Christopher Hitchens, The Iraq War, that sort of thing.

ThirdMan

Hi. I'm looking for a particular obituary that I read in the days after Hitchens' death. It stuck with me because it was the type of obituary that Hitchens himself might have wrote. One of its key points (which might re-jog your memory) is that of all the issues that Hitchens tackled, he got the most important one wrong (Iraq).

Zillah

Say please.

ThirdMan

Quite right. Please, it would be much appreciated.

Benny_Cake

It wasn't the Glenn Greenwald article by any chance? Not really an obituary as such:

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/17/christohper_hitchens_and_the_protocol_for_public_figure_deaths/

ThirdMan

Benny_Cake wrote: »

It wasn't the Glenn Greenwald article by any chance? Not really an obituary as such:

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/17/christohper_hitchens_and_the_protocol_for_public_figure_deaths/

Yes, that's it. Thank you!

nagirrac

I simply can't understand how some people still salivate over Hitchens, especially those who claim an interest in human rights. It is the equivalent of praising a priest who abused children because he gave good sermons.

I used to like Hitch as an intelligent debater in the 90s, he was an excellent thinker and journalist, but frankly had to part company with him after the Iraq invasion. How someone with his intellect fell for the arguments of the most anti-intellectual administration (the neo-cons)in US history is beyond me. I suppose it was down to 9/11 and fueled by his hatred for religion (ironically 9/11 had little to do with religion if you study the profile of those responsible), but sadly for me his voice is now one with Paul Wolfowitz, and all the other fanatics who led the US into a baseless attack of a sovereign country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and represented zero threat to the US or its allies. Hitch is unfortunately forever associated with their lies, and the image of him perched on a tank in Iraq is the one I most remember. Along with all the other so called liberals that sold out and supported the Iraq war, while of course never having to put themselves in harms way. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, thousands of young Americans dead and tens of thousands maimed physically and emotionally, a country destroyed, and we slink out of there a decade later, coincidently on the day Hitch died, a fitting eulogy.

Turtwig

nagirrac wrote: »

I simply can't understand how some people still salivate over Hitchens, especially those who claim an interest in human rights. It is the equivalent of praising a priest who abused children because he gave good sermons.

I used to like Hitch as an intelligent debater in the 90s, he was an excellent thinker and journalist, but frankly had to part company with him after the Iraq invasion. How someone with his intellect fell for the arguments of the most anti-intellectual administration (the neo-cons)in US history is beyond me. I suppose it was down to 9/11 and fueled by his hatred for religion (ironically 9/11 had little to do with religion if you study the profile of those responsible), but sadly for me his voice is now one with Paul Wolfowitz, and all the other fanatics who led the US into a baseless attack of a sovereign country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and represented zero threat to the US or its allies. Hitch is unfortunately forever associated with their lies, and the image of him perched on a tank in Iraq is the one I most remember. Along with all the other so called liberals that sold out and supported the Iraq war, while of course never having to put themselves in harms way. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, thousands of young Americans dead and tens of thousands maimed physically and emotionally, a country destroyed, and we slink out of there a decade later, coincidently on the day Hitch died, a fitting eulogy.

As the OP's query appears resolved I think it's fine to turn this into a gen discussion. So, um, is it ok for me to admit I've yet to read a single work by Hitchens? I saw his waterboarding thingy. Apart from that though I know almost nothing about the guy.

Gordon

nagirrac wrote: »

I simply can't understand how some people still salivate over Hitchens

Yes, simply, it would be strange if someone posted in this thread, and others, with content that was salivatory in nature regarding Hitchens. If that happens on this thread, be sure to let everyone know so that we can view this odd occurrence. Not sure why you are bringing this up though.

nagirrac

Gordon wrote: »

Not sure why you are bringing this up though.

I am bringing it up as this is a Hitch thread, and Hitch is generally trotted out as someone to be admired on this forum. If you don't think that is the case, you must not visit very often.

nagirrac

nagirrac wrote: »

I simply can't understand how some people still salivate over Hitchens, especially those who claim an interest in human rights. It is the equivalent of praising a priest who abused children because he gave good sermons.

