated to personality assassination. If we can portray Hitchens as a megalomaniac and a drunk, maybe we can avoid having to deal with his actual arguments.

Give me a break. What piffle. Such writers of penny-dreadful propaganda should be ashamed of their own stupidity. The claim that Hitchens cared nothing for the Iraqis and was only interested in his own professional reputation is backed by a couple of quotes taken out of context and then given the sort of spotlight that is commonly used for such glorified vandalism. It's just this sort of nonsense that I admire Hitchens for consistently revealing.

Here is a well-respected journalist who is nearing sixty, and whose personal and professional reputation is nearly spotless. He has consistently fought against authority, from lambasting Clinton to publicly ridiculing Reagan and George W. Bush. Give him the respect he deserves, even if you don't agree with him. Anything less would only betray your own Witch Hunt, paranoiac mentality.

NerblyBear wrote:

clocker bob wrote:
??? So you are saying that we were right to invade??

I think the invasion itself was justified. The actual manner in which it was carried out was debased by the participation of companies like Kellogg, Brown and Root, and so forth, but that's not to say that Hussein didn't need to be eradicated along with all of the psychotic nuts and toadies who surrounded him.

And, yes, I'm aware that the administration had ulterior motives in invading Iraq. You know that I am. I highly distrust the administration, as you also well know.

But the invasion itself, while completely bungled and mismanaged almost from the get-go, was justified.

Sorry, but that's a total evasion. It's a carbon copy of a Galanter evasion. You can't pretend that some fictional honest administration carried out the invasion, instead of the corrupt administration that did carry it out. The invasion and the Bush administration are siamese twins- do you support the invasion that you saw, not the one that you wish you saw?

clocker bob wrote: Who created the power vacuum? I don't think anyone on the left is saying that the US is solely to blame for the sectarian violence- are you arguing that the invasion and occupation are not the primary reasons for it?

nerbly bear wrote:I think a sizable amount of people are saying that very thing, and I think it's also callous and empty-headed.

While the "occupation", which has been handled horribly, is a major cause of the strife, there are also deep, historical (mainly religious) causes which are equally as important.

Don't switch words on me. Is the occupation the primary reason for the civil war? If you want to substitute the word 'major', tell me if major is synonymous with primary. If the civil war only happened after the invasion, how do you justify placing more blame on historical causes? And if Saddam was able to keep civil war from erupting, are you prepared to put that on the good side of his ledger? Why is Saddam condemned, when fewer civilians died during any four years of his control than have died during the occupation? If you want to say the invasion was justified, tell me how the Iraqis are better off post-Saddam- the Iraqis no longer think so. Is your praise for the invasion based on a belief that the US is better off in that war than not in that war?

clocker bob wrote:
Are you saying Hitchens did not cheerlead for the war? Because it would be ridiculous if you are.

And he's crazy. He's a sideline sitter who lusts for great wars- therefore, a fascist.

nerbly bear wrote:Methinks you get off a little too much on being self-righteous on this issue. "Cheerleading" for the war is hardly how I'd put it--he carefully and consistently gave reasoned defenses for his positions.

Warmongering is warmongering. It's a simple word. The definition is 'promotion of war'. You are evading again by saying that he warmongered with good reasons. I didn't ask you if you liked his reasons. I asked you if he promoted the war. Are you claiming that he didn't? If I ask you if Hitchens hit a golf ball on the tee, don't tell me that he used great golf clubs- just answer the question: did he hit the golf ball on the tee? OR: did he warmonger?

nerbly bear wrote: Whether those positions were valid or not, in no way is it equivalent to, say, the sort of "cheerleading" against the invasion engaged in by empty-headed and moralistic repeaters of cant that can be found at any anti-globalization rally.

Go fuck yourself, you fake liberal war lover. There is no such thing as bad anti-war protests. The only way any anti-war protests can be bad is if the war being opposed was utterly necessary for the survival of the country. Then, under such extreme circumstances, is it permissible to support war. Are you arguing that we faced a dire imminent threat in Spring 2002 from Iraq, you clown?? We invaded Iraq over WMD's that don't exist and a 9/11 link that doesn't exist. Iraq an imminent threat?? You gutless pussy, you smear the anti-war side for protesting THIS fucking war?! Go blow Bush and Hitchens and all the neo-cons. Go scare yourself silly over Islamofascists. You are fucked in the head. You can't even keep you fucking story straight. You went from this:

clocker bob wrote:Does the list of opinions that Hitchens has 'persuaded you to' include either of these?

