.png){kind=logo}
December 16, 2011 at 11:08 pm 
PZ Myers It’s only fair to balance the light — Hitchens was a glorious writer and rhetorician, an advocate for atheism, and a brave human being — with the dark, and point out that there were subjects on which he was infuriating.
Alex Pareene brings up his peculiar misogyny and his support for war.
And so we had the world’s self-appointed supreme defender of Orwell’s legacy happily joining an extended misinformation campaign designed to sell an incompetent right-wing government’s war of choice. The man who carefully laid out the case for arresting Henry Kissinger for war crimes was now palling around with Paul fucking Wolfowitz.
I remember his talk at a FFRF meeting that dismayed the audience. He promoted jingoistic violence as the solution to everything in the Middle East.
Then it was Hitchens at his most bellicose. He told us what the most serious threat to the West was (and you know this line already): it was Islam. Then he accused the audience of being soft on Islam, of being the kind of vague atheists who refuse to see the threat for what it was, a clash of civilizations, and of being too weak to do what was necessary, which was to spill blood to defeat the enemy. Along the way he told us who his choice for president was right now — Rudy Giuliani — and that Obama was a fool, Clinton was a pandering closet fundamentalist, and that he was less than thrilled about all the support among the FFRF for the Democratic party. We cannot afford to allow the Iranian theocracy to arm itself with nuclear weapons (something I entirely sympathize with), and that the only solution is to go in there with bombs and marines and blow it all up. The way to win the war is to kill so many Moslems that they begin to question whether they can bear the mounting casualties.
Slaughtering civilians does not seem to be a solution that ever brings peace…unless it’s carried to the degree that an entire people is exterminated, and then the only peace is the peace of the grave.
Hitchens was a complicated fellow: talented and intelligent, and on some subjects he was warm and humane and a true child of the Enlightenment. And on others, a bloodthirsty barbarian and a club-carrying primitive. At least in his final months it was the civilized and thoughtful humanist who emerged most.
Posted in
And it’s sad that many people, Hitchens included, believed that. War is not the answer to the problem in the Mid East; it only aggravates the problems there.
This was definitely one of the biggest chinks in Hitch’s armor. His rantings on Islam always gave me pause — there was always this sort of elephant in the margins anytime I read his pieces on the whole “Muslim problem” he envisioned, as if he was leaving its solution ominously unsaid. I always wanted to sit him down and say, “So . . . what? For all the examples and evidence and everything that you provide for why Islam is such a great force for evil in the world (and I agree, it is — same as Christianity, and all other forms of paternalistic theism), what do you propose we do about it? Go to war indefinitely? Round them up into camps until they relinquish Islam? Kill them all? Where do we stop?” Honestly, I don’t think I ever REALLY wanted an answer from him about that.
Nobody is perfect. I once damned someone for forsaking Jesus.
I probably believed it quite fervently at the time.
I also think Hitch has been quoted out of context a few too many times. Not to defend him — Hitchens’ words speak for themselves, and they are not always right. But he was right more than wrong.
And particularly galling is suggesting this as a response to terrorism. That’s problematic because 1)It is terrorism, and 2)one of the goals of terrorism is to provoke the powers-that-be into some kind of hideous overreaction, winning hearts and minds and bodies to your cause.
But I suppose we all have our blind spots. And Islam really does suck.
I have actions in my past that I deeply regret. Fortunately for me, all the ones that come readily to mind were ones that happened before I turned 18 and my post hoc rationalizations (I was only a child; brain development continues til the early 20s!) can help serve me well in permitting me to think of myself as a “good person” despite having done some things early in my life that I would never do now.
And so I have some sympathy for Hitchens’ fallibility. And yet… “Aggressive war” as was stated in trials of the Nazi command after WW2 was the “linchpin crime” that permitted, justified, and made possible all the subsidiary “crimes against humanity” with which the Nazi’s were charged at Nuremberg.
I still harbor great sadness that Hitchens’ wasn’t more critical of the thinking around and justifications for the US wars of the Naughties (yes, pun intended… and yet it seems so utterly effing inadequate that one is almost better off imagining no homophone exists).
I’m going to use this opportunity (at around midnight where I am, so sorry if this makes little/no sense) to rant.
It irritates me to the highest possible extreme when I hear people say that because person A has an opinion that they disagree with nothing else they say can be trusted.
Not only have I seen this done with Christopher Hitchens (may Cthulu enjoy his soul) but also with people as diverse as Thomas Jefferson and Richard Dawkins.
I disagree with Thomas Jefferson’s keeping of slaves, his hypocritical words given that he kept slaves and his lack of planning with his economic situation.
I disagree with some of the statements Richard Dawkins has made in the past, though I am unaware on his current stances on many issues (and I certainly agree with Prof. Dawkins on more points than I do Mr. Hitchens).
When it comes to ideas, picking and choosing is truly the only way to go. I probably agree with Bill O’Reilly on something (Chocolate tastes good?), but given the rest of his biblically belligerent bile, I’m not about to invite him over for lunch anytime soon.
As far as the points that I do agree with Hitchens on are concerned, however, he is (in his writings and on tape) simultaneously loud and (usually) eloquent, so we ignore his words and thoughts at our peril-some of his ideas, admittedly, I could do without.
/endrant
His gradeschool critiques of Black lesbian comedian Wanda Sykes (here and here) were some things that I consider his lowest alongside his unbridled hatred for the Clintons and his gullible fall for W’s lies and authoritarian tendencies.
Perhaps I’m being too lenient, but those were not the things I loved him for. I didn’t expect him to be perfect, but it would be hard to find a more perfect speaker for the atheist cause.
His stance on the war in Iraq was infuriating, but it was his attitude towards women (Women can’t be funny…) that I found the most offensive.
But then unfortunately many of my favorite writers seemed to have a misogynistic streak (some more of a river than a streak).
The wingnuts always say: “9/11 changed everything.” And it did. Unfortunately, it seems to have driven a lot of people crazy.
I had read books by Christopher Hitchens before 9/11. To my eternal shame, I had read books (several each) by Victor Davis Hanson and Daniel Pipes (to name two). Their pathology wasn’t as obvious beforehand.
I am still willing to read more of Hitchens’ books—I’d die before reading any more of Hanson’s or Pipes’. I think that says something—what, I’m not exactly sure.
The thing is, some people have the idea that there exist “Good People”. If a Good Person proposes something, even if they have no explanation for why it is good, then you should trust them on it, because a Good Person is very unlikely to propose something bad.
Personally, I do not think Good People exist (or, if they do, they are very unusual). But if they do, Hitchens is definitely not one of them. In fact I would actively assume something that came out of his head would be more likely to be bad than good. His track record is terrible.
But he also has this filter called rationality which he applies most of the time to get rid of all those bad ideas and replace them with good ones. The best example I can think of is waterboarding, where he originally claimed fairly prominently that waterboarding was not torture. (I have no idea why he would make such a stupid claim.) But then he did something completely amazing, which was to test his claim. And it was falsified. And thereafter he never made the stupid claim again.
I’m convinced that if Hitchens saw the result of some of his proposed policies (e.g. killing all Muslims), he would have similarly changed his mind about them. Fortunately, he never got the chance.
At least he started off pretty much right at that meeting. I can’t think of a bigger threat to the West, can you? Hell China is going to become part of ‘the West’ at the rate it is going. Who else besides the Islamic Fundamentalist nutjobs can compete for the spot of most serious threat? Although…. that’s just the first sentence in the summary of Hitch’s talk at that meeting. It all goes horribly wrong after that. I give a big W-T-F to the rest of what he said there.
Anyway, glad PZ made another post abut Hitchen’s less than stellar qualities and positions. When Steve Jobs died I read one too many articles which made him sound like some perfect god-like being. Bleh. Rather have an accurate picture of a person, warts and all. With Hitchens the positives far far outweighed the negatives.
Yes, I never really understood or agreed with his support of the war in Iraq or his seeming obsession with attacking Clinton. I most respect him for what he had to say about religion and his unflinching questioning of authority – any and all authority. He well understood, I think, that respect is earned, not given outright.
WishfulThinkingRulesAll @ #11:
.
In the U.S.? Fundamentalist Christianity, as they are just as regressive as fundamentalist Islam, but are far more likely to attain power and thus be in a position to impose its religious fascism on this country.
In Europe… I guess it depends. But from what I’ve seen, Christian or right wing extremists seem like a far bigger threat than Islam as well.
Either way, Islam is NOT the biggest threat to the West, as Muslims represent a relatively powerless group in the vast majority of the Western world (except maybe for Turkey, if you choose to count Eastern Europe as “the West”)
As much as I admired Hitchens for his obvious writing and rhetorical talents, as well as being one of a number of focal intellectuals/writers over the past decade or so involved in strengthening the on-going job of ‘disinfection’ of the religious impulse in our species, I have to admit shaking my head at certain positions taken, such as seemingly blind support for the Iraq war, which he seemed to still have no qualms about even after the thorough discrediting of it’s stated basis by many sources and authoritative voices since it’s implementation. I am certainly glad there are some, at least, who in my opinion are rightfully critiquing him, as in posts above.
If it was (as I understood his reasoning for supporting the war) to stem the spread of radical/violent Islamic influence after 9/11, I believe his (or any) support for military action should have focused where the most significant seed for it lay at the time–Afghanistan and the Taliban, rather than supporting actions based on trumped-up ‘evidence’, which was even being questioned shortly after the start of the war.
As had been pointed out early on in the war, even in some organs of the mainstream media, weapons inspectors in Iraq at the time were openly questioning the existence of WMD’s, as well as the notorious aluminum tubes that were widely ‘pumped’ by the ‘CHENEY/Bush’ admin as ‘evidence’ of an active nuclear enrichment program, while lone voices were speaking out that it was unlikely, based on the evidence.
It’s nice to see some balance here. It can be a fine line, indeed, from appreciating a gifted writer and rhetorician and agreeing with some solidly rational thinking on certain subjects/issues on one hand,… and what seems as almost deification of him on the other. I certainly appreciate and am thankful for the former, and shall not do the latter.
Yeap, Hitchens was not perfect and like any other human being was wrong sometimes (Iraq war, that was a really huge mistake).
It’s good to let people know about all of his opinions and not just pick and choose. I’ll still miss him and his voice for reason.
He was right about Islam though.
As I recall, Hitchens’ reasoning for his stance was based on his belief that muslim fundamentalism is simply too great a force in the Middle East, and although there are moderate muslims, they are too small in number to stop the various countries’ aggressive tendencies.
He envisaged a future where all we were left facing was a wave of armed fundamentalism spilling outwards towards the ‘west’. It does worry me that after travelling so widely in the Middle East, he came to this conclusion about the moderates there.
So although I would never wish for a war of annihilation, and maybe many people would say we should let our own civilisation fall rather than become party to such, I cannot 100% condemn his viewpoint. He believed there is the potential, under the right set of circumstances, for this planet to come 100% under muslim (sharia) rule. Given what that would mean for my gender, under those circumstances I might argue the same way he did.
While I may not agree with his opinions, I respect his decision to come to that outlook based on his experiences as a journalist stuck in the midst of war in those regions where Islam is everything. His perspective on the people and places is certainly one that most of us can’t begin to match and I wonder just how much more sympathetic we would be with his thoughts on the matter if we had been in the same line of work in the same places and times. It is sobering to think that if we were subjected to the same imagery we may feel hypocritical of our current opinions. That is what scares me the most about his words in that area.
Sorry, I just plagiarized tielserrath’s concept through space osmosis without intending to. Now I know how Leibniz felt.
Ah. . . our biases.
Hitchen’s drunken rants could be amusing but many were woefully uninformed. As such he was a perfect example of what the world sees as the “American stereotype” – arrogant and self-confident on one hand, ignorant and misinformed on the other.
Any rational person would note that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with radical Islamic terrorism of the 9/11 variety – that was a product of the Saudi Wahhabi system, the sponsorship of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan during the 1980s (the Soviet Afghanistan war) via Pakistan’s ISI – these were the people that Ronald Reagan invited to the White House in the 1980s and called “freedom fighters,” while sending them billions in aid. In fact, U.S. sponsorship of radical Islam goes all the way back to the 1950s in Egypt (the Islamic radical was seen by U.S. foreign policy planners as a useful bulwark against the Godless Soviets), with CIA money flowing to the Muslim Brotherhood (which opposed the pro-Soviet Nasser).
You would think Hitchens, an ‘expert’, would be aware of this history, but no. You’d also think he’d be aware of the massive oil reserves in Iraq, whose capture and control was the real goal of the 2003 invasion and occupation – the deliberate lies about non-existent WMDs being nothing but the PR pony that dragged the war cart.
For comparison (and proof that WMDs were not the issue), it turned out that Libya had real stashes of chemical and nuclear materials for WMD programs, but Qaddafi was certified as “terrorist-free” by Bush & Cheney at that time, a decision that had more to do with his opening the doors to U.S. and British oil and chemical and arms companies around that time – something that Saddam refused to consider. Our government gets in bed with lots of thugs, as long as they obey orders on those economic issues that Wall Street cares about.
Indeed, the focus on Iraq left the central perpetrators of 9/11 – Al Qaeda and the Taliban – free to re-establish themselves in Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2003-2008 or so, as well as serving as a giant propaganda tool for everyone from Iran to Al Qaeda – American colonial imperialism with the goal of controlling the oil, no matter how many people were killed. The whole episode was a disaster of epic proportions, a classic case of arrogant imperial overreach, and a permanent stain on America’s reputation. (This is probably why Bush & Cheney are persona non gratis on the campaign trail this year – an endorsement from them would be like the kiss of death.)
The best explanation for Hitchen’s bizarre claims about Iraq and his promotion of religious war against ‘them’ is that 9/11 sent him into a drunken rage from which he never really recovered – and drunks aren’t known for making rational statements, are they? Howling at the moon, Bukowski-style, is more likely – and, oddly enough, Hitchens was proud of being a drunk, even if it killed him in the end (tobacco-assisted, sure).
“We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men’s crapper of the local bar” – Charles Bukowski
I wonder if his corpse has actually cooled down yet.
I don’t agree/understand with something he said does not equal he was wrong, disastrously wrong or an MRA misogynist. All it means is that you disagree with him.
Hitchens was an INCREDIBLY complicated personality.
Lurker here, coming out.
I’ve always had mixed feelings about Hitchens because of his “dark side”. It seems to me that he harbored a bit of cognitive dissonance. To so strenuously and harshly object to male circumcision (I agree) yet support the mass annihilation of an entire world region is incredibly illogical. As much as I am against the forced mutilation of anyone’s genitalia, the damage to a person and society from that practice is not even in the same parsec as the damage from genocide. I can’t believe I actually felt the need to write that.
I do share his desire to see an end to Islam, as well as every other religion, but we should not lower ourselves to religion’s level by using violence to snuff out the opposition. Hitchens has often condemned religion’s torture and murder of those unwilling to “convert” or of apostates. Us slaughtering an entire country because of their religious beliefs, even violent religious beliefs, is no different than the slaughter of those who would not accept Christianity, or Judaism or Islam, in the past. That Hitchens did not see this always surprised me from such a usually thoughtful and intelligent man.
Ikesolem:
[citation needed]
What percentage of oil used in America per year, comes from Iraq?
I recall Skeptoid did a very good podcast looking at this exact issue. The figure was surprising, even to me.
An acceptable form of heaven?
Guardian Cartoon
Hitch was pretty consistently anti-tyrant and saw islam as the most active religion (one of tyranny’s tools) and therefore as the biggest threat. If you consider his views as anti-tyranny it explains a bit about Iraq, and the subsequent pain that his stand caused him.
I once heard someone taking umbrage at the “misogyny” in Hitchens’ saying “Now… Sweetie…” during the blasphemy debate, but they didn’t realize that Hitch was addressing Stephen Fry. His crowd-displeasers in his “women aren’t funny” article certainly fell flat, and (more importantly) he should have left adaptationist fables to the adaptationists. I wish he were still around making such blunders.
Christian and far-right extremism have been one and the same since the 19th century. Today it reaches ridiculous level with things like French far-right politicians proclaiming themsleves to be the epitome of secularist virtue while keeping christian fundies as their close allies while said christian fundies are also seen enthusiastically applauding the new über-secularist speeches of their pals because they know very well how empty is this new brand of far-right rhetoric
Did you really have to write that nonsense on the eve of his death? I find it quite tasteless and shameful.
Hitchens was a great friend of the Iraqi people and in particular the Kurdish people. The Iraqis no longer have Saddam Hussein to deal with and can determine their future on their own. While you extreme leftists would rather remain complacent in allowing rogue regimes to acquire nuclear weapons, Hitchens clearly saw the threats posed in the region on two fronts: security for the international community and the human rights aspirations of the people in the region.
And as an Iranian, he has always been a great friend of the Iranian people as well. Instead of spitting at Hitch on the eve of his death, you should look in the mirror and instead ask yourselves why you would rather bow down to the face of fascism.
Ikesolem @20
What’s your point?
At last, a tiny bit of sanity. Thank you!
And don’t forget, for most of his political existence, Hitchens was a murderous Trotskyist loon.
In his final political incarnation, he was a Bush supporting and enabling murderous loon.
Of his heroes, Rosa Luxembourg would have laughed in his face; George Orwell would have spat in his face; and Leon Trotsky would have been the cause of a weapon being discharged in the general vicinity of his face.
Of his alleged massive brain power, it was little more than a good memory (except on the numerous times when he was completely wrong) and could be replicated exactly by taking the winner of a show like the UK’s Mastermind and putting little bits of connecting text in between his or her’s answers. That’s not ‘intelligence’, that’s an ability to remember things.
Oh, and don’t forget his massive hypocrisy. I don’t know how many times I listened to Hitchens decry the ‘family values’ of the British Royals – from a man who left his pregnant wife at home to pursue a jounalistic assignment which involved (not out of journalistic duty, by any means, it has to be said) jumping into bed with his host the same night.
Reading Dawkins eulogy in The Independent this morning, two thoughts occured to me: come back Mother Teresa, all is forgiven, and, hasn’t Richard Dawkins become an utter fucking arsehole!
No one is spitting.
Also, “the eve of his death” would’ve been the evening or the day before he died. Presumably, you wouldn’t have liked it if we had criticized him then either, or at any time. If you could make your case, you could do so without dragging his dead body into it.
I ask myself why anyone would bow down to the U.S. military or to any warmongers, ever.
Hitchens’ hatred of tyranny drove him to look outrageous on occasion, but it’s a poor ethic that doesn’t make one look outrageous now and then. Reminds me of Whitman’s ” Contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.”
Thank you for this. I think, if any group of people should be able to tell the truth (the complete picture) about someone after they die, it should be the skeptics.
The last thing we want to do is forget that Hitchens, like all of us, could be wrong and how he could have been wrong.
I would cut Sassandarian some slack. What he said runs along the lines of what I was trying to get at earlier. Most of us are forming our opinions completely from the armchair. Without a life lead in the Middle East or a portion of a life reporting from there, I would be uncomfortable not keeping in the back of my mind that a person coming from the place has formed opinion from a perspective I couldn’t even begin to fathom. I just wonder how the foundations of our armchair opinions would be shaken if we had to recall Sassandarian’s or Hitchens’ memories for a day or two. Peace and reverence for life are the ideal, but in a chaotic universe the ideal and utopian are hardly ever going to be easy, or even possible in some instances. I wouldn’t condone a warlike action, but in the midst of a life-threatening mess (or recalling one to formulate a current action) my list of options may narrow considerably. I hope I never have to find out.
I seems to me that you folk are thinking that Hitch was Jesus and therefore should have been perfect. For godsake, give the man a break, he’s dead after all, lets ignore his failings, we can not change them, and should not allow them to influence us, and just focus on his positives, I am sure with some serious looking we can come up with one or two.
Let’s ignore the positives as well, because we can likewise not change them, and should not allow them to influence us. I’m sure we could think of things which are neither positive nor negative; but whatever they are, we can’t change them either, and should not allow them to influence us, just focus on the absolute lack of anything of substance.
/apologetics 101
Here is my note on the passing of the one and only Hitch:
What Christopher Hitchens meant to me cannot really be described in words. He was such an amazing human being and I cannot believe he is really gone. Over the past few months he had even exchanged emails me with me on a couple of occasions. He was truly a hero.
Christopher Hitchens was a man of courage and honor. Hitch always spoke his mind and took the fight to religious bigotry and was unapologetic about it. In addition, he was not a cultural relativist or an Islamic apologist like is the case with many atheists. He called Islamic ideology for what it truly was: totalitarianism and oppression. In addition, he was a great friend for freedom and democracy and although he was a leftist all his life, he stood and supported the Iraqi people for their quest for freedom – particularly the great Kurdish people. And as an Iranian, he was a great friend of the Iranian people and it is a shame that he was not able to see a free Iran in his lifetime. Most importantly: he was genuine and one of the most insightful and intelligent human beings I have ever heard whom possessed great insight and a realistic foresight of world problems.