I used to like Hitch as an intelligent debater in the 90s, he was an excellent thinker and journalist, but frankly had to part company with him after the Iraq invasion. How someone with his intellect fell for the arguments of the most anti-intellectual administration (the neo-cons)in US history is beyond me. I suppose it was down to 9/11 and fueled by his hatred for religion (ironically 9/11 had little to do with religion if you study the profile of those responsible), but sadly for me his voice is now one with Paul Wolfowitz, and all the other fanatics who led the US into a baseless attack of a sovereign country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and represented zero threat to the US or its allies. Hitch is unfortunately forever associated with their lies, and the image of him perched on a tank in Iraq is the one I most remember. Along with all the other so called liberals that sold out and supported the Iraq war, while of course never having to put themselves in harms way. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, thousands of young Americans dead and tens of thousands maimed physically and emotionally, a country destroyed, and we slink out of there a decade later, coincidently on the day Hitch died, a fitting eulogy.

I'm still looking for someone else who shares every one of my views. I have a feeling I'll be waiting a while though.

Gordon

nagirrac wrote: »

I am bringing it up as this is a Hitch thread, and Hitch is generally trotted out as someone to be admired on this forum. If you don't think that is the case, you must not visit very often.

I'm simply unsure as to why you are trotting out an explanation like the above instead of responding to the direct query regarding salivation. I'm interested to see such salivation, please inform me of when such salivation occurs on this thread.

Kivaro

Gordon wrote: »

I'm simply unsure as to why you are trotting out an explanation like the above instead of responding to the direct query regarding salivation. I'm interested to see such salivation, please inform me of when such salivation occurs on this thread.

?

Hotblack Desiato

nagirrac wrote: »

and we slink out of there a decade later, coincidently on the day Hitch died, a fitting eulogy.

What do you mean 'we' ?

Pushtrak

nagirrac wrote: »

I simply can't understand how some people still salivate over Hitchens, especially those who claim an interest in human rights. It is the equivalent of praising a priest who abused children because he gave good sermons.

People should be assessed on the strength of what they say. And we shouldn't contaminate everything a person says on the strength of something else they've said. Take a young earth creationist scientist. By which I mean a scientist in a discipline that is not going to be informed by their theology. Do we discard anything such a person will offer on the science to which they are an expert? No, it should be treated in accordance with its merits or demerits. I can simultaneously not have time for someone and recognise when they are correct on a thing. I don't just use an attack on a person to dismiss any idea or thing they express. I think its another example of compartmentalization. Ok, that's them on that, but on this...

Pushtrak

ninja900 wrote: »

What do you mean 'we' ?

Oh, right you were drunk, forget about it :pac:

Kivaro

Kivaro wrote: »

?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4paGAvvFWRk

Reminds me of this, although Kirk Lazarus was still white when it was shot.

Hotblack Desiato

Pushtrak wrote: »

Oh, right you were drunk, forget about it :pac:

No I wasn't.
Forget about what?

Pushtrak wrote: »

People should be assessed on the strength of what they say. And we shouldn't contaminate everything a person says on the strength of something else they've said. Take a young earth creationist

Snipped for effect there, but bear with me.
I would find it very, very hard to take anything someone said seriously once I became aware they were a young earth creationist.
I mean, we don't generally hold religions in high esteem here but if one can convince oneself to believe YEC, one can believe anything and is clearly not possessed of a critical mind...

young earth creationist scientist

Oxymoron.

One can't say 'I'll apply logic and reason here' and then say 'I'll totally disregard it in relation to say, geology' and expect to have any credibility at all in any scientific field, imho.

nagirrac

Gordon wrote: »

I'm simply unsure as to why you are trotting out an explanation like the above instead of responding to the direct query regarding salivation. I'm interested to see such salivation, please inform me of when such salivation occurs on this thread.