The US was right to invade.

The US is right not to leave.

nerbly bear wrote:I agree with neither of those opinions

To love for both. You're pathetic. Do you really think that withdrawing troops from Iraq equals surrender to terrorism?? That they can actually win an offensive war against Western powers??

clocker bob wrote:Does the list of opinions that Hitchens has 'persuaded you to' include either of these?

The US was right to invade.

The US is right not to leave.

nerbly bear wrote:I agree with neither of those opinions

Liar. You meant to type 'I agree with both of those opinions.' You fucking mixed up twerp. To think that I would find someone who said that there was a strong probability that 9/11 was an inside job arguing that he trusts that very same administration to carry out an invasion and an occupation. You pathetic fear-driven coward and phony.

First off, Clocker Bob, let me just tell you flat out that you're a real asshole.

At no point did I ever personally attack you or call you juvenile names. Such vulgar kindergarten theatrics now appear to be the predictable manifestation of a paranoid, hateful guy who wants to be damn sure that nobody questions his status-quo fiefdom of internet conspiracy theorizing.

Your vengefulness is a blatant attempt to mask the fact that you can't account for any argument in favor of the War in Iraq that simply points out that the entire country had been suffering for years under a murderous, theocratic dictator. No free press. No fair trials. Nothing of the sort of regulations that protects jerks like you from being kidnapped in the middle of the night by the NSA.

Let's imagine that you had lived under Saddam's rule. What would you have asked for? How could your voice ever have penetrated the thick web of silence that the Great Leader had erected over everyone? How would you have had the ability to spew your vitriol over the internet forum of a punk rock recording engineer?

You wouldn't have been able to do any of those things. You probably also would have marveled at the spectacle of people who live in a free society attacking and vilifying other people who are only trying to raise the issue of the fundamental notion that dictatorships should be overthrown.

Of course I know that the administration fucked it all up. You can't get your head around the fact that a nuanced position can simultaneously disagree with the way the war was undertaken AND pointed out the obvious point that the ideal of setting up a democracy in the Middle East was a good one nonetheless. Why can't you do this? Because you think wholly in black and white, and, significantly, because you lash out at anyone who even tries to present the second point as an important one in any discussion of Middle East geo-politics.

Your slandering of Hitchens and your immediate slandering of myself only pleases me by putting myself in the company of someone who knows much more about the world than you do yourself.

You can definitely go fuck yourself for being a "fascist" yourself and trying to stifle civil discussion.

Oh, and let me also tell you that I've changed my mind on the issue of a conspiracy theory surrounding 9/11. Who helped me to do so? That bete noire of yours, Noam Chomsky, who pointed out the obvious fact that if the administration had gone through something that involved and productive of long paper-trails, their being caught red-handed would have spelled the end of their own party for decades to come. They didn't plan 9/11. Sorry to tell you that your entire purpose for living is a thin tissue of lies akin to an ancient book on astrology, but we thinking people tend to change our positions on controversial subjects without fearing the retribution of fascist internet polemicists.

It's like omygodwow (LOL!!!): on one hand, Hitchens is a strident atheist, and on the other, he writes liberalistic apologetics for imperial warfare and celebrates the expansion of empire--with an obfuscatory focus on one (U.S.-aided) dictator--at the cost of hundreds of thousands of human lives. It's a sexy riddle to my liberal brain. His politics are right-wing and qausi-genocidal but his rhetoric is learned and liberal.

I like the warrants in defenses of Hitchens: granted he is mistaken on the single-most important (and catastrophic) global crime-event of the 21st century and continues to side with his corrupt, right-wing imperialist cronies (Wolfowitz, et al), but his arguments are "airtight" and his position is "sincere."

Hitchens wrote:Military superiority is something you have to see to -- to believe. Unless the United States chooses to be defeated in Iraq, it cannot be.

Hitchens wrote:The United States will not break domestically.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you say, Christopher, that you've joined the ranks now of the neo-cons, the neo-conservatives?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: I couldn't quite say that, partly because of the clip you did just show. I mean, there is a division within the neo-conservative movement, which is, by the way, one of the tests of its authenticity as a tendency. I would say I was a supporter of Paul Wolfowitz, though, if you want that answer from me.

(The link.)

Hitchens (seeking to discredit the Lancet study) in Slate wrote:The Lancet figures are almost certainly inflated, not least because they were taken from selective war-torn provinces.

Flat-out false. They were not.