He was truly a hero of mine and I don’t have any other heroes. He was someone that inspired me in ways that cannot be expressed. For the rest of my life, I will try to live with his ideals and inspiration as much as I can. To be honest, right now has become one of the gloomiest and darkest days, and my heart feels empty.
Here is a short response Christopher Hitchens had emailed me back a few months ago: “Thanks for such warm words on what was a bleak day for me.
Persian civilization will outlive the hooligans!
CH”
I am aware that it should read ‘…Dawkins’s eulogy…’ in my comment above.
Incidentally, I forgot to mention; on another thread a commenter was worrying her or himself silly about the vexing question ‘who will fill the vacant saddle of the Four Horsemen, now that Hitchens is no more?’
May I respectfully suggest Hitchens’s bum chum, Smartin’ Anus. He’s already got all of the prerequisites for the role, besides the obvious one his name conjures up that is; an execrable, narcissistic bore being foremost amongst them.
I smile when I think that Hitch would destroy you all, including PZ, in a debate on the war and on Islam. He never said we should slaughter civilians, he said clearly about the nuclear facilities of Iran. And that we should kill terrorists.
Wow that is a controversial idea, killing people whose sole purpose in life it to end yours.
And the misogyny? Please, 1 interview where he said that he felt like he should earn so much that his wife doesn’t have to work. She can, but doesn’t have to.
… please get some real arguments against him, because those even I can dismiss.
nmcc: You would make a great fundy Christian.
Don’t talk ill of the recently dead?
I doubt Hitch would have supported his becoming a minor deity through us tiptoeing round peoples feelings – I wouldn’t recommend going up to his family and close friends and pointing out his faults and mistakes just now but we don’t have to pretend they didn’t exist and I think he would be the first to savage his doppelganger if he had passed before him.
nmmc @ 29
No one who has read Hitchen’s books or heard him speak could sensibly come to that conclusion.
You sir/madam, are an idiot.
Let me tell you the rule number one of a Good Lie™: a Good Lie is first and foremost a lie not told to an audience who already know that your lie is a lie. If you tell the lie of creationism to an assembly of biologist, you’re not telling a Good Lie, if you tell the lie of holocaust denial to an assembly of historians, you’re not telling a Good Lie, if you’re telling the lie of Carebear Hitch who never advocated the slaughter of civilians on the very blog of a guy who was sitting next to him when Hitchens went into one of his genocidal rants, you’re not telling a Good Lie.
madtom1999,
Indeed, I do not get this idea of pussyfooting around discussing the good and the bad of a person after they have died. Does anyone really think he would have cared or wanted people to wait a “respectful” amount of time after he died to discuss these things? It seems to be this would go against everything thing he wrote and felt about questioning what is going on in the world, questioning authority and people.
When I die I hope people can be honest and act like adults and if they want to talk about me they can say whatever they want.
Regime change and supporting the Iranian people in Iran by getting rid of the terrorist Mullahs is not murdering innocent people. IT is getting rid of the terrorists who want to bring an end to humanity through their “hidden imam ideology” in which they themselves have cited Khamenei, Ahmadenijad, and Hassan Nasrallah as key players in the Hadith. And what does the “return of the hidden imam” curtail? Conquering of Jerusalem and the death of 2/3rd of humanity through war, chaos, famine, and destruction and once this is done, conquering of the west.
You Islamic cultural relativists make me sick. For one to even claim Christianity and Islam are on the same level fundamentalism wise demonstrates clearly to all rational beings how out of touch with reality you truly are.
Has someone made a bingo card for this shit yet?
To add: I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of you so called “humanists” in actuality being supporters of the venom George Galloway. Yes, the man who cozies up with dictators and terrorists (from Saddam Hussein to Assad to Hamas), and who works for Islamic Republic state sponsored terrorist television channel. And believe it or not, he called the Taliban, “resistant fighters” and “heroes” as well as to the terrorists in Iraq who were taking part in suicide bombings of civilians.
Woah, I have watched a lot of Hitchen’s material over the years and it is true he advocated sending in the army to disarm Iran etc. But I have never seen him advocate the slaughter of civilians. Do you have a source PZ?
Who the fuck is making you sick again? Because I don’t see any Islamic cultural relativists here.
PZ was at the conference and linked to his earlier report of it. I suppose others could corroborate his description of Hitchens’ speech, but if you want a transcript or video, you’ll have to look for it yourself.
A friend of mine posted this about Hitch on his FB page: “I agreed with him 50% of the time, but respected him 100% of the time.” That covers my opinion nicely.
Any eulogy of Hitchens has to include his phenomenal blunders and missteps. Let’s not forget we’re talking about a man who, after Falwell’s death said that man was so full of shit that if you gave him an enema, you could bury him in a matchbox. Hitchens was not into revering the dead. He would never advocate ignoring what you disagreed with in an attempt to canonize a public intellectual.
If you support the removal of dictators in Iraq and Iran, that’s fine. I actually don’t have a problem with Hitchen’s stance on that. My problem was the allying of himself with snakes like Bush and Cheney to do it. The man who would crucify Kissisnger in bed with Darth Cheney? Saddam Hussein was a horrible person. Sure. Is Iraq better now that he’s gone? Maybe. Does that make the war justified or legal? No. Does that mean that the American government wasn’t looking to stop Iraq from selling oil to China rather than deliver the Iraqi people from tyranny? No. The American government doesn’t have a problem with tyranny; they have a problem with tyrants that won’t do exactly what the American government tells them to do.
Also, I’ve defended Hitchens’s sexism with the old “it’s not the worst case of sexism I’ve witnessed in a public intellectual” but the man had archaic ideas about women. He wasn’t a misgynist but he wasn’t a feminist either. He was like most privileged, white men – a bit of jerk but he wasn’t a complete write-off.
So, people who are offended by criticisms of Hitchens have to get the fuck over themselves – as Hitchens probably would have said.
of course I can. The only thing that at the moment seriously threatens Western Civilization as a whole is Western Civilization’s unwillingness to stop AGW.
what a garbled mess of a statement. what’s with the superstition of respecting the dead? they’re dead and don’t have the ability to give a fuck anymore.
MR:
Who is gay. *eyeroll*
Renolds:
What the hell do you think armies actually do? Especially in a situation like the ones we’re talking about (Iraq, Afghanistan) where the “opposing forces” aren’t marching around in their country’s uniform.
As for the OP, I’m conflicted about Hitch. I didn’t love him or hate him, but there’s absolutely no point in lionizing him after his death. He was imperfect and that’s how he should be remembered.
To me he was just another right-wing talking head with a terminal case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome helping the Bush administration lie its way into invading Iraq. It was only after hanging out on Atheist sites that I came to appreciate the other side of Mr. Hitchens, for which I’m grateful.
sambarge #51
How is this a blunder or misstep? It seems a pretty good, albeit metaphorical, description of Jerry Falwell.
@55 – I think sambarge is referring to the fact that Mr. Hitchens would agree that it’s useless to tiptoe around a person’s mistakes and flaws just because they recently died.
axilet #55
I see, it was just a bit of sloppy writing on sambarge’s part.
I’m pretty sure there are at least 150,000 Iraqis (and possibly 500,000 or 1,000,000, if you believe the higher estimates) that don’t think they’re better off without Hussein. Because they’re dead. With that in mind, it took him 30 years to kill 500,000 of his own people, and we might have accomplished that in less than 10. I am absolutely not defending him, and I shed not one tear when that monster died. But everything the detractors said (that it would be a quagmire, that there weren’t WMDs) turned out to be right. Even if we could just take out Iran’s nuclear sites without killing hundreds of thousands of people, I would want us to be absolutely sure this time that there are WMDs.
Indeed, I think that talking about the ways in which Hitchens was wrong too is one of the most appropriate tributes we could give him. I’ve noticed virtually every eulogy mentions something he was wrong about. Hitchens never cared who thought he was wrong; that was one of his strengths.
Is there a link to a transcript or recording of Hitchin’s “kill them all” speach?
This episode may be of no interest to Americans but I throw it in nonetheless:
In 1982 Hitch was about the only person on the left who supported Mrs Thatcher’s Falklands War. I, in common with everyone else on the left, utterly repudiated the war for many of the same reasons that are mentioned in connection with Iraq: that it was led by a right-wing leader who only wanted to boost their popularity etc.
I now know a lot more about the Falklands War than I did, and I’m ashamed to say that Hitch was 100% right. We (on the left) reacted to the fact all our obvious close to home enemies were for the war: the tabloid editors, right wing thugs, right wing politicians, etc. In the process we managed to ignore the reality for those Brits and Argentinians who were under the control of the (anti-semitic, raping, murdering) Argentinian generals of the time. We even invented our own myths to bolster our righteous stand, such as ‘Mrs Thatcher deliberately sank the Belgrano [an Argentinian cruiser with hundreds on board] to kill any peace plan’. This, it turns out, was utter shite, but we believed it and Hitch did not.
Those now excoriating Hitch for his stand on Iraq (which I too have real problems with) should at least remember that he had many Kurdish friends and in that part of Iraq at least, the war has allowed a democratic secular republic to emerge.
I don’t know what this proves, except that opinions too hastily arrived at by those who don’t know conditions on the ground can sometimes be regretted later. A bit vague but I’ve no axe to grind – just another viewpoint on Hitch’s own controversial stand.
Hitch’s life stands on its own, a monument of wit, skepticism, occasional wisdom and, yes, occasional folly. He expounded his ideas with eloquence and passion even if we did not always agree with those ideas.
I disagreed with him on the Iraq war–perhaps the greatest blunder of a blunder-filled Bush Presidency. However, I take umbrage against the charge of accommodation. As skeptics, we should oppose religious fuckwittery whatever form it takes–Xtian, Muslim, Hindu or Druid. The difference is that in my own nation, fuckwittery is overwhelmingly Christian. I can oppose said fuckwittery by my vote and by my political advocacy–and yes, even by my coming to the defense of persecuted religious minorities, who themselves sometimes display religious fuckwittery.
On the other hand, if I am to oppose the dominant religious fuckwittery of the Mullahs, my vote does not count. I can oppose it with my words, and I do. I do not see how it diminishes fuckwittery in general to take up arms against Islamic fuckwittery in the name of nationalistic fuckwittery.
All the Iraq war accomplished was the deaths of over 100000 Iraqis, the replacement of a Sunni dictatorship with a Shia dictatorship, the establishment of Iran as the undisputed power in the Persian Gulf region and the bankrupting of the US treasury. Mission fucking accomplished.
The marvelous thing about atheism is that there is no supreme, perfect person that we must agree with all the time. With Hitchens, as with everyone, I take what I want and leave the rest. I am not his follower; I am a person who can learn from some of his ideas. Simple.
I agree, except for the part about bankrupting the treasury. The US gummint isn’t bankrupt yet, although the Teabaggers are trying hard to make that happen.
You all suck, as Hitchens once said at a book signing meeting to a group of people that prefer to wait for terrorists to attack or are indifferent to others being destroyed in unstable countries because we DON’T act.
Comment 42.
‘No one who has read Hitchen’s books or heard him speak could sensibly come to that conclusion.
You sir/madam, are an idiot.’
I very much doubt both statements, but thanks for the heads-up.
I’ve criticised Hitchens in 3 or 4 relatively lengthy posts on RD.net long before his illness was diagnosed. I’m sure they wouldn’t be hard to find. Though whether they’d be worth your trouble of looking for them, I can’t myself vouch for.
I’ve no interest in pursuing the matter here.
Except to say, only a wretched narcissist like Hitchens could declare himself – in an interview with Jeremy Paxman not that long ago – still an advocate of Marx’s theory of historical materialism, whilst simultaneously spending the greater part of his life occupied with the essential twin tasks of indirectly ensuring the right of American capital to rule the world through the murder of countless men, women and children and disabusing people of the notion that they have an invisible friend living in the sky – oh, and keeping us informed about who sucked whose dick, of course. What a genius!
If you gave Hitchens an enema, admittedly you’d need a slightly bigger box than a matchbox. Decorum prevents me suggesting one, though they wouldn’t be unrelated.
nmcc #66
nmcc then gives two paragraphs dragging Hitchens through the mud. Sure doesn’t look like he’s got no interest in pursuing the matter.
I vehemently disagree with this sentiment.
Humans are complex beings. When we ignore that, and we start editing out personality/attitude/actions we dislike or with which we disagree, we’re doing exactly what religion does when they create saints and false gods. It’s the same concept as selectively editing history books to only show what certain people want others to see.
It’s not a sign of respect to ignore other people’s faults – or your own, for that matter. It’s a sign that you don’t want to deal with your personal discomfort. It is disrespectful to edit someone else’s life, especially if that person isn’t around to correct the situation.
Hitch was brilliant, complex, and had some odd blind spots. I think that makes him a more interesting human being, not less. I wish we could argue the subject with him. :/
nmcc,
Isn’t it interesting how the death of a man of great eloquence and wit will bring out Liliputian minds eager to attack the memory of one who can no longer eviscerate them.
Hitch was human. You are pathetic.
The highest tribute we can pay to a dead friend is to keep them alive in our memories. That applies to their foibles and follies as well as their wit and wisdom. We fail if our memory becomes veneration.
absolute:
And how do we choose? From where I sit, I’m seeing a complete lack of action on the part of the US in places like Syria and North Korea, but, hey, we’re still blowing shit up in Afghanistan and Pakistan! How are some countries more important than others?
Here’s my question: Do we bloat our military to the point where we can step into every conflict around the globe (at the expense of our programs at home) or is there some metric of picking and choosing who is more “deserving” of US military “aid”*. Or do we try, oh I don’t know, gathering useful intelligence and attempt to end conflicts with diplomacy, as opposed to the hollow end of a rifle?
*Which, to be honest, will lead to civilian deaths.
Every human being has one (or more) chips missing from their ‘personal computer.’ We should recognize, and remember, those missing chips otherwise we become like the modern conservatives who worship Ronald Reagan, conveniently ignoring the damage he did the United States while also ignoring his flexibility which would have gotten him ejected from the modern GOP. Ignoring the missing chips creates a charicature of the human being; focusing only on the missing chips creates something even worse (for which I do not have a word at this time (I’m not at my best on Thursday mornings. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.)).
After Iraq it’s hard to believe that so many buy into the lies. Iran seems to be Iraq redux, but people have learned so little.
Did he not know that neocons like Bolton do not even truly wish for there to be inspections at all? They want to create a justification for war, for occupation and for regime change.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jim_harr_070302_bolton_wanted_iran_t.htm
This even though USA doesn’t have the money, the manpower nor the international support to do this (China and Russia are anything but for a war).
As for terrorism, a study by Rand Corp makes it quite clear which methods work best against it, police and intelligence work. Military only works 7% of the time:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9351/index1.html
It’s sad that Hitchens went from criticizing Kissinger to going to bed with the neocons, who are if not at the same level of craziness even crazier.
Love the site. Long time reader, first time commenter.
I haven’t agreed with everything Hitchens has written either, but I do agree about the war in Iraq, as well as his stand on religion. I think they stem from the same position on dictators and totalitarianism. It seems to me, though, that this isn’t Hitchen’s blind spot. Are you really reading what he’s written, or do you just ignore the bits you know you won’t agree with? That sounds a lot like the theists you attack. The fact that this post doesn’t quote Hitchens, but commentaries on him, makes me think that the blind spot is that of people who say, Poor Hitch, so right, but wrong on this. Maybe you’re wrong? I don’t see any analysis of his opinions here that compares with the examination of his writings on theism. If you consider Hitchens to have been a smart, thoughtful, honest commentator, I think you need to question whether you can reflexively dismiss him on this point.
drbrydon,
The problem with opposing “Islamofascism” in the Middle East is that I do not live there and have no way of influencing things there except by moral suasion (which I try to do through
AI, etc, but is generally ineffective) or by force (which pretty much just gets people killed). OTOH, in the US, where Christofascism is rampant, I can oppose religious fuckwittery by exercise of my free speech and my voting.
Ballots or bullets–I’ll take the former.
It has been pointed out that Hitchens was a complicated man. We all are, and we all suffer from imperfections in attitude and thinking.
I have to sympathize with his feelings about Islam. I recognized way back in the sixties that the Muslim world was a far greater threat than the Soviet Union was or ever could be. The Soviets were pragmatists who looked at things realistically. They could yield to reason like Khruschev did in the Cuban missile crisis.
Muslims as a whole have no reasoning power left after their daily brainwashing. Those in power often have no rational brakes that can be applied when the chips are down. It’s like having a Jerry Falwell in charge of a nuclear strike button. That’s a terrifying scene to contemplate.
Hitch recognized that reality and it terrified him. Iran terrifies me too. The survival of humanity could depend on what “I’m a nut job” decides to do in a fit of rage.
I supported Bush also, dumb ass that I was at the time. I now see what a deluded and taken in fool I was. That said, I was totally sincere at the time, but like all us humans, I can be totally wrong at times. That fact helps me be charitable toward Hitch.
I was at the FFRF convention when someone from the audience first got up to challenge Christopher Hitchens on the war. It hadn’t directly been introduced in his speech, but I still remember the look on Hitchens face when he realized where the Q&A was suddenly going to go.
It was as if a little pilot light had gone on in the back of his head. It was very subtle. He shifted his pose slowly, a small smile twitched the corners of his mouth, his eyes narrowed slightly — and I could swear I saw a flash. He was excited. It was as if he was holding still and repressing quivers of excitement.
THIS is what he was hoping for. THIS was what he had been expecting. A challenge. Oh, yes. And he was prepared. Oh, yes. I could practically hear the wheels in his head humming “Game on, you sniveling little weasels — be prepared to meet your doom.” And then his voice began in a slow drawl …
I was so distracted by the charm of it all that I’m afraid I paid no attention to the actual political issue. Yes, I know: shame on me.
But damn … that was sexy.
76 allencdexter wrote:
The survival of humanity could depend on what “I’m a nut job” decides to do in a fit of rage.
No, it does not. The president of Iran doesn’t have that much power.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/07/AR2007120701614.html
Here McCain, a lousy actor gets asked about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr6Va7PEBg8
The military budget in Iran is quite small too. This is just how they’re selling another war to the masses.
It’s not quite that bad.
The Moslem world is hopelessly split. If you look at who they kill, it is almost always each other. 90% of Al Qaeda’s victims have been other Moslems.
The Sunni’s and Shia hate each other and don’t miss many opportunities to slaughter each other. There are other sects that aren’t too popular either, the Sufi’s, Alewites, Alieves (sp?) and so on.
They fight wars with each other occasionally., Iraq versus Iran, Iraq invading Kuwait.
It’s also ethnic. The Iranians are Persians, the rest of the ME is mostly Arab.
Contrast PZ’s sober reflections on Hitchens against the relentless censored love-poems on Dawkins site. Hitchens was one of the most eloquent and critical essayists of the extended classical Enlightenment ever to lay pen to paper, but not always a skeptic. RIP, Christopher.
Hitchens may have been a rhetorical genius, but when it came to the Middle East he was woefully ignorant, and acted as a swiller and regurgitator of neocon propaganda (as did the U.S. corporate media establishment).
He hated tyrants? The U.S. was in bed with many tyrants – the Saudi Royals, Qaddafi, Mubarak, the various brutal overlords of the Central Asian steppes – all embraced since they cut economic deals with U.S. and British companies. Who doubts that if Saddam had agreed to the same deal that Qaddafi did – that is, sign oil leases with Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell, and use the money to buy weapons and engineering projects from Bechtel, Lockheed, Halliburton, etc., while depositing funds with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, then Saddam too would have been declared “terrorist-free” and “reformed”, just as Qaddafi was?
Instead of analyzing this theme, Hitchens went right along with the PR line and refused to even look at the economic rationale for war (and fighting a war of aggression for economic gain is a war crime under the Nuremberg principles). There’s nothing heroic about that, it is simply pathetic, a result perhaps of alcohol-induced brain cell death in an aging man.
On the other hand, he was right about organized religion. As far as Islam, all organized religions are like this, particularly when they get involved in government – but, again, the Islamic state of Saudi Arabia is our good ally, recent recipient of the largest U.S. arms deal in history, some $60 billion worth – a deal engineered and supported by both the Bush and Obama administrations. They just executed a 60-year old ‘witch’ there, too. Practicing sorcery. How medieval can you get? However, this is no different from how a Christian or Jewish state would behave, if their religious institutions had similar power in government. (Spanish Inquisition, Zionist ethnic cleansing, etc.).
This is where Hitchens was absolutely correct (if perhaps overly Islam-focused), and his take on religion was spot on and delivered with illimitable style.
Thus, I think this Bukowski quote would be appropriate at a Hitchens memorial:
“For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” – Charles Bukowski
Don’t be absurd. One they aren’t as regressive and two, if anything the USA is becoming less religious and less homogenous in its religious beliefs. And more importantly, those Muslim fundies want to literally destroy America – it is absolutely silly to claim that guys wishing to nuke US cities are not as threatening as folks who want to outlaw abortions.
Regardless of all of the other nonsense Hitchens said at that meeting, he started out right when he said fundamentalist Islam is the greatest threat to the West.