I will indeed. You shouldn't have to wait long.

nagirrac

Pushtrak wrote: »

People should be assessed on the strength of what they say. And we shouldn't contaminate everything a person says on the strength of something else they've said. Take a young earth creationist scientist. By which I mean a scientist in a discipline that is not going to be informed by their theology. Do we discard anything such a person will offer on the science to which they are an expert? No, it should be treated in accordance with its merits or demerits. I can simultaneously not have time for someone and recognise when they are correct on a thing. I don't just use an attack on a person to dismiss any idea or thing they express. I think its another example of compartmentalization. Ok, that's them on that, but on this...

I couldn't disagree more. People should be assessed on the totality of their output, whether its their words or actions, in particular their actions that have consequences for other people. Hitch was a significant public figure in America, took strong positions on political issues, and therefore gets judged on his positions. He was a cheerleader for an illegal and unjust war for a decade, and continued to lie about the justification for the war long after even the neo-cons had given up lying. That is how he should be remembered. As I said, he may have been a formidable debater representing atheists versus theists, but in the same way Brendan Smyth may have delivered some wonderful compassionate sermons. His face still elicits the same response from me, which is to puke. BTW, there is no such thing as a YEC scientist by definition, you simply have to abandon science to become a YEC.

Brown Bomber

nagirrac wrote: »

I couldn't disagree more. People should be assessed on the totality of their output, whether its their words or actions, in particular their actions that have consequences for other people. Hitch was a significant public figure in America, took strong positions on political issues, and therefore gets judged on his positions. He was a cheerleader for an illegal and unjust war for a decade, and continued to lie about the justification for the war long after even the neo-cons had given up lying. That is how he should be remembered. As I said, he may have been a formidable debater representing atheists versus theists, but in the same way Brendan Smyth may have delivered some wonderful compassionate sermons. His face still elicits the same response from me, which is to puke. BTW, there is no such thing as a YEC scientist by definition, you simply have to abandon science to become a YEC.

I couldn't agree with you more on Hitchens, it's a shame people are prepared to look the other way when he has had such a net negative impact on the world.

Pushtrak

ninja900 wrote: »

No I wasn't.
Forget about what?

It was a joke. A bad one, I guess.

Snipped for effect there, but bear with me.
I would find it very, very hard to take anything someone said seriously once I became aware they were a young earth creationist.

I can't take an approach where I don't listen to what someone has to say. If something is nonsense, then I'll view it as such. People aren't so simple that the fact they inhabit one 'box' that it tells you all you need to know about them. I no more know that an atheist is necessarily smart than I know a YEC is necessarily dumb. On particular subjects, it is clear that one side is not using logical faculties in at least one area. It isn't actually clear the same holds true on the other side, necessarily. It isn't a complex position to arrive at atheism. The complexity is why so many people are not so, really.

I mean, we don't generally hold religions in high esteem here

I don't hold religions any special regard whatsoever, and generally speaking, I'd love to see them die out, but it's important to bear in mind that most people aren't walking religion factories. Pretty much why you see the splintering/denomination effect.

Evolution has been accepted by the Catholic Church for a long time. Is evolution suspect because of it being accepted thusly? No. The moment you hear a concept and you have to ask yourself "what grouping believes this so I can know whether I should believe it or not" is the moment that you aren't interested in exploring an idea for its own sake, but for what fits in to what you will allow/expect of yourself. I don't place any criteria on information or idea other than that the truth of the claims impress me to the point that I will accept them, whether wholesale, provisionally or otherwise.

Oxymoron.

One can't say 'I'll apply logic and reason here' and then say 'I'll totally disregard it in relation to say, geology' and expect to have any credibility at all in any scientific field, imho.

This is ignoring the compartmentalizing aspect of belief. People can very much be entirely illogical in one area and approach some/many other areas with rationality. The converse is also true. I don't infer skepticism from atheism for example.

nagirrac wrote: »

I couldn't disagree more. People should be assessed on the totality of their output, whether its their words or actions, in particular their actions that have consequences for other people.

If the topic under discussion is the person, then sure, go for the entirety. If you want to discuss ideas, and you want to say lets discard that because someone I don't like said it then frankly it seems very much like shooting yourself in the foot.

[-0-]

nagirrac wrote: »

I simply can't understand how some people still salivate over Hitchens, especially those who claim an interest in human rights. It is the equivalent of praising a priest who abused children because he gave good sermons.