Smarmy affluent undergrad-guy who wants to be a lawyer wrote: I get the distinct impression that he is the last journalist out there who would sell out his opinions and shill for a cause he doesn't believe in.

Mmkay.

Perhaps you aren't familiar with the racist, McCarthyite, right-wing Neo-con fuckwit who is David Horowitz.

David Horowitz wrote:Liberals do have a big problem with decent, law-abiding American Christians, and their problem -- judging from [PBS Frontline documentary] "The Jesus Factor" -- is evidently their religious faith. ... God help liberal bigots who have no faith but themselves and whose prejudice and hatred is reserved for those who defend them.

But I suppose shilling at a $250-to-$5000-a-plate dinner for a guy who defends the "minority rights" of "Christians and white males" is not evidence of cronyism, desperation, hypocrisy, bad faith, or, simply, shitty politics and alliances; it's just further evidence of his "contrarian spirit." An airtight alliance with another top-notch fellow.

Lil' Pedant wrote: I have just become acquainted with Hitchens, and I must say that he is a top-notch fellow.

Sort of the journo equivalent of Mark E. Smith. Top-notch fellow.

Yes, Hitchens is to journalism as Mark E. Smith is to rock lyrics. Good luck with the LSAT (let alone finding a female receptacle for your keen wit), kiddo.

Andrew,

It's no surprise that your own smear tactics will follow directly upon Bob's now that the bell-ringing has announced the arrival of a Pompous Pseudo-Intellectual Feeding Frenzy for threads involving rational discourse. Would you care to apply your mindbogglingly complex understanding of Zizek's Lacanian claptrap to Hitchens' apparent change of heart, as evidenced by the latter's (gasp!) having anything at all to do with Paul Wolfowitz? Or how about undertaking a pomo, Adorno-influenced critique of the perils involved in non-Canadian, independently-minded journalists launching critiques of Islamofascism? Isn't it just a shame that the whole world doesn't join in our Kumbaya Circle of self-righteousness? Wouldn't the whole world be better if challenges to our own Byzantine, "obfuscatory" thought-castles never arose from denizens of the real world?

I know that I, for one, would be miserable in such a climate, and it's why I've stuck up for Hitchens here. "Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens," as they say.

Go fuck yourself, as well, for trying to silence honest criticism and for joining the "Personal Insult Brigade".

Andrew. wrote:It's like omygodwow (LOL!!!): on one hand, Hitchens is a strident atheist, and on the other, he writes liberalistic apologetics for imperial warfare and celebrates the expansion of empire--with an obfuscatory focus on one (U.S.-aided) dictator--at the cost of hundreds of thousands of human lives. It's a sexy riddle to my liberal brain. His politics are right-wing and qausi-genocidal but his rhetoric is learned and liberal.

I like the warrants in defenses of Hitchens: granted he is mistaken on the single-most important (and catastrophic) global crime-event of the 21st century and continues to side with his corrupt, right-wing imperialist cronies (Wolfowitz, et al), but his arguments are "airtight" and his position is "sincere."

Complete bollocks. "Celebrates the expansion of empire"? Actually, he has been in favor of Iraqis controlling their own assets and managing their own decisions. An "obfuscatory focus on one dictator"? Hitchens has written about dozens of dictators the world over, for upwards of thirty years, and, to boot, he never grew a Canadian mullet. I don't know which detail is more respectable. "Right-wing politics"? Balderdash. You've obviously never read any of his essays. The man is a virtual libertarian in many respects.

Try researching a subject before you direct pompous pronunciamentos in the direction of people who actually know something about it.

Back to Habermas and the Frankfurt School with you.

Canadian mullets and Habermas: both linchpins in my last post. Scathing stuff.

NerblyBear wrote:First off, Clocker Bob, let me just tell you flat out that you're a real asshole.

At no point did I ever personally attack you or call you juvenile names.

No, but this could have been taken as a personal attack on anti war protestors.

the sort of "cheerleading" against the invasion engaged in by empty-headed and moralistic repeaters of cant that can be found at any anti-globalization rally.

I know it isn't personally aimed at Bob but that's probably what's got his back up.

NerblyBear wrote:Your vengefulness is a blatant attempt to mask the fact that you can't account for any argument in favor of the War in Iraq that simply points out that the entire country had been suffering for years under a murderous, theocratic dictator. No free press. No fair trials. Nothing of the sort of regulations that protects jerks like you from being kidnapped in the middle of the night by the NSA.