Hitch’s acolytes in this thread really ought to take a chill pill. I think Hitchens of all people would not have objected to a non-hagiographic memorial thread.
And, yes, Spirokeat, one can have some very worthwhile ideas and still be (a) a misogynist and (b) disastrously wrong about other things.
Sassandarian:
WTRA: “…if anything the USA is becoming less religious and less homogenous in its religious beliefs.”
Fuck’s sake. The both of you need to not only look up “Dominionism” but also Philip Jenkins’ The Next Christendom. Xtianity remains a potent global threat, and the worst of it likely won’t be coming from the U.S. anymore.
Marcus, Hitchens calling Fry “sweetie” isn’t that much better than him calling some random woman “sweetie.” It pings my homophobia meter. It’s possible they were friends and that it was OK with Fry when Hitchens called him that, but I haven’t heard that this was the case.
As I said on the previous memorial thread, his death saddens me, because he did produce a lot of quality work, but my feelings about him are mixed, and, again, I don’t think assessing his legacy with (if you’ll excuse me) a sober eye is a terrible thing to do, even while his death is yet fresh.
On the other hand, nmcc:
Always the sign of intellectual honesty, the willingness to embrace a horrible human being because someone you hate also hated them. Take your homophobic carcass out of here and not come back, please. And please take the well-named “absolute” with you.
BTW, at the very end of Alex Pareene’s thread, someone linked to this blogpost about Hitch encouraging people to fondle his freshly waxed scrotum at (heh) cocktail parties. It’s equal parts hilarious and “do not want!!” Somehow I think it fits into this thread.
Ha! I want to live in your reality.
So, all of those state laws that have been proposed in the past year that would severely limit abortion were the work of the non-religious? Those states that are facing lawsuits over their abortion restrictions are states that are run by skeptical humanists?
I think not. The Christers are frightening and powerful. Don’t be a fucking idiot.
“Marcus, Hitchens calling Fry “sweetie” isn’t that much better than him calling some random woman “sweetie.” It pings my homophobia meter. ”
Is it really any worse than calling people “cupcake” as a put-down, as is common here?
(Or to put it another way, why is “cupcake” deemed an acceptible insult here? The first time I say someone use it, I thought it would be the sort of border-line sexist/homophobic insult that wouldn’t be tolerated here, but apparently it isn’t).
WhishfulThinking @ #82:
Sure they are. The problem is that they are less salient than Islamic fundamentalists because (comparatively speaking) the non-fundamentalists have much more power in the U.S. (much like non-fundamentalists have much more power in countries like Indonesia and Turkey). But if you think that the Westboro Baptist Church or the Quiverfull movements are any less regressive than the extremist Islam, then you’re not paying attention.
And I would argue a similar process is occurring in the Arab world after the Arab Spring protests. Not to mention that the more developed Islamic-majority nations are not exactly hotbeds of terrorism. The shift away from religion is a global trend as economic development progresses, it’s not a West-only phenomenon.
And Christian fundies want to -literally- destroy the entire world, either intentionally (nuclear war) or indirectly (ecological destruction)to bring about Armageddon and the End Times.
They are not. The likelihood that a mob of morons filled to the gills with Jesus Juice succeed in outlawing abortion (or limiting to such extent that it would be nearly impossible to get an abortion) is far, far more likely than some yahoos with dreams of glorious jihad get their hands on the materials to build and deliver a nuclear device to the U.S.
Islam represents as much of a threat to the U.S. as the Soviet Union did. They are useful boogeymen to keep people in line and allow governments to expand their power at the expense of individual freedoms. But a jihadist with a nuclear briefcase is as likely a threat as a paranoid Soviet commander with an itchy trigger finger in the big red button was thirty years ago.
So if Islam is a greater threat than Christianity, that means Christianity isn’t a potent threat? No, of course not. It simply means I think fundamentalist Islam is a much greater threat. Which is why I contrasted restrictive anti-abortion laws with nuking a city.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, liar and scoundrel says:
Jesus Fucking Christ, don’t be so dense. Beliefs in the USA are shifting, towards non-religion and also to a greater percentage of religious non-Christians. That’s what I said earlier. I didn’t say the current Christians have no power, like you implied I did, like some kind of fucking imbecile. Of course they have power.
It’s frustrating that we have to fight an asymmetrical war in Iraq (or anywhere else), and Hitchens surely felt it. His comments often seem impatient with the lack of progress, the lack of results. This politically correct brand of warfare makes it impossible for the western powers to defeat the Taliban in a satisfying way. We won WWII because we did what was necessary, even though it was often times quite horrible. War is hell, and the only way to win one is to play just as dirty as your opponent (carpet bombing Dresden for example). Which is why we should never have started a war that we weren’t prepared to finish.
If Islam ever really posed an existential threat to the west, then the rules would change immediately. The full, unchained, capacity of the western war machine would be unleashed and that would be it for Islam as a force in the world. But Islam doesn’t pose an existential threat to the west and I don’t think it ever will. Maybe Hitchens thought it did, I don’t know. As horrible as 9/11 was, it does not constitue an existential threat, not even close, and so the US overreacted. Hitchens might have disagreed.
Total war is a horrible thing to consider. And because this sort of total warfare is unthinkable in the modern world, we should always seek alternatives to armed conflict, if possible.
But the prize is very tantalizing. One thing I think Hitchens realized, which is why he so vigorously advocated the removing of dictators and tyrants, is that democracy is one of the best ways to reduce armed conflict. Victor Davis Hanson has said that no two democracies have ever gone to war against one another since the Peloponnesian War. Therefore, if you want peace then you should try to spread democracy. That being the case, it’s easy to see why it’s so important to democratize the Islamic countries—by persuasion, if possible; by war, if necessary. Removing Saddam Hussein seemed like a good idea.
I think I understand where Hitchens was coming from on Iraq; but I disagree, nonetheless. And who can argue with the results?
Ze Madmax, your position seems to boil down to, Islamic Fundies would certainly be the bigger threat, if they could pull off what they want to do, but since I think they can’t, they aren’t.
I really fucking hope you are right, because if they ever get their hands on materials to make a dirty bomb or worse in the next 50 years you they are going to use it on us.
I’ll say this about Hitchens, he was brilliant, acerbic and one of my personal intellectual heroes. He was also far too misogynistic and too willing to overlook the toll of war.
.
As far as his misogyny goes, misogyny of his color is far too common in our society for it to be a disqualifying factor in respecting someone. I respect him despite the fact that he claimed that women aren’t funny and referred to Wanda Sykes as “The Black Dyke.” In Hitchens’ defense, I’m sure he didn’t consider it misogyny; he was, after all, very vocal in claiming that the best way to eliminate poverty was to liberate women from the patriarchy of religion. This, of course, does not excuse any of his misogynistic comments, but it does give us some perspective.
.
On the Iraq war, I don’t think it is quite justified to say he wanted the wholesale slaughter of civilians. I think he grossly underestimated the human toll of war. Hitchens spent his lifetime fighting to eradicate totalitarianism; he saw firsthand how horrible it was in Bosnia. My view is, Hitchens conflated the danger of Saddam Hussein and simultaneously underestimated the cost of war. He thought, (wrongly in my opinion), that eliminating Saddam would cause a net benefit to the people of Iraq, despite those killed in the war.
.
I somewhat resent the black-and-white view of the Iraq war that I hear from some of my fellow liberals. Yes, the right wing evangelical christian government went in for the wrong reasons. Yes, it is easy to see in hindsight now that Iraq was a bad idea. Yes, the American people were obviously misled into believing Saddam had WMDs. At the time though; looking at it purely in the goal of liberating Iraqi’s, it was by no means an easy decision. Saddam had orchestrated genocide against the Kurds. He had developed and used chemical WMD’s before. He was by no means a staple presence in the region. It had to have been tough to decide what would harm more Iraqi’s, deposing Saddam, or letting him remain. I still think they made the wrong decision giving the information they had, but it was not an easy black-and-white decision.
gravityisjustatheory
http://pharyngula.wikia.com/wiki/Cupcake
And you think they’re going to go quietly into the good night? No, they are going to fight to keep their hold on power and make the US a much shittier place before it gets better.
WTRA: I think your privilege of not being among any demographics (other than atheists) targeted by fundie xtians is occluding your perception of the danger they present, and I strongly suspect you’re also suffering from a huge dose of OMG SKEERY BROWN PEEPL!! Your history on this site makes both explanations quite believable.
Jason Martin: “Politically correct” is the catch phrase of assholes who don’t want to be called out on their assholery, and anyone who takes Venereal Disease Hanson seriously is a tool of the likes that deserves it own section at Home Depot. Again, I suspect you’re a former fundie who still thinks like one.
Wishful Thinking @ #89:
With the caveat that the probability of this occurring is extremely low. That part is important.
Ms. Daisey Cutter: What substantive criticisms! Victor Davis Hanson is a fascist neo-con for the most part, but he is also a very good historian, especially when it comes to ancient Greece. Have you read any of his history books? I cite him here as a reliable source; if you have information which contradicts what he said, then by all means, do share. Also, I’m not a former fundie. I grew up in a family that was almost totally indifferent to religion and never went to church. It’s amazing how many stupid things you managed to say in just a few sentences.
Excellent Glenn Greenwald post on Hitchens
Hitchens was a great writer and orator (like many who were privileged to get the kind of education he did that emphasized these skills, which is not to negate his personal talent and earned skill) but he was ultimately an ideologue and contrarian more than he was really a critical thinker in some ways. This is not surprising since he wasn’t a scientist or really coming from that tradition – his style of critical thinking is more closely born from the tradition of debating (and philosophy and/or politics) than scientific rigour or the sort of critical thinking that’s being brought up with scientific methodology tends to support.
Ultimately I highly suspect (and speculate obviously) Hitchen’s stance on the Iraq war was influence by two things that were highly personal – his friendship with Salman Rushdie and his desire to be influential in America (which is likely to be about his relationship with Gore Vidal). Hey, we all get more defensive when we or those we love are directly threatened so it’s understandable how he fell into the “any enemy of my enemy is my friend” mentality. He’s not really more complicated than other people – that’s the kind of thing people say when people someone is inconsistent. Intelligent people just make up more complex rationalizations for their positions (or emotions). That said, he was an intelligent man and an excellent writer and orator. I do find it interesting that so many people DO seem to need to make him into some kind of idol instead of remembering him as a human being. Thus starts the mystification of atheism by making men into saints to be bowed down before uncritically?
Yeah, by dragging out fascists out, and more into the open, in a bid to fix all the worlds problems by Jesufying everything, starting more wars, and claiming that every law they pass to empower the rich, disempower everyone else, and limit rights, was, “For our own good.” Welcome to the world where Annakin Skywalker’s theory of government, “They should sit down together and figure out what to do, by being told what to do by someone, when they can’t.”, (check movie #2), is seen as an end goal, and we have a dozen Palpatines running for office, all in a bid to rid the great Republic of all those damn alien influences. (You see it, but don’t think about it in the movies, but.. other than the “scum” bounty hunters, the Empire doesn’t have one single non-human in it, once the Emperor is in charge, while the prior state of the Republic had just about every single known world on it.)
PZ,
I do disagree with you.I do not think Hitchens supported war because he was a a blood thirsty barbarian in anyway. Hitchens had a better understanding than many others about the nuances of Islam and the conditions in the middle east.
I disagree with him on his stance, but I don’t think he was blood thirsty, he saw the regime in Iraq as evil, he really hated Saddam for all the violence, massacre of the Kurds etc, he saw the war as a way of deposing a dictator and bringing democracy to oppressed people, while that might be misguided in some ways, his intentions were good and in favor of overall peace, lesser institutionalized violence against the Iraqi people because of a Fascist regime.
I think Hitchens views were simplistic, he thought more external violence could help an internally violent situation. I do not think he thought killing Muslims would solve all problems.
“We cannot afford to allow the Iranian theocracy to arm itself with nuclear weapons … the only solution is to go in there with bombs and marines and blow it all up. The way to win the war is to kill so many Moslems that they begin to question whether they can bear the mounting casualties.”
Not even Wolfowitz tired to sell the idea of our going to war in Iraq to finish what Saddam started
Alright, my bad.
I said what I did, after hearing Hitchens talk about ordinary Iraqi people and their children, creating a safe place for them by taking the dictator away etc.
If he holds both these views in his head, I see something akin to the cognitive dissonance of religion.
*damn I am not yet used to talking about Hitchens in the past tense.
Ms. Daisy Cutter says:
ROTFLOL. You stupid shithead. Throwing around racism and fear just because I think one type of threat from one kind of fundamentalist is greater than another? Shame on you. You are truly a special kind of person to poison the well like that. Hell, I work in Manhattan, and will continue to do so, even though it is priority target number one for muslim nutters so Fuck You again on the racism charge and the being afraid charge.
It is not controversial to state that they (the small percentage of Muslims who are batshit insane fundamentalists, as opposed to the only moderately insane Muslim fundamentalists) want to physically destroy us. If ‘they’ ever get their hands on nuclear material they would surely attempt to use it on us. Or poison gas in sufficient quantities or whatever else. We both agree on that I imagine, so I don’t know why the fuck you tried to make this about race. You weigh the probabilities differently than I do, that is all.
I know fundy Christians are a big problem, but that’s a political one. There is enough pushback in enough places, plus societal trends, to keep that mostly at bay (and still even with all the fundies gay marriage is trending in the right direction). A few dozen people working together to make a large chunk of Manhattan uninhabitable – that’s going to be much harder to stop. We can’t vote those guys out, or get a court to declare their actions unconstitutional. Still, I hope you are right, I hope the probabilities you are pulling out of your ass are more in line with reality than the ones I am pulling out of mine. I’d rather have Christians fundies be the greater risk than Muslim ones.
There’s isn’t half a load of old shite written on this blog at the best of times, but PZ really is getting desperate when he accuses Christopher Hitchens – only a day after news of his death – of misogyny. Remember Hitchens was the man who said the main cause of poverty in the world was the subjugation of women.
His treatment of his first wife is definitely a topic for debate, but to accuse him of hating women is just ridiculous. The man tirelessly supported equality for all people.
Hope you are right.
Still, have you been to NYC? They have random searchers before you enter the subway. How random do you ask? Well at the Grand Central entrance to the 456 subway line, they are only there a few times a month, and they only randomly “search” the bag of every 100th person or so. And I say “search” because the last time it happened to me, they asked me to open the main compartment of my laptop bag, and they allegedly peeked inside but I don’t think he even looked. Not caring either that my second compartment is just as big. Why did I bring this up – well even with the disconcerting exceptions carved out of the Fourth Amendment that allow these searches, and even if they were carried out in a competent manner, it would be trivially easy to kill a great number of people in Manhattan, once poison gas or the right nuclear material was obtained. So maybe the fundie Muslims will never obtain these things, or our Homeland Security is so awesome they will always catch the bad guys, but I am skeptical that they won’t ever get the material and it doesn’t seem like Homeland Security is even remotely close to infallible. All it takes is a couple of attacks like that to cause more damage to the country than anything the fundies could do on their own politically. If half of Manhattan turns radioactive, besides the loss of life and economic damage, I’m guessing whatever powers the government gives itself afterwards will make the Patriot Act look harmless by comparison.
Always wonderful (in that it’s so silly) to see a man try to lecture a woman about how one of their heroes isn’t a sexist ( with the “despite how they treated their wife” as a nice touch to highlight the denial/excuse making). It’s quite possible to appreciate Hitchens for what he was – in his full human glory and failings – without having to pretend he was something he wasn’t…unless your admiration of him is really all based on a feeling he agreed with you (confirmation bias) and not on his actual skills and abilities.
Jason Martin: I read enough of Hanson when I used to read the right-wing blogosphere regularly, thank you. I question the utility of comparing, say, the Battle of Thermopylae with our current situation, other than that both the Spartans and the U.S. are unjustly glorified as The Good Guys, period.
Also, it’s Daisy, not “Daisey.” Regardless of what you think of my opinions, I manage to spell them correctly. If it’s too much trouble, copy and paste.
WTRA: So you work in Manhattan. WTF do you want, a cookie? There are plenty of racist assholes in Manhattan in particular and NYC in general. And, given that a lot of the scaremongering about Muslims is based in racism — presumably you’ve heard of the so-called “Ground Zero” “Mosque”? — and given that you’re denser than an osmium cheesecake in a black hole, racism is a reasonable assumption in your case.
And, no, there’s isn’t fuck-all enough “pushback,” because every goddamn week there is another bill in another legislature designed to reduce my status to chattel. Again, you have the luxury of not paying attention to it.
You think you’re safer if a Reconstructionist Xtian has access to “the red button”?
Matt125: He was anti-choice. That’s not equality, and I don’t care how he framed it. Women >>>> fetii. And, yeah, that “women aren’t funny” essay. Maybe you have the privilege of brushing it off. I found it to be of a piece with all the other ev-psy bullshit out there using just-so stories to validate my second-class status.
Wishfull Thinking
that right there what you are doing is called paranoid thinking. I would advise you to watch less 24 and leave the brown ragheads alone.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/dec/17/christopher-hitchens-remembered?INTCMP=SRCH
for more of Hitchens’s fault
I think the often-made comparison with Orwell flatters Hitchens. Orwell never thought ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend’ or accepted- even welcomed- mass killing as Hitchens did. Still, a fine writer who probably did more good than harm.
Matt125 says:
I don’t know much of anything Hitch said on the subject of women, but the article PZ linked to, doesn’t say much of anything either. Utterly tasteless ‘joke’ about Wanda Sykes, and claiming women couldn’t be funny. Those two alone don’t mean he hates women. From what I have read of Hitchens, he seemed to me to be a highly entertaining asshole much of the time – perhaps he was just a non-PC asshole. Or maybe he was a misogynist. I don’t know. Without misogyny the guy still had a shit on of flaws so it is not like we are deifying him.
And fundies in general are not?
Seriously though, here, in the US, there probably is enough fighting back that we won’t end up in as much of a damn mess as the M.E. is, due to these idiots. But, in some cases we haven’t fought hard, or soon, enough to stop a few of the more recent idiocies. I could see a time where Wisconsin’s situation, and the host of cases of screwing with voting rights, could spread. Non-elected officials taking over cities, against the wishes of the people, voting systems rigged to make it less likely that we will remove the people that did it, etc. Sure, we are already *there* with respect to recalling the clown that came up with most of the BS in Wisconsin, but we still have to clean up the mess after, by erasing the laws that he put in place. Same goes for fixing all the crap being pulled everywhere else.
Now, imagine it was some place in the south that started appointing non-elected idiots to run cities. How long before the “true believers” in prosperity through tyranny would make that the norm in those states, and instead of fighting one idiot, in a state that should have known better, its a concerted effort to spread something accepted and which they believe in to the rest of the country, like they already want to do with anti-abortion, anti-public health care, anti-assistance, anti-any sort of action to help the poor, etc.?
Yeah, its a political problem. But its only a political problem because, for now, most of these nutcases would prefer live “citizens”, over dead opponents. The only clear cut difference is that a) we don’t for the most part have a lot of private armies in the US, b) those that exist are useless, and not run by the politicians trying to rise to power, and c) the biggest army is in the hands of people that, for now, won’t use it to impose any of these idiocies on us.
Those are the “only” factors making this a purely political issue, and not terrorism, or forced oppression. And we know, quite well, from the mouths of the morons in question, that they would be more than happy to use private armies, or the real one, to impose themselves, if they had any power to do so. The best they can do, at least for now, is use lies, money, and human gullibility.
I certainly bloody hope we continue to have enough people willing to fight against them, and those people don’t all get used to what damage has already been done, thereby making it that much easier to slide further towards the day when the opposition looks small, and insignificant.
If Hitchen’s made a serious mistake in looking at what was going on in the Middle East, it was in failing to recognize that solutions have to come from sidelining crazies, not trying to wipe them out. The later produces more crazies, some of whom go crazy because of so called, “collateral damage”. The way you tell a crazy from a sane person, in this context is precisely because they don’t think such, “accidents happen”, philosophy hurts their cause, so are more than willing to use anything they have to win, its just more convenient, right now, for them to use words, and political maleficence. If they could, they would see nothing wrong with, no down side to, and no possible future problems, from just shooting everyone that got in their way (or, at least paying/encouraging someone else to do so). That is, I think, the fundamental difference between those seeking political goals, with the intent to change things, and those that imagine that terror, war, murder, etc. are, “useful tools to gain what I want”. And, both the religious fanatics in the M.E. AND in the US agree on that it is a useful tool, when it can be used.
So, yeah, I think we are real clear on the, “politics”, of the situation, and just how damn lucky we are that they can’t use some, “solutions”, quite so easily in this country.
@Xios the Fifth:
On the other hand, I also sometimes hear people say that because person A has an opinion that they really, really, really liked, none of the crazy other stuff that that person said has any significance. Take Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, for example. In death, as in life, he is a recipient of endless and unwavering adulation pretty much across the whole spectrum of political opinion. If you ever bring up the fact that he was an authoritarian, a monarchist, a religious fundamentalist, a misogynist (in practice as well as in writing), a nationalist and an anti-Semite — and he was all of those things — you’ll be inundated with righteous outrage. AS was repressioned, and served time in the GULAG, so his reputation as an advocate for freedom and justice is unassailable.