I used to like Hitch as an intelligent debater in the 90s, he was an excellent thinker and journalist, but frankly had to part company with him after the Iraq invasion. How someone with his intellect fell for the arguments of the most anti-intellectual administration (the neo-cons)in US history is beyond me. I suppose it was down to 9/11 and fueled by his hatred for religion (ironically 9/11 had little to do with religion if you study the profile of those responsible), but sadly for me his voice is now one with Paul Wolfowitz, and all the other fanatics who led the US into a baseless attack of a sovereign country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and represented zero threat to the US or its allies. Hitch is unfortunately forever associated with their lies, and the image of him perched on a tank in Iraq is the one I most remember. Along with all the other so called liberals that sold out and supported the Iraq war, while of course never having to put themselves in harms way. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead, thousands of young Americans dead and tens of thousands maimed physically and emotionally, a country destroyed, and we slink out of there a decade later, coincidently on the day Hitch died, a fitting eulogy.

Oh dear. Hitchens was one of the finest orators in history. Definitely the finest we will ever witness. His vocabulary was amazing, as was his ability to recite prose, poetry, articles, excerpts, you name it. By the end, Hitchens hated politics, and if you knew the man you would know that. His first love was literature. I won't be dragged into a political debate with you regarding Hitchens. I don't share all of his views ( I view Eric Blair as a racist, for instance ), but I do side with him on almost everything.

nagirrac

[-0-] wrote: »

Oh dear. Hitchens was one of the finest orators in history.

Hitler was one of the finest orators in history, what's your point? I'm referring to the ideas Hitchens' espoused, not how well he spoke.

[-0-] wrote: »

By the end, Hitchens hated politics, and if you knew the man you would know that. His first love was literature. I won't be dragged into a political debate with you regarding Hitchens.

Except political commentary was what he did, and did passionately for the last decades of his life. If he hated it, then why do it, step aside and do whatever you love, he was brilliant enough. Except, the opposite is actually the case, he found one "cause" to hang his hat on, and it consumed him for his last decade where he became a political ideologue, and a truly dangerous one.

You simply cannot discuss Hitchens without discussing his politics, regardless of how you want to keep him wrapped up in intellectual purity. I simply cannot understand how people cannot see how flawed he was, he was a war monger, plain and simple.

nagirrac

Pushtrak wrote: »

If the topic under discussion is the person, then sure, go for the entirety. If you want to discuss ideas, and you want to say lets discard that because someone I don't like said it then frankly it seems very much like shooting yourself in the foot.

The topic under discussion is absolutely the person. I am not discarding or dismissing anything Hitch said prior to 9/11, as I said I enjoyed listening to him and agreed with much of what he said. However, regardless of his ideas prior to 9/11, he became a warmonger and should be judged accordingly.

nagirrac

Gordon wrote: »

I'm simply unsure as to why you are trotting out an explanation like the above instead of responding to the direct query regarding salivation. I'm interested to see such salivation, please inform me of when such salivation occurs on this thread.

Post #22, took exactly 3 hours.

nagirrac

ninja900 wrote: »

What do you mean 'we' ?

I'm a US citizen, so for me personally on the question of the Iraq war, it is "we".

jank

Hitchens was a conservative in everything but religion. If you ignore his atheist views on religion than I can imagine he would be have an honorary mention in the "Republican Fruitcake" thread. However for the majority of posters here the fact that he was a conservative is largely forgotten (or conveniently ignored) because of the fact that he was an out spoken atheist.

Pushtrak

jank wrote: »

However for the majority of posters here the fact that he was a conservative is largely forgotten (or conveniently ignored) because of the fact that he was an out spoken atheist.

Dawkins and Harris are far from universally loved within the atheist 'community' with talk of being arrogant (especially for Dawkins) or Islamophobic (Harris) and I see many, many atheists look at The God Delusion as terribly written. I read it myself, but can't remember much so that doesn't really speak to its favour, I guess. Harris gets a lot of criticism on his view on free will too. So, the 'out spoken atheist' line doesn't really seem to get to the heart of it.