Let's imagine that you had lived under Saddam's rule. What would you have asked for? How could your voice ever have penetrated the thick web of silence that the Great Leader had erected over everyone? How would you have had the ability to spew your vitriol over the internet forum of a punk rock recording engineer?

You wouldn't have been able to do any of those things. You probably also would have marveled at the spectacle of people who live in a free society attacking and vilifying other people who are only trying to raise the issue of the fundamental notion that dictatorships should be overthrown.

Note - the people in Iraq are not better off now and they are probably not going to be in any near future (with the exception of some Kurdish areas in the North). So going on about how rubbish it used to be does not support your argument.

We have made it worse.

NerblyBear wrote:Of course I know that the administration fucked it all up. You can't get your head around the fact that a nuanced position can simultaneously disagree with the way the war was undertaken AND pointed out the obvious point that the ideal of setting up a democracy in the Middle East was a good one nonetheless.

This is a much bigger debate but in short a mildly in depth look at Iraq - prior to the war - would have revealed that shit and fan would collide once the invasion took place.
Hitchens revealed himself, in my view, to be very naive in thinking things would work out differently.
You cannot seperate an invasion from the invader.
You might be able to say that some imaginary military power attempting to install a democracy in a tyrannised country is a good thing but you wouldn't be talking about Iraq in that discussion.
Supporting America and Britain attacking a middle eastern country and thinking it would all work out fine is, and was, just plain fucking stupid.
Hitchens has a detailed historical knowledge and this makes his stance all the more surprising.

NerblyBear wrote:This entire news article has the rank odor of a piece solely dedicated to personality assassination. If we can portray Hitchens as a megalomaniac and a drunk, maybe we can avoid having to deal with his actual arguments.

This is a touch ironic in that personality assassination is an element of Hitchens arsenal that he knows how to wield effectively. So I wouldn't be too quick to condemn someone returning his courtesy.
From reading that article I tend to agree with it. I do think Hitchens is an extremely arrogant man with an unpleasant tendency to name drop and with an overinflated sense of his own importance. I also think he is fond of the liquor.
I would still quite like to have a drink with him though.

In short the man is extremely clever and articulate and able to decipher extremely complex issues whilst at the same time stumbling into being a drooling simpleton when his moral compass kicks into gear. Kind of like Tony Blair.

All of that is fair enough but when your moral compass starts swinging in the direction of loads of other people being killed for your moralistic cause I tend to smell a rat.

clocker bob wrote:

big_dave wrote:Nerblybear, seeing as your opinions on the subject of Hitch are informed and considered, I'd appreciate you taking the time to chew my ear over it instead of Clocker Shitting Bob!

Ha ha, little douche. Still smarting over the spanking you took over this nonsense of yours, I see.

Yeah, basically you went through one of my points piece by piece to pretend I that was saying something I wasn't. Like most of your posts where you rearrange people's remarks in order to find the hidden meanings and inferences. The fear that somehow there are cleverer people than yourself, and these people are conspiring against you is paranoid and retarded. You are so keyed up into painting your political enemies as pure evil that you never even begin to discuss their motivations or the historical causes of situations. They "conspired" is reason enough to explain why bad things happen, apparently. Way to go inferring that anyone who thinks that those issues are important is a warlover, fascist or an objectivist. Fake Liberal? U wot?

Also you called me a Randian, which is the single worst and most inaccurate insult that I have ever received. Ultimately your ego-driven paranoia is closer to batshit libertarian foaming than anything else I've seen on this board, your manner and cheapening of political language for scaremongering and insult-lobbing seems to be borrowed entirely from Bell and Rense. Well done, you are a stones throw from anti-semantism and NWOism, all that you have to do is join the dots.

Postscript: the War in Iraq is completey unjustified, just in case you want to response to this with your usual paranoid presumptions.

Earwicker wrote:
This is a much bigger debate but in short a mildly in depth look at Iraq - prior to the war - would have revealed that shit and fan would collide once the invasion took place.
Hitchens revealed himself, in my view, to be very naive in thinking things would work out differently.
You cannot seperate an invasion from the invader.
You might be able to say that some imaginary military power attempting to install a democracy in a tyrannised country is a good thing but you wouldn't be talking about Iraq in that discussion.
Supporting America and Britain attacking a middle eastern country and thinking it would all work out fine is, and was, just plain fucking stupid.
Hitchens has a detailed historical knowledge and this makes his stance all the more surprising.

Yes.