There were things that Hitchens wrote that really irritated and sometimes infuriated me. But I enjoyed reading his works, and I always looked forward to a new essay or book. That’s all I can say.
I’m okay with men thinking women can’t be funny, its just an opinion. As a woman I think if I called that misogyny I would only be proving his point.
julian says:
You racist motherfucker. Ragheads? Fuck you. Why do people keep bringing up race, when I specifically limited the risk to the small portion of highly insane Muslim fundamentalists?
Also, it is not paranoid thinking, I am trying to be realist about what can happen. As a hypothetical it was fine. It is unlikely, sure, but it can happen, and if they acquire the means to do it, it will very likely happen (unless we lock this country down tighter than Israel does, which would be another kind of horror). But hey, I’m not moving to Montana, I’m not harping on about this every day, I am bringing it up here, because we were discussing different threats to the country.
Hitchens claimed that Orwell was one of his heroes (which is ironic in light of his work in his later years but I suspect this was a hero of his youth), it’s not that he’s generally compared to Orwell by people familiar with Orwell’s writing (as far as I’ve seen but perhaps I’m ill informed).
Ms. Daisy Cutter says a lot of stupid shit like:
Background on my point for how easily an attack could occur and then what damage an attack could cause (loss of life, economic power and then civil liberties). Are you mentally handicapped, or just skimming what I write?
So guilt by your perceived association? Where do you live? I am sure there are plenty of sex offenders there, should I claim you are one? No, because that would be fucking dumb.
Yes, and many imbeciles were against the “Mosque”, I, along with many others, was not. So am I a non-racist now? I mean how reasonable was it in the first place to assume I am racist just because I rate one type of fundie threat as higher than another? How reasonable is it to assume I am one because I work in Manhattan? Not reasonable at all, you are a fucktard. STFU with your embarrassingly stupid ‘well poisoning’ line of attack. We disagree on the probabilities of what Muslim fundies can accomplish versus what Christian fundies can. That is all.
Again, you CANNOT FUCKING READ TO SAVE YOUR LIFE. There is enough “pushback” in my opinion, to make the political threat of Christian fundies, not rise to the level of what I estimate to be the physical threat from Muslim fundies.
I OBVIOUSLY did not claim there was enough “pushback” against Christian fundies in general. I was making a comparison of threat levels, on which we obviously disagree. Unfortunately, you are too much of a dumb fuck and you keep pretending I said things I did not, while also insisting I am racist. Don’t poison the well. If you can’t help yourself, no need to respond to you. Although, since we disagree on threat levels, there is really not much to say anyway. Probably should just agree to disagree and move on.
Kagehi says:
Not going to quote your whole post @ #111 because that would be silly, but very well done.
Isn’t there a statistic about how the likelihood of being hurt by a terrorist attack (any terrorist attack) is less than that of being struck by lightning?
And as we have just read here on Pharyngula, a woman in the USA has a 1 in 5 chance of being raped, in which case she may need an abortion, so as to avoid having her life ruined completely.
So yeah. Privilege.
Sally, WTF? Why not say that more people die in car accidents than terrorist attacks? Are you suggesting Christian Fundies are the ones responsible for rape? Or just making a complete non-sequitur?
A discussion started here when I agreed that with Hitchens* that fundamentalist Islam was the greatest threat to the West, another person said Christian Fundamentalism was worse. Explain to me how rape has any bearing on this discussion, because I have no idea what you are getting at.
* Remembering of course that I disagreed with everything else Hitchens said after that first sentence.
The only way that fundamentalist Islam is a threat to the west is that, through some lucky attacks, the west is convinced by power-huyngry authoritarians to throw away what makes the west different — freedom of (and from) religion, civil rights, restrictions on the rights of police and the military, restriction of the federal, state and local government’s power, universal education, equality (racial, sexual and religious), rule of law, and, most important, democracy. The decade since the terrorist attack has seen an amazing rollback of human rights in the United States, almost all of it couched in anti-terrorist over-reacting fear. Our right to travel, our right to form unions, our right to associate, our right to legal representation, our right to bodily integrity, our right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure, have been limited in an attempt to concentrate power withing a conservative oligarchy — though, of course, it is presented as saving us from the evil terrorists.
Additionally, the authoritarian right has enlisted the extreme religious right. By using the language of the Christian dominionist right, by promising to return America to the mythical golden age of Christian America, by promising to force ‘morality’ down the throat of every person in the United States and, eventually, on earth, those who would curtail our human and political rights have gained an ally that, quite frankly, scares the shit out of me. The goal for dominionists is to create, here in the United States, a Christian equivalent of Iran — the trappings of democracy draped over a cesspool of theocracy and limited rights.
So I agree with you that radical Islam is a danger to the United States and the west. I disagree that it is the danger of a direct attack. The danger comes from the wholesale abandonment of western freedom and rights in order to ‘protect us’ and ‘protect our freedoms’ and ‘protect western culture’ and ‘protect Christianity.’ That, to me, is a far more likely scenario than the detruction of the liberal democratic west through radical or fundamentalist Islamic violence.
Terrorism terrorises (that’s why they call it that). Terror can open the door to dictatorship, theocracy, authoritarianism, and curtailment of human and political rights, all of which are far scarier and far more likely than a Muslim takeover of the west. As Kelly said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
I think Sally is trying to point out that, while we spend hundreds of billions of dollars to supposedly fight terrorism at its source, and a fair amount to provide placebo security at airports, most Americans face more likely threats, ones which we can’t hardly bother to prosecute. The conviction rate for rape is low, and one very possible consequence of that crime is unwilling pregnancy–and meanwhile, a sizable portion of the country wants to criminalize abortion.
We make budget decisions based on threat assessment, but understanding statistics and probability doesn’t seem to be our strong suit. You have a better chance of dying in a car crash on your way to buy a lottery ticket than you have of winning the lottery. Doesn’t stop us.
But spending money to prevent and prosecute rape doesn’t give you an excuse to invade oil-rich countries. And the people making the decisions are wealthy men and women who are at less risk of being raped.
So yeah, privilege. It’s not the whole story, but it’s a factor.
Dunno what you’re missing. It’s pretty clear.
About 1 out of 5 American women are in danger of completed rape. It’s easy to see that at least 1 out of 500 (assuming the woman is already on some form of birth control which is 99% effective, such as the pill, which is a generous assumption) are in danger of a rape-produced pregnancy for which she needs an abortion. But the christofascist terrorists are not only trying to make abortion totally illegal, they are trying to make it impossible for women to get effective birth control. Therefore more than 1 out of 500 American women are in immediate, realistic, danger of having their lives destroyed by christian fundies.
This is a far worse number than any realistic estimate of the danger of fundamentalist Islam to Americans.
So the only reason you can feel so passionately about the Islamists being a worse danger (to you) is because you have the privilege of not personally worrying that you’re going to need an abortion if/when you’re raped. Yeah, privilege.
Wishful Thinking:
You mention multiple times that Islamic fundamentalism would be a threat to the West if they manage to acquire weapons of mass destruction. That is a big ‘if’ you’re glossing over.
The world is not a Tom Clancy novel: the resources needed to build and deliver a NBCR (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, Radiological) weapon to a major U.S. city are significant, and it is highly unlikely that any fundamentalist group, whether religious or political, will be able to do so. Furthermore, while you seem exceedingly concerned with a NBCR attack by Islamic fundamentalists, you seem to ignore the fact that a group of Christian fundamentalists could just as well try to do the same thing (and New York would be a prime target for those kind of people as well).
Thanks to the gigantic blind spot that racial profiling has created, a terrorist group made up of people who think (and look) like Anders Breivik or Timothy McVeight could go relatively far without raising suspicion. (For a tragic example of how racial bias can have disastrous effects, look up the Lod Airport Massacre)
Finally, while a NBCR attack has significant shock value, the real threat of terrorism (IMO) is not such an attack, but rather organized attacks with conventional weapons (such as the Mumbai attacks in 2008), because an successful large-scale campaign of attacks like those could have disastrous effects for the civil liberties enshrined in the West.
Peter Hitchens wrote a eulogy for his brother in, naturally enough, The Daily Mail. This paragraph sums it up nicely:
I would like to hear or read what Hitchens would have to say about this thread.
Ze Madmax, does Iran not qualify? Does an existential threat to Israel amount to a potential threat to the West?
jasonmartin99 @ #126:
Based on what I know (which admittedly, is not a lot):
I don’t consider a nuclear Iran a serious threat to Israel. As unstable a ruler as Ahmadinejad may be, he is not stupid. There is no good reason for Iran to attack Israel.
Iran is a majority Shi’a nation. The only one in the region, as almost every other Islam-majority nation in the area is a majority Sunni nation except for Iraq, which is, AFAIK, about 50/50 Shi’a/Sunni. A nuclear Iran represents a power-shift in the region that is disliked not just by Israel, but by the Sunni-majority Muslim countries as well.
In the event of Iran-Israel hostilities, Iran would be facing the most advanced military of the region (Israel), the most advanced military of the planet (the U.S.), and it is highly likely that both NATO and the Arab League would intervene against Iran. It would be suicide.
Speaking of suicide, any kind of nuclear attack against the West that could be traced back to Iran would result in Iran becoming the biggest, most radioactive parking lot in the world. So that is also highly unlikely.
Looking at PZ’s post and some of the earlier comments, this reminds me of what I think is one of the strengths of the atheist/humanist community – to never accept the words of prominent members of our community as gospel – but to question and challenge when what they say doesn’t make sense. While, in my opinion, sometimes disagreements escalate to ridiculous levels, at least we do not see people behaving like the gullible sheep, as we see occurring time after time in religious groups.
With regards to Hitchens, he was, as all of us are, a complex person. He was a wonderful orator and writer and he stood up against formidable people when others would not. But I also found some of his views hard to reconcile or understand, as others have also described.
There is no such thing as the perfect human being. But there are those who speak out when they see injustice and irrationality. Christopher Hitchens did this with such eloquence and power, he has inspired many to follow in his wake. For that alone, he has left an important legacy.
Of course, WTRA thinks “PC” is a thing, rather than just a euphemism used by assholes who want to pretend they’re being daring rather than making extremely stale jokes that support the status quo.
Sally et al.: Right on the money. WTRA is getting quite testerical, isn’t he?
Slanderous accusations were thrown at the late Christopher Hitchens which were factually false. Christopher Hitchens never advocated wiping out a population. He did advocate taking the fight to Islamicists (Islamic radicals) whom are completely different and separate from the Iranian people. In fact, these Islamicists and Hizbolli terrorists are the very enemy of the Iranian people and Iranian nation and continue to rape, pillage, and murder our innocents. Therefore, Hitchens’ simply stated that we take the fight to the Islamic Republic and ensure they do not acquire nuclear weapons as these are religious fundamentalists who core beliefs and core guiding value is the “return of the hidden imam” and in fact operate with this in mind. It is far time to start supporting the Iranian people; and one addition: the Iraq war did not cost “millions” of lives. That is a false number based on zero empirical support and it is more in the 100k range, in which the vast majority of deaths were from the hands of terrorists, suicide bombers, and sectarian violence; not U.S. missiles or troops.
Absolutely. The death penalty is a controversial idea in those few places that still haven’t abolished it.
For fuck’s sake, the Hittites had abolished it three thousand years ago. Yes, “even” for murder, “even” for talking back at the great-king.
What kind of world do you believe you live in?
LOL. I’d be surprised to find out that anyone here supports that fuckwit who got one whole thing right in his entire life.
Duh. Of course I support that in the abstract. The question is about methods. The question is about dead people.
There’s evidence that the invasion of Iraq delayed the Arab Revolution by 10 years by associating all democracy movements with the USA in public opinion and thus discrediting them.
*burp*
Invading Iraq has given anti-American terrorists and their ideologues a great boost.
Hello? Iraq didn’t even have anything to do with 9/11!
<chant>This is what demagoguery looks like!</chant>
Syria is such a case. To some degree, it’s a war of the Assad dynasty (Alawi) vs. pretty much everyone else (Sunni).
Seconded.
Oh, dude. Learn some history.
1) Carpet-bombing didn’t help. In fact, it was counterproductive, because it made the survivors hate the Allies and played right into the propaganda which had told people to hate the Allies all along. You have no idea how glad I am that it wasn’t counterproductive enough to change the end result.
2) Funnily enough, the very intent behind it was the opposite: it was to demoralize the survivors so they’d stop supporting the Nazis. There’s a word for using “fear us – do what we want, or we’ll kill even more of you next time” as a strategy. It starts with T.
3) It wasn’t just Dresden. It was every remotely large or remotely industrial city that was within reach! Just for illustration, there’s about one medieval city core left in all of Germany, and all the bigger natural-history museums (Berlin, Munich…) got hit.
The argument from ignorance is a logical fallacy. Be ashamed.
How many cases are there where democracy was introduced by a foreign invasion without widespread support among the population of the invaded country? Japan counts, but it’s an odd democracy, isn’t it.
I think whether Iraq will stay halfway democratic depends on Turkey and Syria.
There wasn’t any totalitarianism in Bosnia.
There was war in Bosnia.
You’re still misled by the lack of information you had in 2002/3. It was a very easy decision: the UN inspections kept finding nothing, not a shred of evidence, till W told them “get out of Iraq or you’ll become collateral damage”; no massacres were going on; both no-fly zones were fully enforced; Saddam wasn’t in a position to change any of that, and he was well known for not gambling his power on irrational actions; and all attempts by the Busheviki to make him look like a threat were lies so obvious they were exposed as quickly as the Busheviki came up with new ones. Yellowcake “documents” copied, spelling mistakes and all, names of officials that hadn’t had those positions in years and all, from a student paper; aluminum tubes of completely wrong sizes; claims of mobile labs with no evidence behind them unless we count the pretty graphics Powell presented… over here, all of that was in the TV evening news, and practically everyone was (and still is) flabbergasted by the chutzpah of George “I want my war at all costs” Bush and the people around him.
I think I noticed it… anyway, it has been remarked upon several times; AFAIK, some of the Star Wars books even spell it out (I haven’t read them, but my brother has).
I agree, and I add:
1) I’ve read that when Ahmadinejad says all that stuff about wiping Israel off the map, he does that because he must – he’s quoting Khomeini. Apparently (I can’t tell) it’s actually rather out of context in his speeches.
2) The current generation of Iranians has lost the burning desire to die as martyrs.
3) Israel has nukes. To attack it would be MAD.
4) Iran developing nukes has always stricken me as learning from North Korea how to be invulnerable.
Oh, and, the president of Iran is not commander-in-chief of the armed forces. That’s Khamenei’s job.
What you Islamic Republic apologists fail to do is to take their core ideology seriously – the ideology of martyrdom and the return of the “hidden imam”. We cannot use what we think as rational in comparing the actions of religious madmen whom care nothing for Iran or nothing for humanity.
sassandrian @ #134:
For someone who claims to be so concerned about the Iranian people, you seem woefully eager to use military intervention (which will lead to heavy civilian casualties) to remove them.
I can’t speak for my fellow “Islamic Republic apologists”, but I for one think that effective regime change (i.e., regime change that does not lead to an oppressive puppet government like the Shah’s) is unlikely to be achieved by force, and that the use of force will lead to widespread and needless suffering.
Crazy, I know.
No, I take it seriously that attacking Iran would result in significant civilian casualties.
A question, because I’m ignorant:
Does “sassandarian” refer to the Sassanids? Is that the kind of “Persian civilization” you want, or do you want a modern civilization which isn’t completely ravaged by war?
My name is Sassan. You see – what people fail to understand is that the only nation that offers the hopes for a true secular democracy is Iran. We have experienced the evils of Islam under the most brutal of manners the last 30+ years and I was in Iran for over 8-months last year including not just Tehran but Shiraz and Azerbaijan province. Bush’s mistake was that he liberated the wrong nation (although the world is better off without Saddam) as Iranians are a pro-American and pro-west populace and demand complete secular democracy.
So my name is simply my name. And I am proud to have a name that is pre-Islamic. :) And yes, I was “born” Muslim but the vast majority of Iranians are what I term “fake Muslims” in that religion plays no role in their lives. In addition, Iran surely has more atheists behind the veil of the regime than the United States. Particularly among the middle-aged male whom have lived life under both secularism and Islamicism. The young people don’t follow religion but I wouldn’t call them atheists to a high degree. They are simply like most Americans in that religion plays no role in their lives.
And one more thing: the cost of inaction is much worse for all parties involved. This regime cares NOTHING for Iranians and will kill every last Iranian to keep power. It is important to note that the majority of violence in Iraq was the post-war invasion in which Arab Islamicists flooded in from other Arab countries. For obvious reasons this won’t happen in Iran. 90-95% of the people are united against this regime but cannot even own handguns. This regime has 5% hardcore loyalists but with proper assistance of the international community, we can remove this threat to both the Iranian people and to the international community. This is a regime that is truly messianic and apocalyptic.
25 Ridiculous Reactions To #GodIsNotGreat
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/25-dumbest-reactions-to-godisnotgreat
Hitchens would have loved to have this conversation with us.
Ok, don’t have time to post much now, so I’ll touch on what’s most important:
Ze Madmax says:
I heavily implied this before and someone else besides you outright said it also. But it bears repeating. Whatever kind of attack or attacks they manage to pull off will cause instant damage, but yes, I think we’re right in saying the real damage is what powers the government decides to give itself afterwards.
Ms. Daisy Cutter says:
WTF? First I’m called racist for talking about possible terrorist attacks (award to the person who did this while using the term raghead), now I am “testerical” because what, I fucking asked for clarification on a point from Sally? Because that ain’t overreacting in the least, nor is it unreasonable. Oh, maybe it’s because I wrote a few words in caps since some people around here cannot read and comprehend, or are liars who like poisoning the well. Oh noes! I must have testosterone imbalance which makes me insane! But hey, what can I expect. I mean really, I thought gender based insults were no no’s around here? Oh silly me, I am sure “Ms. Daisy Cutter” claims her crazy girlfriends are crazy from too much testosterone and calls them testerical too. So it’s not gender based or something. Shame on you, you dumb fuck.
[meta]
Sassan, you’ve made some moving posts here, and I really respect your position. And I am sympathetic, too. And I think I “get” your fondness for Hitchens, who was very much on your side (and on the side of freedom).
But.
When you refer to those addressing you here as “Islamic Republic apologists”, I think you’re doing your case no good.
(Worse than that, even)
Atheists will quote Hitchens so long as literacy survives (as will connoisseurs of verbal dueling per se). He lived for his words, and by that metric has created a landmark.
Considered as an artist, Hitchens’s flaws resemble, say, the misogyny of Miles Davis and Pablo Picasso, the self-destructiveness of Oscar Wilde or Janis Joplin, the egotism of H.L. Mencken or (your diva of choice). How history will see him is up to brats unborn, but Hitchens has earned a place on the literary landscape.
[OT]
WTRA:
Were you not so ignorant, you’d know how it’s a mockery of ‘hysterical’, and why she’s using it.
(The which makes a mockery of your certitude for your claims about Ms Cutter)
@John Morales: Thank you for your kind words. I agree, I was just caught up in the heat of the moment by some of the absolutely vile comments on here. But I agree, and thank you.
Goddammit, I won’t legally be able to drink to this guy for another 3 1/2 years.
Pitty that so many people are indifferent to the obliteration of Iranian and other rogue states populations.
Yes, if you don’t want to get your hands dirty with the bad guys, you are guilty of neglect and morally void.
‘Live with that if you can, ladies and gentelmen’
@absolute: Beautiful and concise insight. :)
Christopher Hitchens on Iran’s Rebellious Youth
(Excerpt)
–
I sadly note that symptoms of his illness are evident in that clip, though only apparent after the fact. :(
The United States of America is currently incapable of winning a ground war inside Iran.
At a minimum, that would require reinstatement of the draft, which is not going to happen.
love moderately,
I was rather hoping that after the debacle in Iraq the US would somehow discover the good sense to stay home for a couple of generations if only to repair its infrastructure and its education system.
It would give the rest of us time to decide how we wish to be governed or alternatively by whom and to what extent we wish to be oppressed.
… nah, this is too easy.
Aside from what Morales said… the shallowness of your self-awareness is an amazing thing, WTRA. I just woke up and am feeling generous, so here’s a tip: When someone tells you you’re behaving in a sexist manner, a spluttering response topped off with a homophobic dig isn’t going to win you any arguments.
Neither is the feverish denial, topped with some other slur, I imagine you’ll start composing the moment you’ve read this comment.
@ikesolem
The problem with Hitchens when it came to the middle east was not that he was ignorant, but willingly deceitful. He litteraly pretended that over a billion people were suicidally irrational in order to make his own bloodlust appear principled.