Hitchens is a different situation though. I don't (and didn't when he was alive, so it isn't as if it's a change of attitude after his passing) see as many atheists who are as willing to hang him to the wall, so to speak as they would in the case of Dawkins or Harris. Now, this is really not anything to do with people being sympathetic to his politics. Honestly, I can not really remember any specific examples of ever seeing it. It's odd I'd see so much of the others, but not Hitch.

Actually, another illustration of it's not excuse by means of being an outspoken atheist, there are many atheists who would hold David Silverman of American Atheists in fairly low regard. His wanting to get rid of the 9/11 cross, as an example. So, yeah, some other reason than 'outspoken atheist' will have to be brought up as it doesn't cut the mustard.

Frank Lee Midere

jank wrote: »

Hitchens was a conservative in everything but religion. If you ignore his atheist views on religion than I can imagine he would be have an honorary mention in the "Republican Fruitcake" thread. However for the majority of posters here the fact that he was a conservative is largely forgotten (or conveniently ignored) because of the fact that he was an out spoken atheist.

He was largely a leftist for most of his life, a Marxist for much of it. He wasn't the only Marxist or ex Marxist to support war either. The whitewashing of history is immense here.

CiDeRmAn

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

He was largely a leftist for most of his life, a Marxist for much of it. He wasn't the only Marxist or ex Marxist to support war either. The whitewashing of history is immense here.

He seemed to be aware of the faults of his adopted country, the US, but found the religious freedoms to be highly desirable.
This aspect is debatable but at least he appeared to be just the person to argue and discuss this rather then simply assuming he was right and you wrong.
I think his position on modern islam and it's effect on the works and Europe in particular is interesting, but starts from the assumption that their is no room for an evolution of Islamic thought, that it is caught in a medieval mindset that demands both submission and radical, militant responses to much of the freedoms of thought and expression we have come assume are human rights.
But islam is greater than just the interpretation of one middle eastern group, much of the radicalism in the middle east is nested in their relationship with the west, more specifically the exploitation of the region for oil.
The Malay experience of mainstream islam is quite different from the Saudi one, for example, and I don't think Hitchens ever acknowledged the capability of Islamic reformation in this modern age.
Now, on a personal level I'd be happy to consign religious observance and belief to the bin, need to make that very clear!

I can split my respect for his skill at dismantling the creationist/theistic arguments separately from his views on the war on islam however, though I see from it how theists who respect him must feel, admiring this intellectual giant while being utterly opposed to the point he espoused.
This is the modern world, one where we must respect and defend right of expression, even if we disagree with it in the strongest terms.

Hotblack Desiato

Pushtrak wrote: »

I can't take an approach where I don't listen to what someone has to say. If something is nonsense, then I'll view it as such. People aren't so simple that the fact they inhabit one 'box' that it tells you all you need to know about them.

Really? Some boxes are so toxic that they taint everyting else. A holocaust-denying historian has no credibility about any period of history, not just 1933-1945.

I no more know that an atheist is necessarily smart than I know a YEC is necessarily dumb.

You're right about the first part, but belief in YEC is not compatible with facts, logic and reason. I wouldn't say dumb, but deluded.

It isn't a complex position to arrive at atheism. The complexity is why so many people are not so, really.

Actually a lot of atheists were brought up as theists and spent a long time (years) arriving at their present position.
If religion was not forced on children then the vast majority of them would be atheist adults.



And here comes the massive strawman...

Evolution has been accepted by the Catholic Church for a long time. Is evolution suspect because of it being accepted thusly? No. The moment you hear a concept and you have to ask yourself "what grouping believes this so I can know whether I should believe it or not" is the moment that you aren't interested in exploring an idea for its own sake, but for what fits in to what you will allow/expect of yourself.

When it comes to YECcers, I ridicule the grouping for their absurdly ridiculous belief, not the belief because of the grouping.

[-0-]

nagirrac wrote: »

Hitler was one of the finest orators in history, what's your point? I'm referring to the ideas Hitchens' espoused, not how well he spoke.

