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Hissyspit

(45,788 posts)
Fri Dec 16, 2011, 06:52 PM Dec 2011

Christopher Hitchens' Unforgivable Mistake

http://m.gawker.com/5868761/christopher-hitchens-unforgivable-mistake

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Christopher Hitchens' Unforgivable Mistake

By John Cook, Dec 16, 2011 12:57 PM

- snip -

In its obituary, the New York Times quoted Hitchens' friend Ian Buruma, who told the New Yorker in 2006 that Hitchens was "always looking for the defining moment — as it were, our Spanish Civil War, where you put yourself on the right side, and stand up to the enemy." He shared that impulse with George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz, and they found their moment in the stupid decision to invade Iraq. For Hitchens, it was the opening maneuver in a grand, imagined clash of western civilization against the Islamofascist hordes.

It was something else for 113,000 civilians who died in the chaos unleashed. The great tragedy of Hitchens' life was that, toward its end, he aligned himself so stridently with the very fools, cowards, and charlatans who most desperately invited exposure by his prodigious skills as butcher. How can someone who devoted so much of his life to as noble a cause as destroying the reputation of Henry Kissinger blithely stand shoulder to shoulder with Rumsfeld?

People make mistakes. What's horrible about Hitchens' ardor for the invasion of Iraq is that he clung to it long after it became clear that a grotesque error had been made. In September 2005, he defended the debacle in Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard in terms that are simply breathtaking in their lack of concern for the victims of his Mesopotamian adventure. It was headlined "A War to Be Proud Of."

- snip -

But surely Christopher, you recognize that the war has been badly bungled even if all your hearts were in the right place, right? "We need not argue about the failures and the mistakes and even the crimes, because these in some ways argue themselves." For Christopher Hitchens to identify a subject about which no argument is required is a rare thing indeed. Abu Ghraib—why argue? The $9 billion in cash that simply disappeared—what's to argue? Two months after the Hitchens wrote those words, U.S. Marines massacred 24 men, women, and children in Haditha. No need to argue.

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Christopher Hitchens' Unforgivable Mistake (Original Post) Hissyspit Dec 2011 OP
I for one will always be grateful to Hitchens for his little donnybrook with Galloway. bemildred Dec 2011 #1
I'll respond with a piece from Hitchens himself inademv Dec 2011 #2
You respond to the points in the article Hissyspit Dec 2011 #3
Proof of the points? inademv Dec 2011 #4
K'd & R'd Enthusiastically DeathToTheOil Dec 2011 #5
Repeat DeathToTheOil Dec 2011 #6
Why condemn for one column HarryPowell Dec 2011 #7
One column? emcguffie Dec 2011 #9
This is the issue over which he lost a lot of my admiration too. Overseas Dec 2011 #8
I wonder if this odd behavior of his was not health-related. Hardrada Dec 2011 #10

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
1. I for one will always be grateful to Hitchens for his little donnybrook with Galloway.
Fri Dec 16, 2011, 07:04 PM
Dec 2011

And I consider that was more than enough punishment for his sins.

inademv

(791 posts)
2. I'll respond with a piece from Hitchens himself
Fri Dec 16, 2011, 07:06 PM
Dec 2011

"...
Anyone with even a glancing acquaintance with Iraq would have to know that a heavy US involvement in the affairs of that country began no later than 1968, with the role played by the CIA in the coup that ultimately brought Saddam Hussein's wing of the Baath Party to power.
...
Nonetheless, the thing that most repels people when they contemplate Iraq, which is the chaos and misery and fragmentation (and the deliberate intensification and augmentation of all this by the jihadis), invites the inescapable question: What would post-Saddam Iraq have looked like without a coalition presence?

The past years have seen us both shamed and threatened by the implications of the Berkeleyan attitude, from Burma to Rwanda to Darfur.

Had we decided to attempt the right thing in those cases (you will notice that I say attempt rather than do, which cannot be known in advance), we could as glibly have been accused of embarking on "a war of choice". But the thing to remember about Iraq is that all or most choice had already been forfeited.
..."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/did-i-get-the-iraq-war-wrong-no/story-e6frg73o-1111115840625

Additionally, I keep seeing lines asserting that Hitchens made a mistake in the matter while not adequately establishing exactly what the mistake was that he had made.

Hissyspit

(45,788 posts)
3. You respond to the points in the article
Fri Dec 16, 2011, 07:43 PM
Dec 2011

with proof of the points in the article?

Ugh, what awful rationalizing shit that article of his is.

And I say this as an atheist who agreed with Hitchens in many, many things

inademv

(791 posts)
4. Proof of the points?
Fri Dec 16, 2011, 07:51 PM
Dec 2011

He's explaining in quite simple terms the factors that led him to his decision to back the Iraq war, not rationalizing his decision after the fact.

 

DeathToTheOil

(1,124 posts)
5. K'd & R'd Enthusiastically
Sat Dec 17, 2011, 07:35 PM
Dec 2011

Early on in the movie Reds, there's a scene wherein John Reed attends a meeting of "liberals" during World War One. The head speaker is bellowing about how he is "ready to be called!" to the fight if America needs him. Of course, he, Reed, and we the audience knew there wasn't a chance in Hell of that actually happening, as the man was around 60 years old and obese.

Chickenhawk-in-Chief Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011.

HarryPowell

(25 posts)
7. Why condemn for one column
Sun Dec 18, 2011, 02:14 AM
Dec 2011

Hitchens was a rare bird who should be treasured.

Eccentric, opinionated and unreasonable but a tonic to any one who cares for a great gadfly. His Nation article on the misuse of the words "appeasement" and "Finlandization" by Reagan and cronies is worthy of Orwell.


emcguffie

(1,924 posts)
9. One column?
Mon Dec 19, 2011, 01:30 PM
Dec 2011

He was a cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq, for many, many years. I myself am not aware of when or if he ever gave it up, because I stopped paying attention to him.

I couldn't for the life of me understand how he could do that. I could see where the impulse came from, but at the level of the reality of the war and the people who were running the war and what was happening on the ground -- can't see that his initial impulse had anything to do with reality whatsoever.

For someone who championed human rights as he did to champion an illegal, dishonest war of invasion in which innocent civilians were maimed and killed on a nearly daily basis just doesn't add up, in my poor, tired little brain.

Apart from that tremendous disappointment, his brilliance always astounded me. So it was doubly, triply, sad to see him go down that road. It was a tremendous loss, years before he died.

 

Hardrada

(10,918 posts)
10. I wonder if this odd behavior of his was not health-related.
Tue Dec 20, 2011, 06:03 AM
Dec 2011

He was really not up to his own high standards. Makes one wonder.

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