***
@Ze Madmax
And the fact is, should a fundamentalist group take control of WMD, they would most probably do what communist dictatorships like the USSR, China and North Korea did: use it to make sure that no one try to invade them so they can keep on tyrannizing their existing domain.
***
@David Marjanović
Actually, the reason for carpet bombing virtually every German cities during WWII was not to make Germans stop supporting the Nazis (the regime was already impopular by then): it was to make sure that the german public opinion would not believe another Stab-in-the-back legend like they did after WWI, a legend which was instrumental in the raise of revanchist nationalism between the two wars. It was an extraordinary cold blooded and murderous decision, but it was not motivated by a desire to “slaughter the Germans into submission”
I’m afraid that whenever PZ does misogyny it comes across as deliberate and contrived. Now is not the time to be winning points by calling Christopher a misogynist. He had his faults for sure. Feet of clay, too. Called some things wrongly – yep. And admitted it when he had changed his mind. I’m mourning the man and his mind, not the opinions he held. Wrong as he occasionally was, I’d rather we still had him to argue with, to be enlightened and entertained by. But we don’t, so I mourn.
Meanwhile Iran and North Korea and other screwed up states continue the genocide.
lancelotgobbo, what PZ said was that Hitchens practiced misogyny. This is true. You admit Hitchens had faults; now is not the time to be denying reality by pretending that misogyny was not one of his faults.
+++++
Yikes! Who are Iran and North Korea practicing genocide against?
sassandarian,
You’re very ready to spend lives to end what is certainly a repulsive tyranny. Before the invasion of Iraq, there were plenty of people claiming that the Iraqis would welcome invading westerners with flowers; I see no reason to take your parallel assurances about Iranians at face value. The number of excess Iraqi deaths due to the invasion – mostly through the long-term damage to services such as water, electricity, sanitation, health and education – certainly runs into hundreds of thousands. Around four million people have been displaced, about half of those abroad. One result of the invasion, both you and Hitchens might have noticed, has been a considerable increase in the influence of the Iranian theocrats over Iraq. The current Iraqi government is also siding with Bashar Assad against the opposition in Syria. I think we can safely say strengthening the Iranian-Syrian axis was not a result intended by Bush and the neocons; you see, wars tend to have unexpected consequences.
It seems that Hitchens was overwhelmed by the events of 9//11 like so many were, so he used his great intellect to defend the crazy. The crazy he defended was GWB giving Al Qaeda what they wanted by making war rather than bringing criminals to justice. The crazy was saying that Islam was the problem. Would anything be different if the Koran never existed? We would still have isolated cultures being tribal, misogynistic, violent, and angry about change.
The greatest people can still have their blind spots, or have to choose their battles. For example Mahatma Gandhi ignored the greatest evil in Indian Society which was the caste system in favor of the immediate problem of Indian Independence. Hitchens couldn’t be right about everything, could he?
chigau (違う) says:
I know what “cupcake” is used for here. What I was questioning was why a word that outside of Pharyngula is in my experience used either as
a) a term of endearment (or patronising put-down) by men to women, or
b) a somewhat-jokey put-down by camp gay men to other camp gay men
is seen as an acceptible insult, especially when other phrases that outside Pharyngula are used in indentical circumstances (like, e.g. “sweetie”) are criticised.
(Its not that I’m offended by it, rather just puzzled by the apparent inconsistency in Horde Etiquette).
Hitchens defends his Iraq position in a debate with Eric Alterman:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQBj40CLQ4w
Seen it a while ago and don’t really remember the points, but I believe it’s interesting :)
gravityisjustatheory #159
Cupcake is considered non-gendered at Pharyngula. It may be a gendered or homophobic insult elsewhere, but that is not its meaning here.
Farewell clever mammal.
Okay… just listened to parts 5-7 of that speech.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n132y0xu6-Y
Wow. Was that all? Did anything come after that?
Listen, it’s one thing to criticize Hitchens for being misguided in various ways – the effects of military interventions, the results of the Iraq war, the dimensions of the Islamist threat. I honestly don’t know nearly enough about those issues to have an opinion.
But seriously, doesn’t Myers’ post seem like an awful misrepresentation of what he actually said?
Yes… bombs create casualties. That’s horrible. Some may say it’s strictly unacceptable and Hitchens is a douchebag for disagreeing. But, that’s not the same as ADVOCATING GENOCIDE.
He said something about bombing the “nuclear facilities” in Iran. Something about “demolishing” and killing the “Jihadists”, and this being a pleasure as well as duty.
Please point me to the line where he said anyone should “slaughter civilians”. Or that it’s the “mounting casualties” the Islamic violent extremists should be dealing with, rather than, you know, the reduction of their own numbers?
I’m really trying to find out what’s happening here. Did Hitchens say something awful that flew right past my ears (or maybe it’s in the context of things he said elsewhere?), or is Myers’ post a paragon of human unreliable memory?
Wtf is going on here??
He said something about bombing the “nuclear facilities” in Iran Which would kill about 10k people.
’10,000 would die’ in A-plant attack on Iran
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/1510382/10000-would-die-in-A-plant-attack-on-Iran.html
Bush had been told for years in his NIE reports that Iran didn’t have a nuclear weapons program (there’s fatwa against it) but he lied to the masses, trying to scare ‘em.
I’m surprised that in all of this discussion, only one person brought up Hitchens’s prodigious drinking. People seem to refuse to believe in the effects of habitual drunkenness, and some even lend it literary value. Hitchens’s life shows if someone is really smart and really verbal, he can get away with his lifestyle, at least until he’s in his early 60s. As for Hitchens, the exalted barroom blather brought us some wonderful things like the well-deserved shot at Mother Teresa and some stupid things like support for Bush.
When I read his rants about Islamic fundamentalism, I thought he was doing a public service. Liberals often understate the passionate and conservative religiosity of the Islamic world — and I’m not implying any sympathy for what our own Christian fundamentalists see in their lunatic visions of new crusades.
In any case, all the rending of garments over the death of superstars annoys me, and it’s no exception for Hitchens. It gets weird. But all the same, the weirdest thing I read about Hitchens in these past few days was Ross Douthat’s column in the NYT about the man. It is worth looking at — Douthat at his most bizarre.
unbiased (*eyeroll*):
Here on the internet it’s polite to provide a link.
Douthat’s bizarre all right:
Thanks.
I’m still getting the impression that Myers accuses Hitchens of the actual intention to kill civilians, for its own sake (that’s what genocide is, after all), because they’re Muslims and because it would intimidate the extremists.
Having that said, I was clearly ignorant about the casualties this would bring, and this does put things into perspective.
___
Another (even if nitpicky – but I’m not sure) example of PZ Myers probably writing only from his memory at that time:
Here’s the original clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwDk8LOD5Go#t=210
Here’s Myers’ recollection:
“He was asked to consider the possibility that bombing and killing was only going to accomplish an increase in the number of people opposing us. Hitchens accused the questioner of being incredibly stupid (the question was not well-phrased, I’ll agree, but it was clear what he meant)”
He didn’t say anything about “incredibly stupid”, just that the question sounded very “sappy” and the questioner surely must’ve meant something more intelligent.
Sure, I don’t expect the memory of an attended lecture to reflect the precise words, but the anti-Hitchens bias in the memory is already clearly visible.
“and said that it was obvious that every Moslem you kill means there is one less Moslem to fight you … which is only true if you assume that every Moslem already wants to kill Americans and is armed and willing to do so.”
The questioner began by bringing up “fundamentalist Islam”, and then he went on to ask how “killing Muslims would limit their fervour”
Sorry, was there an obvious transition from “fundamentalists” (I should add myself, I prefer the term “(malevolent) Islamism” – fundamentalists can believe in their religious “fundamentals” as they like, for all I care) to all Muslims?
Or was the next sentence still about the Nasties, except that he didn’t bother to say “fundamentalist” a second time?
If anything, the questioner made the assumption that “all Muslims are out to get us” with his phrasing, but, obviously, he didn’t.
Hitchens just responded to the question. Does anyone here really think he was talking about (intentionally) bombing innocent “Muslims”?
How does PZ reach the conclusion that he’s generalizing all Muslims as violent enemies, especially as Hitchens goes on to address the question about “more Muslims rising against us if we kill some”? He couldn’t POSSIBLY have “assumed” that all Muslims were enemies, he just said that the danger of alienation and more enemies rising wasn’t a reason to stop resisting the already existing ones.
____
Just to make it clear, I’m not voicing any opinions about Hitchens’ policies, or any of the issues at hand. I’m merely concerned about the unbiased accuracy of reporting what was said.
Your unbiased concern is noted.
“atheism — especially a public and famous atheism — can become as self-defended as any religious dogma, impervious to any new fact or unexpected revelation.”
Nothing bizarre about that. It was the writer’s strong implication that Hitchens was actually a closet “Naytheist” (I’m not linking you to the TV Tropes page – just out of spite).
His belief that “rigorous” atheism actually leads to desparation over death and deprivation of hope, and something about Hitchens not succumbing to that (or whatever the fuck he was trying to say there) has to mean “something”, and “now he finally knows”.
And as much as I accept the fact that atheism and religious criticism (just as about any other view or position) is subject to fallacies, stubbornness and defense mechanisms, the examples Ross brings up in support of that are just plain horrible.
The fact that other atheists shouldn’t take it seriously if Hitchens’ somehow managed to do a deathbed conversion? Yea, absolutely valid point.
The thing about Jesus? Well, phrased like that, it was corny. The way he phrased it elsewhere, that “proving the resurrection of Jesus wouldn’t validate the morals he taught”? Yea, holds up.
Thank God he didn’t bring up Hitch’s views on the “Transcendent”:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/2253/christopher_hitchens,_religious_in_spite_of_himself
Noted and documented, good ;)
How long will it take for the “a celebration of reason” event ads to update their speaker roster (or does the Global Atheist Convention have channeling resources previously unavailable to the gawdless community)?
Anyone who takes pleasure in such a duty is someone not to be trusted.
The failure of Hitchens, the New Atheists and neo-Darwinists in general is they want to share the benefits of Global Capitalism and to keep freedom of thought at the same time. You’re blind to your responsibility in the return of radical religion (be it Christian, Islamic or Jewish) and the clash of civilizations.
After decades of interventions against secular nationalism in the Third World and exploitation of its Peoples and natural resources to keep on with your easy lives, you get surprised by the hatred you received back. You toppled a moderate Mossadegh and got a radical Khomeini in return.
My post and caricature on Hitchens and the New Atheism: http://wp.me/psnoA-9A
@Robertobrow
You’re very opinionated on a group you clearly know little about.
With respect to Hitch’s position on fundamentalist Islam; I begin to think people do not realise the very real danger that the religion presents to humanity.
I do not think Hitchens would ever have requested to be given a saintly image upon his demise; the accounts of his life so far are respectful insofar as they remember what was good about a person. It is always crass to immediately jump on the flaws and faults of a person in the immediate wake of their death and there is no reason to do so this quickly.
History judges people and there is a time to look at a person’s legacy. The majority of opinion that exists about Hitchen’s position comes from his statements prior to the discovery that there were no WMD’s in Iraq yet dissected as if they were made after the failure to pin down Saddam’s machinery of war. Hardly the correct historical approach to take.
As I said, history can judge Hitchens.
We knew several months before the invasion that it was most probable that Iraq did not have WMD.
Eleven days before the invasion, it was revealed to the public that the yellowcake allegations were based on a forgery.
This should have given everyone pause.
Why?
We are a part of history.
Your position is that if someone today — like yourself — judges Hitchens as correct, that’s acceptable; but if someone today judges Hitchens as incorrect, that’s a premature judgment.
You can’t have it both ways.
We had a discussion along similar lines in the Vile Islam thread, comparing the risk of falling victim to an Islamic terror attack v. a Neo-Nazi attack in Germany.
I agree that the personal risks of falling victim to a large-scale terror attacks are much less than falling victim to an assault from Neo-Nazi groups. But the political and economic repercussions of a large-scale terror attack if successful, are immense. Just see what happened in the United States after 9/11, or even after Oklahoma City. But one type of threat shouldn’t cancel out the other, and you usually have different agencies working on different types of threat.
I once listened to a radio programme about risk assessment, and an example they like to bring up is comparing auto-related deaths v. plane-related deaths in transportation. Dying in a car crash is much more likely than dying in a plane crash, but an event in which a large number of people die at the same time is often perceived to be as a bigger threat, and accordingly resources are directed to address the issue.
Daisy Cutter, you stupid fucking shithead, why do you keep throwing out bullshit? It is not enough I am accused of racism here, based on nothing, but then I am accused of sexism here, again based on nothing, even though it is YOU who used the gender based insult, which as well all know is not kosher around here? You are an imbecile.
John Morales says:
I know what it means you dumb fuck of epic proportions. It is a newish made up word that means too much testosterone causing insane unreasonable reactions. Now I am not a doctor, but that’s a term that can only reasonably be applied to males. It is far FAR worse than using the term “hysterical” since most people don’t know one fucking thing about the origin of that word (and the current definitions I’ve seen are gender neutral). Testerical on the other hand is completely gendered. So what we had here was a shithead person intentionally using a gender based insult. And you defend this why? It appears some friendship, or tribe mentality has clouded what I hope is your normally decent judgment. Again, why THE FUCK would you defend such a backwards action? Would you have applauded her even more if she called me a dick? You fucking dunce.
I go and say “It is always crass to immediately jump on the flaws and faults of a person in the immediate wake of their death” and I based this on the idea that their families and friends would more than likely be grieving.
I think this is a humanist stance and offers a level of respect for the deceased.
But then Kim Jong-iI pops his clogs today and it seems that any further actions I take would be hypocritical.
[OT]
WTRA, your outburst amuses me no end.
<snicker>
(You really are ignorant)
Even if it’s a “gendered” insult, it’s none to be really insulted about.
Some of the “sexist” insults or stereotypes out there are just way too mild and silly to be taken seriously.
I agree with Christopher Hitchens – and blaming Hitchens for pointing out the true situation in the world isn’t going to solve anything or make it anything other than it is.
Maybe Hitchens had a dark side. But the reality is dark and Hitch saw and said what is really pretty clearly obvious if one isn’t too soft and ideologically blinkered by the sort of Political Correctness that refuses to recognise who truly deeply evil Islam really is.
Sometimes you can negotiate and make peace with people.
Even bad ones.
Sometimes even the nastiest ideologies can be dealt with as rational actors who can be opposed by means other than military force.
But NOT always.
Sometimes an ideology is so nasty and crazy – so destructive to others and even its own followers that the only solution is, sadly, a violent one.
You can’t reason with Jihadist homicide suicide bombers with mad Mullahs and deranged dictators of the Jihadistans. The West has tried being rational with Islam and tried being soft and tried appeasement – and that has and will continue to fail.
War between Islam with its Jihadists terrorists and Jihadistani dictators of the various Durka-durka-stans is inevitable – is, in fact, already happening. They are fighting and we are dying and while we may not like the reality it is as Hitchens describes it.
Either we destroy them or they destory us.
No alternatives, no other options.
Which do we choose?
If you think otherwise then you are just kidding yourself.
We may hate that reality and rail against it – & we should direct our anger on that situation on the Islamists because they are the ones responsible for it, the ones who want not only to killour children but insist that we kill their own as well – but that’s just how it is.
Hitchens told it as it is. Full stop.
Typo correction sorry. Make that :
But the reality is dark and Hitch saw and said what is really pretty clearly obvious if one isn’t too soft and ideologically blinkered by the sort of Political Correctness that refuses to recognise how truly deeply evil Islam really is.
Islam is the metaphorical rabid dog or pyschopathic serial killer threatening your family on your doorstop. There is only one correct course of action – and that is its destruction.
It may not be nice, it may be horrible and sad – but it just has to be done.
@164. feurio : 18th December 2011 at 3:12 pm
But millions more would die if Iran gets the bomb.
No, its not a nice choice – but one that has to be made. Do we sacrifice Israel and allow Iran to committ mass genocide and exterminate entire nations – probably including the collapse of our whole Western civilisation – or do we take Iran out?
We take Iran out. Of course.
The sooner we do it, the sooner we act, the better the results for everyone incl. even the Iranians. Simple as that.
“Islam”
RADICAL Islam. RADICAL Islam. Islamism. Violent ppl and shit.
I wish this distinction were stressed more often than that.
Yet it’s both radical Islam, the “doers”, and the moderates, the “panderers”, which causes so much of this debate to be shifted into some very odd perspectives.
Hitchens was brave making that distinction more real and worthy of discussion than anything else, particularly in an age of liberal influence.
Whether it is trendy to bash religion or not is no longer the point; it is whether as a race we suffer at the hands of a religion which really wants to take over the world. Look at the birth rates for the Muslim population across the world and you’ll know why such concerns are not trivial.
Whether I’d call all the moderates “panderers” (you know, including those who decidedly DON’T approve of the nastie-wasties – Harris’ point that the mods “cover” the fundies applies only in part), I’m not sure ;)
At any rate, a lot of Muslims are really like the Christians we’re familiar with – some immorality in their metaphysical beliefs, but basically just benevolent bullshitters (when it comes to religious questions – most of the time).
I don’t care if those multiply or whatever – a secular society is what it comes down to.
Women aren’t funny? Kate Parkinson is hilarious :D
One of the dafter ideas which crops up repeatedly here and which probably needs to be stamped out is that the US is somehow in charge and thus gets to decide everything, including life and death for the other seven billion of us. It has probably killed more people to date than has Islamism – nasty though the latter is.
Will you look at yourself, forgawdsake! Three hundred million of you out of over 7 billion, a very weak economy, collapsing infrastructure, an exhausted military and a terrifying ignorance of the rest of the world.*
Since 1945 – let’s add in the reconstruction and democratisation of Japan – have you had a military victory? No. Has your intervention in however many countries it is been beneficial to the local population and/or have any benefits been lasting? How many regimes have you set up or toppled? (Where you have done both to the same regime you can may score 2.)
* In the run-up to March 2003 George W Bush did not believe he needed to know that there was some sort of dispute between Sunni and Shia Muslims – a difference going back to the 8th century CE – and resisted the attempts of the State Department to explain it to him, let alone to contemplate what might burst out all over the place if you toppled a Sunni government in a Shia majority country then left the place without a trace of the benefits of government for several years.
One of the things we as H sapiens are supposed to be able to do is learn from experience. There’s not enough of it going on in certain quarters.
My point was that there is a saturation point.
Yes, secularism is the ideal but if you look at what is happening in Turkey right now you’ll realise that the secular state pivots only on the public deciding the level at which they wish to remain a secular state.
Eventually, according to all population reports, the Muslim faith will outnumber those of other faith and none. Sha’ria Courts exist as separate entities in Britain for one example. Faith schools are increasing in number and with all of the tax breaks and financial support they need but, more crucially, supported by the British government.
These things take time of course and perhaps the concern is misplaced. Time will tell. I’m making an educated guess based on the facts I see. If someone else has some other facts I need to take into account, I’ll consider them.
@190. maureenbrian : 19 December 2011 at 9:02 am
Bzzt. Incorrect.
The correct answer is yes – quite a few.
Since 1945 the USA has in fact had a number of military victories – depending of course on how you define the term – incl. against the Iraqis in Kuwait 1991 and in the toppling of the Taliban (2002) and the defeat of Saddam Hussein and consequent liberation of Iraq in 2003.
That the Iraqis then fucked up the aftermath for themselves and everyone else – by looting and indulging themselves in a blody tribal civil war – is hardly the USA’s fault.
Btw. The most recent war the US was involved in was Libya this year – it won pretty quickly and effectively and saved the lives of thousands of Libyans from the certain genocide that Gaddafi would have afflicted on them.
The USA is the one remaining global superpower and leads the Free Western world. It is the mostpowerfuland influential nation onthe globe despite its various problems and various perceieved and real flaws.
That’s not being “daft” its just reality. You might want to aquaint yourself with it.
Bullshit. Citations very much fucking needed for that.
Incidentally, Islamism NOT the America is the reason we’re at war today. Killing people in self-defence and by accident (for collateral damage)is NOT ethically equal to killing people in order to try and impose a Tyrannical Sharia law terrorist Khaliphate over the whole world.
citation needed
Complete and utter paranoid crap. I know of no academically respectable study whatever that claims this.
You’re an ignorant and immoral fuckwit. If you launch a war, you are thereby responsible for all its reasonably predictable consequences. Smashing much of Iraq’s infrastructure, as inevitably happened in the invasion, was bound to lead to large numbers of deaths. This was predictable, and predicted. Disbanding its army was bound to lead to large numbers of weapons ending up in private hands, and to the use of many such weapons to advance private or sectarian interests. This was predictable, and predicted. Sectarian strife was also both predictable, and predicted.
Perhaps we should redefine “military victory” – when I use the phrase I mean that the matter is settled once and for all, not that someone claims victory and leaves the job half done – seems to be traditional in the Bush family.
In Afghanistan the Taliban government was toppled, sure, but the was the matter settled, was something effective put in place?