Hahahahahaha. Annnnnnnd we're done.

wretcheddomain

[-0-] wrote: »

Hahahahahaha. Annnnnnnd we're done.

Well, I'm not.

I think Nagirrac is making some fair points and you're dismissing him in condescending ways due to your insatiable appetite for all-things-Hitchens.

As a committed atheist, I can appreciate his oratory and intellectual skills when it came to analysis and religion, however, when it comes to the Iraq War, he made a blunder. I believe the blunder was made not so much for political reasons (as his defence of the war changed into his own reasons for the invasion and not Bush's) but for religious reasons. This infatuation with religion clouded his judgement, so much so, he didn't see through the fog of war propaganda.

In addition, some observations:

- Being a great orator is not relevant to this discussion. If he was wrong about Iraq then this is independent of his oratory skills.
- Being able to quote prose and poetry doesn't make him right either.

I think the analogy with Hitler is a good one. Hitler was also a great orator and did some 'good things' for domestic Germany but we don't judge Hitler based on this. Similarly, we need to give Hitchens credit when it comes to religion/atheism/oratory but we equally need to condemn him for his blunder on Iraq. One of these views cannot trump the other, you need to swallow both at the same time.

nagirrac

jank wrote: »

Hitchens was a conservative in everything but religion.

He insisted himself though that he was a leftist politically, essentially up to his last writings. He even described himself as a conservative Marxist in later years, whatever that is, possibly a group of one which would be apt. In reality I think he was a radical who went with his own ideas, regardless of public opinion, and for that he was greatly admired by many of the left in the 80s/90s opposing Reagan and Bush on foreign policy.

After 9/11, the left in America was split, and even though the political pressure was to support the Iraq war, there were many who opposed it, as the arguments for going to war were pathetic. It was a time when political commentators needed to stand up and speak for sanity. How a man with Hitchens' intellect could sit and watch Colin Powell's speech to the UN and not be appalled at its clear overreaching, and that was nothing compared to the outright lies the neo-cons were peddling.

Maybe you are right and at heart he was a conservative and it was all posturing. I tend to think it was his sheer contempt and hatred for religion that drove him to the extent that he ultimately found himself in bed with religious fanatics waging an unprovoked and illegal war, ironically against an at least semi-secular nation in the region that spawned the 9/11 perpetrators.

Mark Hamill

I hate these threads were someone starts complaining about something "X" atheist said, but no one ever explicitly says what "X" atheist said. I don't read other atheist so I can never follow these conversations

Can whoever it is that is complaining about Hitchens please quote or describe the explicit positions of his that you have problem with?

nagirrac

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Can whoever it is that is complaining about Hitchens please quote or describe the explicit positions of his that you have problem with?

You can't pick up from reading the thread the positions that I and others have a problem with??

1. It has nothing to do with Hitchens' atheism or the atheism of anyone who admires him.

2. After 9/11, Hitchens embraced the ideology of the neo-cons in the US government of the time, who decided an invasion of Iraq was justified and necessary. He perpetrated the same lies as the neo-cons did, and attacked those on the left who opposed the war. He was the #1 political commentator cheerleader for the war and maintained this position after it was obvious to every other political commentator that the war was based on lying to the American and global population.

So yes, he has blood on his hands, in the same way that Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld and in particular his buddy Paul Wolfowitz (who was the first to advise Bush to invade Iraq) have blood on their hands. The blood of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, including tens of thousands of children, the blood of the American and allied troops who were killed or lost their bodily and/or mental functions. The endless war that was started with no exit plan.

But he got to sit on a tank in "liberated" Iraq and claim victory, so that and the fact he was a great orator makes it OK :rolleyes:.

Sulla Felix

ninja900 wrote: »

One can't say 'I'll apply logic and reason here' and then say 'I'll totally disregard it in relation to say, geology' and expect to have any credibility at all in any scientific field, imho.

We do it all the time. Newton was an aspiring alchemist ffs. Doesn't mean that his other contributions weren't of earth-shattering relevance all the way down to this very day.

Pushtrak

ninja900 wrote: »

And here comes the massive strawman...