In Libya the US did, as President Obama said it would, the minimum necessary. It had the capacity to get planes in the air faster than the rest of NATO and it did. Then it took a back seat.
To be a global superpower you’d need to have materiel, troops, an inexhaustible treasury. Right now for anything other than a modest policing operation the US would have to go cap-in-hand to China for the funds. And if China said no?
I’m writing this in a very rainy – at the moment – England. We used to be a superpower, we were within my memory. Tell you what, though, it is not a title ordained by any god and it does not last. Eventually you get to the point where more people have an interest in tossing you from that pedestal than have an interest in the crumbs from your table. The trick is to recognise that before your country destroys itself by its own delusions.
Would you be kind enough to read again what you wrote at 192, StevoR? It’s like listening to a peevish or feverish child – if anything at all goes wrong the other guy is to blame, if anything at all goes right the US gets all the credit, regardless of who else might have been involved.
Pathetic!
“By 2035, there will be about 1.96 million active Muslims in Britain, compared with 1.63 million church-going Christians, according to calculations by Christian Research, a think- tank.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1936418/Practising-Muslims-will-outnumber-Christians-by-2035.html
“The number in the U.S. will double to over 6.2 million while Afghanistan’s Muslim population is set to rise by almost 74% as the number rises from 29 million to 50 million, making it the country with the ninth largest Muslim population in the world.”
Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/27/2-2-billion-worlds-muslim-population-doubles/#ixzz1gzniYhS6
With Turkey poised to join the EU, the inevitable cross border immigration without any population controls in place (as is the current situation) will see further increases in the Muslim population in Britain.
My sister is married to a Muslim chap and while he does not go to a Mosque or routinely pray he still follows the faith and thinks Sha’ria Law is the what government should be based upon. As I said, he is not even a “moderate” in the Sam Harris sense and still thinks Muslim rule is superior. I only wonder what the more politically minded think.
However, for balance, this is worth reading:
http://www.unitedshades.org.uk/muslim-birthrates-mean-they-will-outnumber-us-in-20-years-time.aspx
However, this is run by a Muslim group and any time you see the word “Allah” you’ll see “and may peace be upon him” afterwards… you’ll also see a number of cherry picked quotes here and there from the Qu’ran which is infuriating.
Not only that, but the person behind the site also states that the relationship, and subsequent marriage, between the prophet (and adult) Muhammad and Aisha, who was 6/7 years old, was completely acceptable because Allah sanctioned it. So the logic of the site follows some odd lines of enquiry.
But I post it for balance nonetheless.
Christian Research = part of the Evangelical Alliance, which is heavily influenced by thinking in parts of the US
Daily Telegraph = a well-run, literate but essentially right wing newspaper
United Shades of Britain = well now, they say they are multi-faith, you say they are Muslims so whom am I to believe?
If you want to scare yourself to death I would recommend ghost stories – much more coherent. If you want to promote secularism, as I do, the UK is not short of opportunities and organisations.
Are you really going to promote global annihilation because there was a child marriage over a millennium ago? A concise history of the British royal family might assist you but I’m going back to wrapping presents.
Believing in the Sharia (although, to be honest, I’m not sure if the one we’re used to hear about is the only version, or interpretation of it – but I’m not saying anything) is a no-go (not the belief, but what may come out of it).
As for the last one, sounds like good ol’ Christian nonsense to me. Producing “white noise” catchphrases about the Holy Spirit, cherry-picking the EQUALLY HORRENDOUS Bible, and justifying the squick and atrocities in the old, dusty stories (historical or not).
As long as this particular group (or some other) doesn’t support actual pedo-marriage, it’s just an annoyance for those reading it.
I mean, William L. Craig may engage in obnoxious apologetics with regard to massacres in the Bible, but he doesn’t actually support genocide, catch my drift? As far as I’m concerned, he’s not a monster or knight templar, just an irritating apologist.
The human mind is capable of astounding cognitive dissonance, and that includes engaging in spineless bullshittery about religious immorality, and simultaneously being a fairly decent human being in real life.
At the very least, it’s not a bit worse than Christianity.
The Sharia guy is more comparable to Reconstructionists, which are equally scary, but fortunately lesser in numbers. Don’t want those guys to have any say in any Western country, either.
That’s a lie.
Religious arbitration exist in Britain, because the anglo-saxon legal system allows such thing to exist, but there is no Sharia court in the United Kingdom.
“Sha’ria Courts exist as separate entities in Britain” is a lie.
Whether you believe such a lie or are willingly deceitful is irrelevant: in any case you’re faking erudition while gambling that anyone else reading you will be as ignorant as you and won’t call you out for faking erudition.
But then again, I know by experience that people like you afraid of seeing “Muslims” outbreeding good white ol’ boys are most often hiding unavowable agendas.
***
As a matter of fact, natality in countries with a Muslim majority is diminishing, but one has to take into account the inherent momentum of demographics: the Muslim World has today a lot of young people who are marrying later and are going to make a lot less children than their forefathers, so for a while it will be easy to sell the end of a demographic transition as a “Oh my God they are breeding like locust“.
But that does not change the fact that the fear of being outbred by someone else is a classical dark fantasy of supremacists. Which is one of the main reasons (the other one being his willingness to utter debunked lies) why I strongly suspect that vaughanjones’ deep motivations may in fact include no that much commitment to secularism and more “uppity brown people should learn their place”
Who said anything about global annihilation? You do not need a global catastrophe for things to be pretty dire. We are in a situation where people are willing to allow themselves to explode based on fairy tales.
No-one needs ghost stories and this does not make me scared in the way you seem to be inferring. Seriously, we can do without the condescending bullshit if that’s ok?
It’s simply a crappy state of affairs which gets brushed under the carpet in Britain. I’m here, I see it all of the time.
Could we keep the racism allegations out of this, PLEASE?
Even if a certain bias towards Christianity is founded on subconscious racism / fear of a “different culture” (or maybe just because they’ve got used to Christianity while living here), that still doesn’t extend to middle-easterners that are non-religious – and if the ones who’re supposed to be “breeding like locusts” are radical fundies, such a belief isn’t based on supremacist thinking of any kind even if it’s wrong, or delusional.
Muslims may be “breeding” or not (not like the Bible encouraged people to breed and prosletyze, eh?), but they’re also converting white guys (or they convert by themselves), and that kinda makes allegations of racism silly.
Also, I don’t see people opposed to Islam (even more than they should) bitch about Hinduism or whatever, even if it started growing in the West I doubt there would be such reactions.
Pretty selective racists when it comes to kinda dark-skinned people, eh?
What?
You don’t see (present tense) people bitching about Hinduism if it were to grow in the west (future tense).
What?
No it doesn’t. The fear that the other will Otherise the good white children is a long standard trope in Supreamicistism.
So, you are effectively saying that I am gambling on the idea that people have no access to the internet where they can search for information to disprove what I have wrote?
Despite the fact that I have already said I am willing to change my mind based on any other evidence people put forward. Despite already acknowledging that I could well be wrong on the subject?
You’re effectively accusing me of intellectual dishonesty which, I think, is pretty disingenuous really. But continue your insults if it makes you feel superior. We were all having, what I like to call, a “discussion”. No dogmatism, no fantasy stats, no bullshit. Just a plain old discussion where I like to think I would learn something and would be willing to change my mind.
However, you are wrong that Sha’ria Courts do not exist. Why? Because I live down the road from one where my work colleague (my supervisor in fact) is one of a number of mediators there (amongst other staff). It does exist as a separated entity ONCE both parties have accepted the jurisdiction of the court and such decisions are binding.
http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/north-warwickshire-news/2008/09/09/first-uk-sharia-court-up-and-running-in-warwickshire-92746-21708478/
And accusing me of somehow being racist or a white supremacist is a disgusting way to conduct your debates and I think you owe me an apology for even thinking of raising it. My objection to the Muslim faith is based solely on theological grounds. I hold the same objections towards Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism etc.
Not only that, but somehow quantifying the Muslim faith as being solely the religion of “brown people”, as you state, demonstrates that you have lost it completely if you had it at all. You shouldn’t even be taken seriously with crap like that. I suppose Sam Harris is also racist according to the rules you are creating for yourself and others?
Maybe. Kinda. Yeah?
Yet you have a leader in Cameron who is diminishing non-believers and pushing his religion and you actually live in a theocratic state…but you think the greater concern is foreign not domestic?
It’s a legal arbitration system. It violate your criminal laws. It’s a way for people to pressure women into signing away the legal objectivity they would get in a British civil court. They can’t enforce any Sha’ria on anyone. They can’t even force it on Muslims who refuse to agree to it.
Could we keep the racism allegations out of this, PLEASE?
No. It is a valid concern and just asking people to brush it away doesn’t actually address the concern.
Take the parallel with the US immigration system. Everyone insists that it’s about immigration not race…yet as we saw, people of European appearances are not suspected of being illegals, while Latino(a)s are. Why is someone with a British or Slavic accent not suspected of over staying their visa but someone else is, even though there are far more naturalized or native latino(a)s than there are legal residents with European accents? This is an issue that is claimed not to be and on the surface appears not to be racist, that seems to have some underlying racial issues in it.
Same thing with Islamphobia. And if it’s not a conscious bias than it’s very important to raise it.
Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK
How have you managed to infer that I believe the internal threat to Britain is not worrying? How have you deduced that I need more information about Britain being a theocratic state?
I can’t take your comments seriously unless you debate in a seriousness manner.
^^^ I meant “serious” manner; I was going to say “with any seriousness” but edited the first part without amending the second. This will teach me for putting up xmas decorations (or being ordered by my wife to leave the PC alone) and engaging in a discussion where I’m being accused of racism.
Such is life.
There’s a lot of “Hitchens was great because of my confirmation bias” going on here! Along with “Hitchens was right about everything!!!” sainting going on from people who apparently aren’t able to do more than think in black and white. While I didn’t agree with Hitchens about some things (and did about some others), my respect for him is based upon his talent as a writer and orator and not simply because he’s an ideological object to be used to affirm my own ideology. Those who are trying to use him simply as an ideological object aren’t actually showing any respect to him as a human being by trying to make him into some kind of infallible saint. Ah, the irony of Saint Hitch and the religious crusade of his uncritical followers – kind of sad really.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, how when we have to give the guy (whatever overrated white dude we’re talking about) a break, its ALWAYS giving him a pass on his misogyny/racism/homphobia/etc.
Definitely lets all the rest of us know where we stand in the hierarchy, huh. Beneath books.
I wonder if these same guys would be so eager to defend a female version of Hitch who made lost of racist and misandrist comments.
Why can’t we like his work while at the same time admitting he was, in some respects, completely and utterly wrong?
Is this the “a man is his work” fallacy at work?
“So, you are effectively saying that I am gambling on the idea that people have no access to the internet where they can search for information to disprove what I have wrote?”
Well, one would think it’s impossible for someone with access to a rich information source to ignore it, but psychologically, it’s very, very easy, an thus common ;)
____________________
“Take the parallel with the US immigration system.”
Ok, I’ll give you that.
“No it doesn’t. The fear that the otherS will Otherise the good white children is a long standard trope in Supreamicistism.”
Granted, as well, even though it’s not Supremacism but Xenophobia.
Having that said, opposition to a religion that’s different from another religion is an even more valid concern than immigration could ever be (which is basically just: “less people in our country so we don’t suffer financially”).
Immigration concerns rooted in the violent or unpleasant tendencies of the given immigrants’ culture, on the other hand, is basically the same issue as religion – as religion doesn’t get any special treatment, and people are evaluated by their mentality, tendencies and actions either way.
Can a suspicion of racism be raised? Like in a “I’m watching you!” way? Sure, but if the arguments have nothing to do with it and might as well be valid, that’s where it should stop.
Bringing up suspicions of racism in every second sentence comes off as paranoia, and/or a really douchey form of a cop-out. Radical, oppressive and especially violent (political) Islam is more widespread and more realized than domestic Christianity.
Not informed about radical Christianity in foreign countries, although I’ve heard that Uganda’s got it way worse with the homophobia than the USA.
Just as the USA in the past, so I guess I’m racist against black people, as well as the racist American from decades ago ;)
Bah, *America*.
“I wonder if these same guys would be so eager to defend a female version of Hitch who made lost of racist and misandrist comments.”
Just FYI, misandry gets more of a pass in our society than misogyny.
The Sharon Osbourne may have achieved a “cult classic” status, but I can’t imagine the wide uproar over a reversed situation.
Was Hitchens misogynistic? Well, I’m not familiar with the vast majority of his work (especially the written work, and the work from past decades), but if the allegations are based on nothing else but:
-his article about unfunny women, and the subsequent clip
-calling women “dear” on a few occasions (never without a mischievous / ironic smile)
-leaving his pregnant wife,
then they’re a joke.
A personal misstep / failure in a relationship, or with regard to a female friend, is just that, no matter how bad it is.
The article is a very mild form of “misogyny” if at all, and contains a portion of (self-deprecating) misandry to balance it out. At worst, it’s really just a deluded analysis of harmless gender clichés. Even saying “women can’t drive” would be infinitely more offensive than that.
If there are any valid grounds to accuse him of actual misogyny, then very well, but these aren’t those.
I did not agree with Hitchens’ position on the Iraq War. I think Iraq is one of the great blunders in American history. But this entry and some of the responses are outrageous slander. Particularly the suggestion that Hitchens believed in “slaughtering civilians,” an outlandish statement that is not supported by what he actually wrote or uttered.
It may surprise some of us on the far-left, but not everyone who supports a war is a “bloodthirsty barbarian and a club-carrying primitive.” Scores of intelligent, civilized people in history have believed that war can be useful and necessary. Hitchens believed this of the Iraq War. He may have been wrong, and I believe he was, but to extrapolate from that pro-war position that he wanted Iraqi civilians dead is absurd. His very motivation for supporting the war was Saddam’s slaughter of civilians, as well as the insurgency’s targeting of civilians.
You’re shitting me right?
Also. Who?
Only if you give him the extreme benefit of the doubt that he didn’t explicitly call it that and thought it was justified and in the right.
Which means that just about damn near everyone who commits an attrocity wasn’t pro-atrocity.
Here’s a hint, can anyone remember a single war that wasn’t SOOOOOOOO damn important or posed such a great risk to us that we had to sacrifice our values and ideals in order to prevent the enemy from winning?
Considering how easily we throw away said ideals, one questions why we even have them at all.
It’s absurdly easy to be pro-human rights and anti-war crimes in peace time. Hitchen’s sadly shows how hard it is to actually have the moral fortitude to keep your humanity in face of an actual enemy.
No, I’m not. There are, of course, different forms and areas of sexism, and in some cases, the misogyny is inside the blind spot.
But in terms of which gender is more easily condemned as violent, or empathized with when violence is inflicted on them, there’s no contest – misandry wins.
Imagine a reverse situation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrvDhSB7GHk
Ignore the poster of the video and his coments, btw, he’s an epic douchebag (=sexist; reacts with misogyny to misandry, and thinks he’s got a point; fuck him).
Ing: I SPEAK FOR THE HIVEMIND GROUPTHINK
Again, the enemy we are dealing with are not acting with a rational cause. We have an enemy which is willing to use children to promote a religious agenda. A religion based on men in power claiming to receive messages from an omnipotent being.
It’s no longer about morality in the sense that it is a necessary evil to harm certain groups of people whether we like it or not. This is not a modern day witch-hunt where parties are guilty. It’s even more pressing when these theocracies attain nuclear weaponry. And I’m not juts talking about the Middle East; the same problem exists in North Korea.
Someone is going to win. Which side are you on is the question. I have faced this question (I am ex-military). Hard decisions have to be made. We need to provide rational reasons for our actions in all circumstances but this doesn’t mean that a rational decision is always what the moral right is during peace time. It’s completely naive to think we can behave ourselves entirely when faced with a war run by terrorists.
I could be wrong. I’m willing to accept that I am because that’s how an open and honest debate should be conducted. I don’t appreciate being called a racist by certain people on here for spelling out an obvious concern in British politics. I take the same line with fundamentalist Islam as I do with evangelical Christianity which, unfortunately, is also gaining some prominence in my home town.
Let’s remember again: Saddam Hussein did not have WMD and there was good reason to believe he did not; one million Iraqis dead because of our war as of 2008; more than four million displaced as of 2007,
five million displaced as of 2008; five million orphans as of 2008.
Christopher Hitchens was a war correspondent for many years. He knew the costs of war, and could have predicted this. He agitated for war anyway, and so this blood is partially on his hands.
(Saddam was rational enough to reach out to the United States and invite US inspectors into Iraq; his offers were rejected because the Bush administration was not interested in any peaceful outcome that would allow Saddam to remain in power.)
We could have done worse than leaving him in power.
In fact, we have done worse.
An AP article that was passed around in 2003 to promote the war:
That million is the highest estimate available of the total number of people killed by Saddam, and it’s opposition propaganda. We should expect that the human rights orgs’ estimates are closer to the truth. But just for the sake of argument, let’s take the million figure.
That’s about 1,000,000 Iraqis killed by Saddam between 1979 and 2003.
And about 1,000,000 Iraqis killed in the US invasion between 2003 and 2007.
We managed to kill Iraqis about six times more efficiently than Saddam did. And we’ve killed plenty more since 2007.
+++++
And you warmongering assholes want us to kill a similar number of Iranians. Why? What good will it do?
We’ll forget the number of treaties broken and undertakings reneged upon then? Saddam took the position of someone who was hiding something. And nuclear weaponry is not something to be sniffed at. Whatever the argument, I would rather we had some level of control over that than the alternative. That’s probably not what people like to hear or consider but I have seen humanitarians scared out of their wits who have talked people like me into taking action when the stakes were raised. Trust me on this; when people are placed into a certain situation, you get to see their fears and their real desires come to the fore. Self-preservation tends to be the first thing which comes through.
Sure, they are as guilty as hell afterwards but human nature is rarely so transparent. I have seen it from hardened veterans of war to the most virulent anti-war demonstrators.
The worst that can be levelled at the nations that decided to act was that they should have done so when he was carrying out ethnic cleansing against the Kurds years before (if they wish to argue the case on humanitarian grounds).
You’re a moron. But Hitchens was not a moron. He was a war correspondent and knew what the outcome would likely be.
It is not rational to impute naive intentions to someone who understands what they’re doing. The best we can say about Hitchens is that he did not care how many Iraqis died; he knew any war would result in Iraqis dying at a higher rate than they were dying under Saddam. He took a deontological stance, that Saddam “deserved” to be deposed no matter what the cost in civilian lives.
It was stupid of him, and history should remember his indifference to real human suffering; he preferred poetic justice more than human lives.
[OT]
ॐ:
I hope you don’t include me in that supposition, on the basis that I linked to Hitchens speaking about the demographic ‘bomb’ Iran’s leadership created and now faces.
I assume you’re referring to the US and UK breaking international law and violating their commitments to the UN.
Again, not true. He attempted to bring US inspectors into the country because he had nothing to hide. Bush wanted war instead.
The United States government knew that he did not have nuclear weapons, and the yellowcake forgeries were revealed to the public 11 days before the invasion. This did not give Hitchens pause.
We always did have control over that. Airstrikes against potential nuclear sites were always an option. The Bush administration did not want peace.
Actually, no. The literal fact is that the worst that can be levelled at these nations is they killed Iraqis at a rate six times higher than Saddam did.
This is not something you can wave away. The fact is, no matter how bad Saddam ever was, the United States has been six times worse.
I don’t know, I can’t see the video. But you don’t have to be coy about it. If you endorse war against Iran, then I include you. If you do not, then I don’t.
[meta]
ॐ, ah, I wondered whether your #150 was related to my #149.
(The text of that snippet summarises Christopher’s contention:
Journalist Christopher Hitchens comments on the consequences of the age demographic in Iran. Hitchens points out that nearly half of the Iranian population is under 25, which has resulted in what he calls a “baby-boomerang.” “The Mullahs have by accident … brought about a generation that doesn’t like them.”)
On sexism:
«So far, most of the eulogies of Christopher have come from men, and there’s a reason for that. He moved in a masculine world, and for someone who prided himself on his wide-ranging interests, he had virtually no interest in women’s writing or women’s lives or perspectives. I never got the impression from anything he wrote about women that he had bothered to do the most basic kinds of reading and thinking, let alone interviewing or reporting—the sort of workup he would do before writing about, say, G.K. Chesterton, or Scientology or Kurdistan. It all came off the top of his head, or the depths of his id. Women aren’t funny. Women shouldn’t need to/want to/get to have a job. The Dixie Chicks were “fucking fat slags” (not “sluts,” as he misremembered later). And then of course there was his 1989 column in which he attacked legal abortion and his cartoon version of feminism as “possessive individualism.” I don’t suppose I ever really forgave Christopher for that.
It wasn’t just the position itself, it was his lordly condescending assumption that he could sort this whole thing out for the ladies in 1,000 words that probably took him twenty minutes to write. “Anyone who has ever seen a sonogram or has spent even an hour with a textbook on embryology knows” that pro-life women are on to something when they recoil at the idea of the “disposable fetus.” Hmmmm… that must be why most OB-GYNs are pro-choice and why most women who have abortions are mothers. Those doctors just need to spend an hour with a medical textbook; those mothers must never have seen a sonogram. Interestingly, although he promised to address the counterarguments made by the many women who wrote in to the magazine, including those on the staff, he never did. For a man with a reputation for courage, it certainly failed him then. (Years later, when he took up the question of abortion again in Vanity Fair, he said basically the exact same things, using the same straw-women arguments. Time taught him nothing, because he didn’t want to learn.)»
And all you have is the benefit of hindsight love moderately . I’m not arguing from that; I’m justifying the reasoning at the time and I would still stick to some messages I raised even with the benefit of hindsight.
Show me a blog or something you wrote at that time or juts prior, with a link, and I’ll take your comments much more seriously on the matter. If not, your comments are only worth looking at in the context of hindsight.
No, I did not click on your link. I was responding to a general sentiment that I detected from sassandrian and absolute.
“I would rather we had some level of control ……” @ 221
Not worrying for the moment who “we” might be, let us look at the facts in early 2003.
There were UN inspectors on the ground, Saddam was giving them the run-around but they were on top of that and weeks from a conclusive report. Two no-fly zones were in force and effective, to protect the Kurds in the North and the Shia in the South. Economic sanctions were in place, with unfortunate side-effects for local people but being broken only by the sort people who had cheered Rumsfeld on when he was busy sucking up to Saddam and arming him to crush, as he thought, Iran.
The sanctions were tough on the poor, the master-plan to obliterate Iran had not worked but, even so, that sounds to me like control.
That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?
Now, look a couple of months later. Yes, the Ba’athist regime has been crushed but so has the infrastructure and all the Iraqi soldiers deprived of a living have gone off with as much weaponry as they can carry. So stage one of the mess is straight banditry. It gets worse after than.
An army of occupation has responsibilities under international law. What do you do if you are in the White House in 2003? You deny you are in occupation, refuse to accept those responsibilities and open up a vast theme park and training ground for any nutter who can lay his hands upon a gun, among whom must be numbered a proportion of the US military contractors.
That’s definitely not control, is it?
Look, I’m not a military lawyer but here is a neat list of international law as it applies to hostilities. It doesn’t only apply where your enemy has been proved to have entirely rational motives – some in Iraq did, like getting something to eat. It applies all the time and everywhere: you might care to read it.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/lawwar.asp
You have that benefit as well. Don’t waste it by continuing to be wrong.
Which ones?
Dude, no. I was an adult at the time and I remember the whole thing. I remember the yellowcake forgeries. I remember Scott Ritter and Hans Blix telling us there was no evidence of WMD. I remember the UN refusing to go along with an invasion because they were not finished with their inspections. I am linking to contemporary sources before the war began. I am showing you what the public knew at the time, what Hitchens knew at the time.
Dude, it wouldn’t make a difference about Hitchens if I was for the war at the time. What Hitchens knew, and what was available to the public, has fuck all to do with me. You can’t excuse Hitchens on the basis that I was not commenting on blogs in 2003.
Where have I excused Hitchens or even claimed I was right?
All I see is a lot of posturing and arguments from hindsight. Everyone anti-war acts, in the present climate, as someone who knew this all along. It’s nonsense. Everyone went along with the governments at the time. Hundreds, if not thousands, of highly intellectual people all bought into the Iraq War.
This does not mean that they were right; but all wars can be looked at, in hindsight, as being extremely bad for a host of reasons. There was a guy at my university who made a compelling case that Britain and her allies should have allowed Germany to roughshod Europe to have saved millions of lives all because some secret documents were released showing that Hitler wanted an accord with Britain.
Would you agree that WWII was pointless because of the lives lost too?
Do you understand when the invasion happened?
This is not hindsight.
This is not hindsight.
No. 1 in 5 US Americans opposed the war from the very beginning. That includes most liberals and most African Americans.
This is not even remotely similar, since as you specify, it would have involved the German invasion of much of Europe. Millions would have died anyway; you’re just talking about saving British lives.
Saddam Hussein was not threatening anyone. Saddam was not invading anyone. Saddam was reaching out to America not for an alliance in war, but to avoid any war.
Actually I would say that you are an apologist for fascism by making this comparison.
If this is you explicitly claiming to be wrong, then I agree with you: you are wrong.
And if you aren’t trying to excuse Hitchens, you are doing an excellent job of acting like it.
False. Some knew the facts, those who were (and are) for and against the war. You still don’t know them or don’t mind lying about them.
Your bullshit? Yes.
False.
True. So the fuck what?
You apparently have the impression that “looking at X in hindsight” means getting the facts right about X. Since that’s what you’re not doing, it doesn’t matter which facts you get wrong. After all, you never claimed you were right.
Bullshitter.
Who the fuck cares? I asked you a question above. Which “messages” would you stick to?
@ love moderately ॐ 224
You seem to have missed out the betrayal of the Kurds in Northern Iraq during the first Gulf War. That was when they had the chance to remove Saddam, but then let him back into power. Bush’s take was something along the lines of finishing what daddy started … by way of the Second Gulf War. There was, throughout, a complete and utter lack of human compassion in their cold calculations.
…………….
@ maureenbrian 230
Ah yes, that reminds me of something else to add to the list. There was a no-FIXED-wing-fly zone in Kurdish (Northern) Iraq after the first war. Saddam took his helicopter gunships up north and shot seven kinds of shit out of the Kurdish population while the allies looked on.
Of historical interest:
the website of Veterans Against the Iraq War in December 2002.
—–
Dear Veteran:
With the prospect of a major war looming just over the horizon, and the threats of more suffering from violence growing, the times are a changing — for the worse!
If you are convinced that a U.S. invasion of Iraq is wrong, then you are confronted with a choice: You can ignore the growing crisis, dismiss it as another political conflict beyond your influence, or you can try to stop a war. You can band together with other veterans and give voice to what all of us know is wrong: a war with Iraq.
While others pontificate and theorize about war, veterans know about its realities. The present Administration is led by men and women who chose not to go into the military and today have little understanding of war and no comprehension of its consequences. They do not know what you know, or feel what you feel. For all too many of them, war is little more than an abstract exercise in geopolitics.
Whether you fought in a war, performed your duty in a support capacity or served our nation during a time of peace, it’s all the same: America needs you, again! Whether you are liberal, conservative, libertarian, centrist, green or whatever — our country needs you. Once, you put your body on the line in the service of our nation. You can now serve our nation with your experience and your wisdom.
This website will be a source for information and analysis, and in the coming weeks, a robust forum for discussion and debate. Please read the Statement of Purpose below, if you agree with it, fill out the form and submit. There is a separate form for family members. When Congress returns in January, this Statement with the list of signatories will be delivered to Congress and disseminated to the media.
Stewart Nusbaumer
Igor Bobrowsky
Jan Barry
Statement of Purpose
Veterans Against The Iraq War is a coalition of American veterans who oppose war with Iraq.
Until and unless the current U.S. Administration provides evidence which clearly demonstrates that Iraq or any other nation poses a clear, immediate danger to our country, we oppose all of the Administration’s pre-emptive and unilateral military and diplomatic activities geared towards provoking or initiating a military conflict with Iraq. Furthermore, we cannot support any war that is initiated without a formal Declaration of War by Congress, as our Constitution requires.
Although we detest the dictatorial policies of Saddam Hussein and sympathize with the tragic plight of the Iraqi people, we oppose unilateral and pre-emptive U.S. military intervention on the grounds that it would establish a dangerous precedent in the conduct of international affairs, that it could easily lead to an increase of violent regional instability and the spread of a much wider conflict, that it would place needless and unacceptable financial burdens on the American people, that it would further divert us from addressing critical domestic priorities, and that it would distract us from our stated goal of destroying international terrorists and their lairs.
Furthermore, Veterans Against The Iraq War does not believe the American military can or should be used as the police-force of the world by any Administration, Republican or Democrat. Consequently, we believe that the lives and well-being of our nation’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines should not be squandered or sacrificed for causes other than the direct defense of our people and our nation.
Finally, we believe that a pre-emptive and unilateral US military attack on Iraq would be illegal, unnecessary, counterproductive and present a truly dire threat to our vital international interests and basic national security. As military veterans, we have a unique understanding of war and know the many hidden truths that lie behind easy theories and promises, as well as behind the tragic consequences that even victory brings. We therefore call on all like-minded American veterans to join and support VAIW in its efforts to avert a national tragedy and an international calamity before it begins.
theopontes,
If I am mistaken then I apologise but this is what the House of Commons Select Committee on Defence published in August 2000.
THE NO-FLY ZONES
Humanitarian basis for the no-fly zones
27. The no-fly zones were established by the US, the UK and France after the Gulf War for humanitarian reasons in an attempt to stop Saddam’s repression of Kurdish people in the north of Iraq, and the Shia population in the south. The aim is to prevent Iraq being able to attack these people from the air. The Secretary of State commented—
Previously Saddam has used helicopter gun ships to repress the Kurdish population in the north and both fixed wing aircraft and helicopter gun ships to repress Shia muslims in the south. Coalition patrols prevent him using his air force in this way but there is no reason to suppose he would not resume the tactics if the patrols ceased.[63]
The northern no-fly zone operates north of the 36th parallel and was established in April 1991 as part of Operation ‘Provide Comfort’ to give humanitarian assistance to the Kurds. It is now known as Operation Northern Watch. The southern no-fly zone was established in August 1992 to protect the Shia population. It originally covered the area south of the 32nd parallel but, following new incursions by Iraqi forces, in September1996 the zone was extended northwards to the 33rd parallel and now covers about a third of the territory of Iraq (see maps at the front of this Report).[64]
28. Mr Simon Webb, the MoD’s Director General of Operational Policy, provided us with some details of the sort of attacks on minority peoples which had occurred before the no-fly zones were established, including the use of chemical weapons against Kurdish people at Halabjah in March 1988, which caused thousands of casualties.[65] Similarly, in southern Iraq—
The operation which stimulated the no fly zone in the south was against the Shi’a Arabs in the Delta there, which led to the displacement … of 100,000 to 150,000 people, who were displaced by those operations, which included aircraft and helicopter gun ships.[66]
There is evidence that Saddam’s intentions towards the minority peoples has not changed and, although he has less ability to attack them from the air, repression on a lesser scale has continued through ground attacks. The Secretary of State told us there was photographic evidence that—
… from time to time there have been houses that have been bulldozed and villages that have been flattened… We can see from the air … that he continues—particularly in the south—to use his ability to dominate the ground to perpetrate these kinds of attacks on civilian populations.[67]
The link is here – http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmdfence/453/45306.htm
Yes, we should never, ever, ever forgive the Hitch for opposing Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda and Islamic fascists.
Incidentally, found this:
http://barelyablog.com/?p=45705
Pharyngula and WND columnists, united at last
I have no problem in forgiving Christopher Hitchens for being one of a million or more cheerleaders for an illegal and ineffectually conducted war.
I might have hoped for better from someone with his experience and his education but, I fear, his class and his alpha male tendencies got the better of him. Besides, he is dead and there are quite enough of the living far more responsible for what happened than Hitchens ever was.
What does forgiveness even mean? We stop talking about what he did wrong?
+++++
the website of Veterans for Peace in February 2003
particularly interesting are these links:
“Vets To Top US Commanders: REMEMBER NUREMBERG”
“MAINE LEGISLATURE PASSES RESOLUTION ON IRAQ”
+++++
here is a similar resolution published in a Maine newspaper in February 2003
2 January 2003:
“Arab public opinion is passionately opposed to the war, but it is going to be very difficult for Arab governments to be opposed in a significant and meaningful way.
Therefore, they have two choices – to support the war or appear to be relatively neutral.
The only way to maintain their course and prevent public discontent is to be more repressive. We can see this already. Most people in the region believe war has become inevitable, and governments are essentially unleashing their security forces to make arrests and to ensure that no one organises any significant opposition.”
What the CIA declassified on October 7 2002, publicized two days later:
lm,
You misunderstand. When I wrote “we” I mean “you”. You’ll never forgive him for going after fascists while you lot were defending and apologising for them.
Right. Everyone in the fucking world except you and George Bush was in love with Saddam Hussein.
I don’t think I’m quite ready to declare the Republican Party the enemy.
Yet.
frankboyd: your misuse of the term makes you an apologist for actual fascism as well.
One million Iraqi dead, at a rate six times higher than Saddam ever did. And Hitchens helped. Why should he be forgiven for encouraging murder? Why should we stop talking about how he encouraged murder?
+++++
I missed this earlier.
Well, that sure sounds like racist bullshit. But chigau and KG asked vaughanjones for citations. Let’s see what he found:
That sure doesn’t say what he wanted it to say. Let’s see, about 21% of people in Britain today have no religious affiliation, that’s about 13 million. And you’re trying to tell us that 2 million active Muslims in the year 2035 will outnumber not just these 13 million, but all non-Muslims combined. The total population then is expected to be about 73 million. How are these numbers even supposed to add up, unless, unless we’re planning for zombie apocalypse?
Well now I can say this with some confidence. If you make race-baiting statements that you can’t even back up with data, you’re definitely a racist; it’s not a matter of a misunderstanding.
Love moderately… Ah. I am a “moron” yet I opposed the war and never believed that it would be free of civilian casualties, because I insist that we not slander a man with assertions that he *wanted* civilians dead (I wasn’t disputing that he knew that civilians would die, another issue entirely if you can’t comprehend obvious differences) when his words and positions do not bear that out. It is one thing to say that someone is indifferent to civilian casualties, it is another thing entirely to assert that he publicly advocated the murder of civilians, as this entry does.
You are moron for engaging in cliches, accusing everyone who was pro-war of being intrinsically bent on indiscriminate murder, which is inaccurate. War and the reasons why people support war are more complicated than that, to not realize that is a failure of comprehension. To say that Hitchens advocated mass murder of non-combatants is a lie, regardless of your myopia.
Oh I’m sorry. I missed the point where you showed that this was different from the LAST time we had an enemy that was so bad we needed to sacrifice all of our values and rights to survive.
So was the USSR better or worse than Al Queda? Than Hitler? Than the Vietcon? What level of evil does our enemy have to be for us to sacrifice our decency now? Can we keep human rights and freedom if we’re at war with the French or Chinese? What’s the cut off?
It’s bullshit. It’s always the worst threat we ever faced, blah blah blah. It’s always the unacceptable enemy. It is always us versus them. And it’s so often bullshit.
lovemoderately Actually I would say that you are an apologist for fascism by making this comparison.
And I would say that you are out of order. I was asking you a question about how far your emotional fallacies stretched, not whether you agreed with a position you thought I was taking.
I’m not even sure you deserve any more responses from me for accusing me of being an apologist for fascism. You have absolutely no clue who I am or about my family history.
And I haven’t, and would not, stoop to libellous insinuations in this kind of debate. The issue, whether you like it or not, is far from settled.
Grow up and then other adults will take you seriously.
I’m sorry wasn’t there a military yahoo just above who was going ona bout making the tough decisions?
Here’s one: Leave a despot in power who might kill hundreds to thousands, or start a war against them causing a near garuntee of thousands of casualties and destruction of the infrastructure.
Tough decision.
Awwww, poor twooffour MRA troll. If only I’d have seen that hilarious stupid and wrong post yesterday, I could have crowned him Dipshit Troll of the Day. No trophies for being uselessly stupid for twooffour. *insert sad face*
++
Decency? What decency? We can’t even get our own troops to stop attacking their fellow troops, forget what they do to the people native to whatever country the troops are in.
Of course its bullshit. Our hands (that is, America’s hands) are hardly clean. We have no moral authority to stand on. But, oh boy, are we good at propaganda. We were always at war with Eurasia!
With respect, our actions where bloody schizophrenic. When confronted with someone parking a tank next to a house, we *tried* to take the tank out, without damaging the house. This doesn’t always work, and it hasn’t been reported how many times it missed, but we made the attempt. Yet, we then turned around and allowed groups like Blackwater, with religious agendas, and no kind of code of honor, or military discipline, to be hired, and they shot down civilians. We ignored warnings about what would happen, where it was inconvenient, accepted them when it was convenient, and generally made a complete fucking mess of the whole thing.
Initially, their was, for anyone paying attention to some bits of coverage, but not completely informed, at least a sense that there was a real intent to fix a mistake that was made when we had the guy on the ropes before, and instead left him alone. Then, things started looking funny, then unlikely, and finally, there was the ah-ha! moment, when you figured out that not only was the whole thing lies to get us in there, but, worse, the people directing actions, funneling money in to try to hold it together, etc., only gave a shit about their own opinions on the subject, some of them where possibly insane, and virtually every damn one of them was an incompetent, who refused to listen to anyone that said the opposite of what they wanted to hear.
I can forgive the ones that had support for it at the start. I was one of them. But, to dare suggest, given the state of the insane mess that we ended up with, all the double dealing, private armies, and other crap that went in after, etc., and still say that the US, under the administration we had at the time, had *any* clue, right, or rational goals, was a case of, “Its a good thing we did it.”, is bloody insane.
I am all for kicking some of these crazies out, was then, still am, but it requires local support, it requires listening to what those locals want, it requires a real plan on how to get them to comprehend that replacing the current tyrant won’t do them a damn bit of good, if they simply replace them with another one, or vote on into power. It requires having people doing shit that know what the hell the people we are supposedly helping think, and why, and what support they need, not jumping in and doing it ourselves, then hiring people that are just as bad as the asshole we kicked out, to run protection for contractors, or the like. It requires that we know what the hell we are doing, not guessing, hoping, or ignoring all facts, in favor of some fantasy about what will happen, when its all over.
In means, if you are going to hammer infrastructure, for example, that you use the sabotage field manual, not a bloody bomb (and certainly not one that levels the whole damn building), since you need the shit to still work after, just not working while the enemy needs it. And many other logistics requirements, that follow your “victory”, instead of only thinking in terms of how to shoot people.
No one gave a shit about anything that contradicted the idea that it would all magically go right, after we captured the asshole in charge of it.
So, in retrospect, we shouldn’t have, given the people in charge of it. In terms of the information available at the time… There was no reason to suspect anything near the level of delusion, incompetence, racism, ignorance, and complete idiocy that would arise during, or after.
That’s where you make your mistake. It’s not another issue.
If he knew that civilians would die, and he wanted to invade, then he believed they should die for his Cause.
I agree that the reasons why people support war are fairly complex, but we can also fairly say that people want the consequences they are aware will result from their actions more than they want the consequences they are aware would result from other actions.
If Hitchens had strongly enough wanted civilians to not die, that would have influenced his choices differently.
Hitchens knew the cost in human lives of trading peace for war, he wanted to trade peace for war, therefore he wanted to trade in those human lives.
The so called Tea Party on the other hand… has imho done some things that, where the law still in place to prosecute such things, could be argued to be bordering on treason. Not the least being the continued support of the idea that shipping US money to foreign banks (where a lot of the 1% keep it), governments (bribe money to get jobs shipped there), and manufacturing, isn’t anti-US, while robbing the poor is pro-US.
vaughnjones
It’s pretty simple. Don’t equate not-fascism to fascism, and I won’t accuse you of minimizing fascism and thus making apologetics for fascism.
At least two problems with this quasi-sexist statement:
You don’t have to evaluate a 6x rate of death emotionally to notice that it is a 6x rate of death. You don’t have to assign any value to Iraqi lives at all, to note that the war was not in the Iraqis’ interests.
But if you aren’t evaluating a 6x rate of death with any emotion, there’s something wrong with you.
I do know that you are the kind of person who minimizes fascism. I hope your family is disappointed with you.
So, that’s how you remember it. But you also note that you were a sucker who supported the war in the beginning.
What accounts for so many who were not fooled?
So this is the recipe for making you a sucker again in the future. Good to know.
Yes
there
was.
Or, third option – Let a lot of people keep dying, while working with those inside the country to eventually remove them, without replacing the dictator with a worse one.
That one is a whole hell of a lot harder, isn’t as visible, might cause as many deaths as going to war against them, but the outcome has a bit higher chance of being superior to leaving things as they are, or trying to replace the regime.
But, if all you are looking at is time, how visible the result will be (i.e., if it gets you reelected, when it works), option three is right out. If you look at body counts, they all pretty much suck, and the best you can claim is that you didn’t personally have to wipe blood of your own hands as a result, if you pick the first option of leaving the guy in power.
Not sure this is exactly the morally better position. Its like dealing with some guy, holding hostages, who is intent on killing all the people he is holding hostage. If you leave him alone, they die, if you move on him, maybe more die, because there is no practical means to breach the building that won’t kill people that are hiding from him, if you simply hope that some security guard, or person in the building, manages to take him down, maybe the same number die, or less, or more. Which solution is superior? The one where you just don’t act, since you won’t then be the one whose bullets slice through an innocent? Seems pretty simple that “none of the above” are any less repugnant, when talking about one nut, in a building. Make it a government, and thousands of people, and suddenly it matters that its someone else’s hands getting bloody, while people die?
No, you try to talk to the bastard, and get them to let the hostages go, while trying to work out how to get rid of the bastard with “minimal” hazard. Both options you give are wrong, the third option, of letting someone inside do it, isn’t much better, unless you are helping, and your sure the guy you are helping isn’t just as insane. But, if you do have to do it yourself, you make sure you know what the hell you are doing. Doing nothing, isn’t really justifiable, as far as I am concerned, unless, apparently, you are talking about 10,000 people, instead of 10, and a dictator, instead of a lone nut, with no army behind him.
But, going in without consideration, or in denial, of consequences, *is* the morally inferior position, in all cases. And that was what we did.
love moderately… Supporting war does indeed entail the assumption that civilians will die, and the acceptance of that fact. That is largely why I oppose war, and this war in particular. But that is a far cry from the hyperbolic claim made in this entry that Hitchens was a public advocate for war crimes against civilians, that he wanted to see civilians “slaughtered,” which is what I denied. There is a difference between supporting a war with the expectation that civilians will die and supporting a war in the hopes that civilians will die. If you consider that a trivial distinction ethically speaking, I will not argue, but it is still not the same thing.
I am a fan of Myers and this blog, and I understand the need to not whitewash Hitchens or make him into an atheist saint. But crude exaggerations do not help either; Hitchens never got up on a stage and said “Thirty Iraqi children died today. Success.”
They do, like Saddam, care for their own survival and their own power, though. They know the people of Iran have lost the burning desire to die as martyrs that the previous generation had in the 1980s.
Are you sure they could kill enough Iranians to stay in power? The way they handled the last few mass protests, I got the impression they did everything to 1) stay in power without changes and 2) avoid a civil war. That’s probably because they’d lose it.
The carpet bombing actually made it more popular for some time. It’s like how Bush’s approval ratings suddenly jumped from “meh” to 90 % or more on 9/12.
Huh. Interesting. Ref, please!
Over cyber-here, “cupcake” seems to be applied to men who would use it that way. I suppose it’s a method to make them feel their own weapons.
You keep using the word we. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Pharyngulites didn’t topple Mossadegh, Gnu Atheists didn’t, neo-Darwinists didn’t…
Really… did someone shit into your brain?
Hitchens’ fear clouded his eyes, so he stopped looking at the evidence and listened only to his fear anymore.
And now you’re repeating that exact same logical fallacy.
Argument from ignorance.
Look at the birth rates of second- or third-generation Muslim descendants of immigrants to the EU.
Hint: they’re identical to everyone else’s. Education is stronger than institutionalized misogyny.
BTW, today there was a huge protest by women on Tahrir Square. The cause was a YouTube video from 3 days ago in which soldiers beat up a protesting woman, rip some of her clothes off, and kick her in chest and belly. The women of Egypt are mad as mythical hell and won’t take it anymore.
Yes, and? Where’s the difference between Turkey (Sunni/Alevi Islam) and Poland (Catholicism) or Hungary (nationalism)?
Excuse me, who cares?
We’re at war? Who, again, is “we”?
That’s in addition to the weapons that were already private property. Under Saddam, as (no doubt) now, every man who considered himself one owned a Kalashnikov and ammo for it.
(So much for the myth that dictators automatically ban private gun ownership. Saddam didn’t need to, and he knew it.)
…out of a total population of 73 million? They’re both harmless!
ROTFLMAO! What a blatant stink tank! Can’t they choose a less obvious name, like “Heritage Foundation” or “Cato Institute”? “Christian Research, a think-tank”! I can’t stop laughing!
Fitting that the Torygraph published that rot.
The total population of the US is something like 310 million today. Imagine how it’ll grow till 2035. 6.2 million out of that many – really, who cares?
Not anytime soon, frankly. İstanbul, Ankara and Antalya could join today, but the rest of the country… :-/
Funny that it’s long been US policy to push the EU to take Turkey in.
…so… you know one Muslim and extrapolate to all of them?
Also, the apostrophe belongs between i and a. It’s a desperate attempt to transcribe this letter.
The one in Qur’ān is another desperate attempt to deal with another letter.
A dark fantasy of white supremacists. :-)
If you see it as a war, the terrorists have won.
That’s what they want. They want to be seen by the world as a mighty army that fights, with all means necessary, for freedom and the religiously defined good. In reality, they’re just a few mafiosi with a bad business sense. To send the army against them is laughable; they’re a job for the FBI and comparable organizations.
Evidence trumps everything.
Yeah – from his own generals. He had to keep telling his generals he had WMD and had everything under control so they wouldn’t think he was weak and topple him. At the same time, he had to keep telling the rest of the world that he didn’t have WMD, which happened to be the truth, so they wouldn’t topple him. One of these little games was bound to fail.
It’s too bad what I wrote back then isn’t available anymore, because smirkingchimp.com has been taken offline, IIRC.
I remember the time between the alleged election of 2000 and the beginning of the war in 2003. I remember what I thought: that the Busheviki had incredible chutzpah to want a war against all evidence. I remember the yellowcake embarrassment and what Hans Blix said about the UN inspections he led. I remember very well how most of Europe wondered what the fuck was wrong with so many Americans and Britons – outside their countries, support for the war was negligible, before it broke out as well as afterwards.
Don’t be ridiculous.
LOL. Even the governments didn’t go along with each other!
Most people in the US went along with their government, because they didn’t know any better, bad as their media were and largely still are. Plenty of Britons went along with their government for similar reasons. That’s pretty much it. The government of Spain was voted out at the first opportunity, and that of Italy had to pull out of Iraq to avoid the same fate.
frankboyd is too stupid to grasp the concept of a war of evil against evil. He believes evil people only ever fight good people, so that every war automatically has a big-G Good side.
Actually, it fairly quickly turned into a war of evil against evil against evil against evil against evil: Bush against Saddam against al-Qaida against as-Sadr against the communist Mujahidin-e-Khalq. frankboyd, I’m sure, is stupid enough to believe every war has only two sides.
Is intent magic?
Mère deux ! I forgot to close an <i> tag somewhere.
love moderately,
You keep referencing the 1 million killed figure as if it is established fact. You should know that that number is far higher than most estimates and that the methodology used has been severely criticized.
well, good, I guess, because that would be like declaring the Nazi Party an enemy of the actual welfare of Germany AFTER WWII ended.
my point being, this cultural war in the US was already fought, and lost, by progressives.
the Republican party is no more an enemy now than Kim Jong Il was an enemy of North Korea.
Yeah, it’s terrible how women can’t have abortions, birth control is inaccessible, gays can’t marry or serve in the military, atheists are thrown into gulags….
Point being, if you’re going to surrender prematurely, you’ve already lost.
Oh, right, you’ve already fled.
Yeah, it’s terrible how women can’t have abortions
right, so the fact that it’s actually HARDER to get an abortion in many states now than it was 20 years ago tells you what, exactly?
gays can’t marry or serve in the military
California. ’nuff said.
Point being, if you’re going to surrender prematurely, you’ve already lost.
YOU HAVE ALREADY LOST.
If I trade $5 for a book, I may hope that the cashier will screw up and give my $5 back* plus the book, but it is fair to say that I want to spend that $5.
*I wouldn’t; I know how retail works and it’ll come out of the cashier’s paycheck.
+++++
It is consistent with the second Lancet survey, which as of 2006 determined a 95% confidence interval of 392000 to 942000 deaths.
If you like the Lancet survey better, there’s no problem with using that, but I pick the ORB survey because it is more recent and is consistent with the Lancet.
By one study, Spagat and Dougherty, which, if Google Scholar is correct, no other scientific researchers have ever cited.
«As is common during times of war, there is the absence of a centralized death registration system in Iraq. Direct methods of counting, whereby official death records of morgues, hospitals, and death certificates are consulted, are therefore unreliable. Given this, indirect methods of interviewing households throughout Iraq are the most reliable method of counting given the circumstances.»
… seriously, think about where your political spectrum is now.
your current mainstream democratic politician is where a mainstream republican was 20 years ago.
and you think you’re winning?
LOL
So when it’s halftime and you’re behind 3-2, it’s time to pick up the ball and flee to Hobbitland?
So when it’s halftime and you’re behind 3-2, it’s time to pick up the ball and flee to Hobbitland?
nope.
what you seem to miss is that the game ended yesterday, and those of us who played the entire season recognized we didn’t make the playoffs, and they cut the funding for our team by half, assuring that we would never make the playoffs again.
…since you seem to like simplistic sports analogies.
actually, let me amend that.
the game ended 30 years ago.
you weren’t even there as a fan in the stands.
I’ve been around a bit longer than 30 years.
No more simplistic than the war analogy you seem to prefer.
Which of course is bullshit. It’s not as simple as us v. them, one side winning and the other losing. Yes, I recognize that the politics of the two major parties here have shifted right, especially on economic issues, but also I’ve seen that on a lot of social issues (racism, acceptance of gays, religiosity) the country’s moved left.
So your simplistic declarations of defeat are, at best, premature.
The peer-reviewed studies were those by the Lancet, as well as the Iraq Family Health Survey.
The lowest of these estimates, that by the IFHS, still finds a 2x rate of death during the war.
So the very best one could say is that the US and UK have only been twice as bad as Saddam Hussein. The morally rational choice was, in any case, to leave Saddam in power.
For an ever growing percentage of American women, this is reality. Forced Birther politicians have made it inaccessible to a huge amount of (poor and mostly rural) women, and that number keeps growing.
There’s currently a law about to be put in place in PA that will shut down ALL clinics in the state that provide abortions.
I believe a similar law has already done that in Virginia (? Might have the wrong state).
Dems have always used women’s rights as a cudgel to browbeat them into voting dem, and then stuff us under the bus after the election. This is the result.
Ooh, I missed this earlier too. From vaughanjones:
Well,…
I am sure you already know this, love moderately ॐ, but Pat Buchanan has made the same argument for years.
Pat Buchanan and vaughanjones would get along quite well, I think.
So your simplistic declarations of defeat are, at best, premature.
you keep tellin’ yourself that.
come see me again when you feel the need to convince me that Brawndo has what plants crave.
So what you gonna do about it? Keep fighting, or declare defeat like our fishy friend?
So what you gonna do about it?
I weary of your blather.
what are YOU doing about it.
well?
come on now, details. show your work.
Nobody but Ichthyic likes to declare defeat around here. Please don’t mistake others for holding the same views.
What Illuminata was taking issue with is that you made statements which are not true in practice for many people. She’s got to argue against those statements just for the sake of accuracy, so that readers don’t get the wrong idea about just where we stand.
I can only speak personally about the situation for gay men, which has improved noticeably over the last decade. So I agree with your sentiment in part. But I don’t want the case to be overstated.
Race war?
I would have hoped that anyone would realise I was referring to the “human race”. If they need the clarification that this is what I was referring to, just in case, then they now have it.
You act like a fascist. In fact, you are or, rather, it’s clear to me that you are acting like one. Continued ad hominem bollocks and the usual shouts of racism; ripe for closing debate about subjects you think you know something about but have to dissolve your own strong arguments with very tiresome and weak ad hominem attacks. Why can’t you leave personal insults or insinuations out of the discussion? Because you are immature. You have not evolved a sense of proportion and you cannot debate with people properly.
You also act like a bully in trying to intimidate people who commit the very trivial “crime” of disagreeing with you. You need to learn that people do disagree; you should not be so dogmatic in your arguments and try to learn something from others as I always try to do.
As I said before, you are making assumptions about me as a person which you could not possibly know. You do not know who I am married to for example, or what my background is, or who my children are or indeed what race my children are etc etc.
You’ve misjudged this by a long shot and only serve to embarrass yourself with your ridiculous accusations.
“Is intent magic?”
A few magic words came to mind as a response to this shallow response, but I’ll turn the other cheek, as it were, and simply reiterate my straightforward point; you cannot accuse a man of lust for civilian blood merely because he supported a war that you disagreed with. It doesn’t bring anyone back from the dead if his intentions were good, nor did anything I wrote imply that. But that does not excuse the slanders accusing him of wanting non-combatants to be killed. That wasn’t his position. He supported the war because he opposed Saddam for killing civilians, and in doing so more civilians died. But to say that he called for murder of civilians is a lie, and no amount of flippancy will deter me from asserting that.
I loathed those who supported the Iraq War, and those who re-elected Bush, but I’m not going to say that the 62 million people who voted for Bush wanted Iraqi civilians to die. I’m sure some/many of them did, but it would be irresponsible to assume that they all did on the basis of their support for the war. Does that make it okay? I never said it did, so spare me the condescension, friend.
So I point out above that you overstate your case, and you come right back at me. And here I lie, hoist by my own petard.
So anyway, fair enough. But I will say this: at least in much of the US a woman can get an abortion without the need to have two consultants certify that the pregnancy is endangering her health. Unlike, say, New Zealand.
I wasn’t accusing Illuminata of declaring defeat–just making sure she understood my point.
Did you read the quotations at my link? The deaths of 3000 people on 9-11 left him exhilarated. He told of pleasure at that exhilaration. It was a reason for war.
As Robin says in his follow-up post,
He relished the battle (fought not by him) because it relieved his boredom.
I loathed those who supported the Iraq War, and those who re-elected Bush, but I’m not going to say that the 62 million people who voted for Bush wanted Iraqi civilians to die.
I’m sure at least some did, but it’s really irrelevant. Fact is, we as a nation let it happen. Whether we wanted to or not, we bear responsibility for it.
one of the main reasons I left is that I no longer even wanted even INDIRECT responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. When there is a large and sophisticated army, there will ALWAYS be those looking for the justification to use it.
it doesn’t matter that I didn’t vote for the idiot, or that I didn’t support the war, or even that I protested against it, or wrote my congresscritter at the time to vote against it.
fact is, just being there, contributing to the economy, paying taxes, being a citizen, meant I bore at least some responsibility for it.
I’ve met more than a few expats who feel the same way.
the game is stacked against you, and those that remain only whine and complain, and really do nothing to change it.
why should I have stayed to help you?
why?
vaughanjones,
It’s not a good idea to let people get away with making statements that appear to be racist without being called on it. If you meant “human race”, use that full term in the future, or say “our species”, and you will be less likely to be misunderstood.
I still think you are probably a racist, but I am happy to know that in this particular case you did not mean what you certainly appeared to be saying.
Ah yes. So many have died in the ad hominem camps.
(You’re still minimizing fascism; in fact you’re doubling down on it now.)
Because it is not socially responsible behavior to let probable racists portray themselves as not racists. It would be wrong of me not to point out how you sound like a racist.
you say:
“ran away.”
I say:
escaped.
…not the same thing.
you go on and keep trying to reform the prison from within, I’ll take the Midnight Express, thanks.
sc_b606d96be3a9d79b5f47f915b6533b7e:
See #285.
And Hitchens did want non-combatants to be killed in Iraq.
If he knew that civilians would die, and he wanted to invade, then he believed they should die for his Cause.
I agree that the reasons why people support war are fairly complex, but we can also fairly say that people want the consequences they are aware will result from their actions more than they want the consequences they are aware would result from other actions.
If Hitchens had strongly enough wanted civilians to not die, that would have influenced his choices differently.
Hitchens knew the cost in human lives of trading peace for war, he wanted to trade peace for war, therefore he wanted to trade in those human lives.
At no time have I said anything about “race”; you’re one of those people who see the word “Muslim” and immediately think “brown people”.
Your ignorance on the subject is astounding, it really is.
I’m well documented on the net as being against every religion as I believe it poses a direct threat to the existence of the human race (species… errrr whatever).
Really? In what way have I been “doubling down” (whatever that means) fascism? All I asked you was a question which you have ducked.
I happen to think we exist as a race independent of our ethnic background. I’ll use whatever term I see fit; I thought, in the context I used it, that it was clear I was not referring to ethnicity.
vaughanjones
Of course you did. See:
Now it’s only about you fluttering about what you really meant.
I as not referring to race in terms of “ethnicity”; I was referring to the “human race” (species).
You struggling with this concept too? If you think I was referring to “ethnicity”, or coming from the position of a “white supremacist”, then you also have to allow yourself to accept that only “brown people” can be the Muslims I referred to.
Or you can be logical and deduce that as I was referring to the threat the religion poses, as opposed to the “ethnicity” of those subscribing to the religion, based on the context I placed the discussion in.
You still then have it all to do because you know nothing about my own race, my children’s ethnicity, my wife’s ethnicity or any of my family’s.
Frankly, I don’t give a flying fuck. It was a reminder you can’t deny your own words when they’re visible on the same fucking page.
No, but I’ll bet you’re the kind who sees brown people and thinks “Muslims!”
You’re well documented right here making bad arguments from very strange Christian-sourced demographic statistics. I still haven’t figured out why you thought your 1.96 million Muslims! in Britain! would somehow outnumber all other religions and non-.
You quack like a racist.
You’re wrong. We’re a species.
Get used to being taken for a racist, then. Not my problem.
It was not clear, and I was not the only person to take it as racist.
It was clear. That you happen to find a like mind in Weed Monkey is simply confirmation bias.
It was not racist. You say we are a “species”; the “human race” is an accepted vernacular or at least interchangeable.
Errr, no I don’t actually.
And, again, be very careful about what you are saying. I keep saying this but you know nothing about the ethnicity of my wife and children. Accusations of racism, towards me, is more than laughable.
Why don’t you just explain what you meant without using racially loaded words. And please leave your family out of it, it’s like walking right into a “I even let them use my bathroom!” joke.
I do not think I have used racially loaded words but I am open to being corrected. I have used words I use in common every day conversations and have never been questioned on them before. The “human race” for example is more regularly used in Britain than “human species”; certainly where I live.
If I do use a word or phrase someone takes exception to, why doesn’t that person simply say “that could be construed as a racist comment” rather than simply jump to “you’re a racist”.
Seriously, is that right? I thought people were a little more reasonable than that. Instead, people want to shout first, think later. It’s wrong and out of order.
My family is relevant to this particular conversation, particularly when I’m being accused of racism. There’s no point discussing stuff here if that’s the level of conversation people want to go down to.
@Illuminata
I think you missed my point. I was going for that argument, that the bravado of the military language always seems to drive us to insist that this time is different and we need to sacrifice our rights and ethics…when in reality we always make that argument. It means we’re panicking and we are not going to make good decisions.
Racism isn’t genetic, your heritage has no validity in exonerating you. You might try to step away and come back later when less emotional. Perhaps then you might appreciate people trying to kindly point out what could be subconscious biases you possess.
So you are seriously suggesting that I could be racist towards my own children or wife?
Having been in a couple interracial partnerings. Yes.
You go in with baggage, they go in with baggage. It happens.
Also teal deer, but are they Arabic? Otherwise it’s not really relevant is it?
Fuck off, you worthless idiot.
It wasn’t clear. It wasn’t clear to me, either.
You’re a self-important idiot who can’t make himself clear, and when more than one person points that out to you, you stupidly insist that you’re right and that you’re going to continue to use the unclear language. Because it’s your right, innit ? Sure thing, bro, it’s your right. And it’s our right to respond by pointing out that it makes you stupid to attempt to refer to all-of-humanity (if that’s who you intend to speak about) with the dividing word “race”. Which never ever refers to all-of-humanity in anyone else’s usage. But you’re special, bro, and you can define it however you want – and more importantly – when you confuse other people with your unexplained iusage, you can act all offended when you get called on sowing confusion. Yep, you’re special all right. Even if you do say so yourself.
You know, I don’t give a flying fuck what color your little bimbos and your in-laws are. I don’t care how you’ve suffered in the name of “race” or how many of your ancestors were actually murdered by “fascists”. All I care about is that you’re a worthless asshole, and the sooner you take your leave from here, the better.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/165194/being-spit-upon-literally-christopher-hitchens
Well that’s a story that if true really torpedo’s the eulogies of Hitchen’s intellectual fairness and debating charm.
I haven’t read the 50 comments posted since my last one, and who’s allowed themselves whatever Freudian slits with regard to their “subconscious biases”, but here’s two thoughts on my part:
-The “human race” is not a racist term, it’s everyday language for “humanity” or “human species”. Any white person who thinks otherwise automatically disproves White Supremacy by showing just how dumb a white person can be – so I guess there’s at least some use in you, you fucking idiots.
-Racism and other prejudices come in different forms and degrees, and sometimes it’s possible to have friends and family the (mild) racist’s mind exempts from their sentiments (applied to the general population, or people they’re not attached to). The mind is fallible just like that. Wagner hat Jewish friends, etc.
NOT using friends’n'family as an argument is one of the most important rules in defending oneself from racist allegations.
Having that said, I’m 90% sure that the racism accusations in this case are complete bullcrap. But who am I to judge.
“Any white person who thinks otherwise automatically disproves White Supremacy by showing just how dumb a white person can be – so I guess there’s at least some use in you, you fucking idiots.”
On the other hand, nah – white supremacists already do that job perfectly fine. Don’t worry, though – society needs sandwiches.
No-one’s saying you are. But you do realise that wouldn’t be the first time?
twooffour, learn to read. Not “human race”, just “race”.