The point is, you can't infer from anyone being wrong on one thing, no matter how big that they are wrong on everything or most things. It isn't a strawman. If you can't assume that everyone is wrong on most things because they're wrong on one thing, or even many, then why would you assume ahead of time someone is wrong? If someone is wrong on a thing, that is easy to understand. Assuming someone is incorrect ahead of time is something I'd not understand. You evaluate what is said on its strengths not what they have said before.

When it comes to YECcers, I ridicule the grouping for their absurdly ridiculous belief, not the belief because of the grouping.

As do I, but I'm not going to assume everything they have to say on anything is wrong, that would be absurd.

Mark Hamill

nagirrac wrote: »

You can't pick up from reading the thread the positions that I and others have a problem with??

I gathered it was to do with islam post 9/11, but I don't really know he said about islam post 9/11, so I just wanted the specific things he was saying that people were disagreeing with.

nagirrac wrote: »

2. After 9/11, Hitchens embraced the ideology of the neo-cons in the US government of the time, who decided an invasion of Iraq was justified and necessary. He perpetrated the same lies as the neo-cons did, and attacked those on the left who opposed the war. He was the #1 political commentator cheerleader for the war and maintained this position after it was obvious to every other political commentator that the war was based on lying to the American and global population.

What lies did he perpetrate? Why did he think the war was just and necessary?

Pushtrak

About to watch this myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI3g3z36y8Q

Edit: I got up to a point Hitchens makes that 'we're not redrawing the map' well, on that... Uh... Also, the article below says November 2006, interview was August 2005.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/plans-for-redrawing-the-middle-east-the-project-for-a-new-middle-east/3882

(I think the above falls more neatly in to wrong than lie though.)

HansHolzel

"Farewell to C.H."

by ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Counterpunch, December 2011

I can’t count the times, down the years, that after some new outrage friends would call me and ask, “What happened to Christopher Hitchens?” – the inquiry premised on some supposed change in Hitchens, often presumed to have started in the period he tried to put his close friend Blumenthal behind bars for imputed perjury. My answer was that Christopher had been pretty much the same package since the beginning — always allowing for the ravages of entropy as the years passed.

As so often with friends and former friends, it’s a matter of what you’re prepared to put up with and for how long. I met him in New York in the early 1980s and all the long-term political and indeed personal traits were visible enough. I never thought of him as at all radical. He craved to be an insider, a trait which achieved ripest expression when he elected to be sworn in as a U.S. citizen by Bush’s director of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff. In basic philosophical take he always seemed to me to hold as his central premise a profound belief in the therapeutic properties of capitalism and empire. He was an instinctive flagwagger and remained so. He wrote some really awful stuff in the early 90s about how indigenous peoples — Indians in the Americas — were inevitably going to be rolled over by the wheels of Progress and should not be mourned.

On the plane of weekly columns in the late eighties and nineties it mostly seemed to be a matter of what was currently obsessing him: for years in the 1980s he wrote scores of columns for The Nation, charging that the Republicans had stolen the 1980s election by the “October surprise”, denying Carter the advantage of a hostage release. He got rather boring. Then in the 90s he got a bee in his bonnet about Clinton which developed into full-blown obsessive megalomania: the dream that he, Hitchens, would be the one to seize the time and finish off Bill. Why did Bill — a zealous and fairly efficient executive of Empire – bother Hitchens so much? I’m not sure. He used to hint that Clinton had behaved abominably to some woman he, Hitchens, knew. Actually I think he’d got to that moment in life when he was asking himself if he could make a difference. He obviously thought he could, and so he sloshed his way across his own personal Rubicon and tried to topple Clinton via betrayal of his close friendship with Sid Blumenthal, whom he did his best to ruin financially (lawyers’ fees) and get sent to prison for perjury.

Since then it was all pretty predictable, down to his role as flagwagger for Bush. I guess the lowest of a number of low points was when he went to the White House to give a cheerleading speech on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I think he knew long, long before that this is where he would end up, as a right-wing codger. He used to go on, back in the Eighties, about sodden old wrecks like John Braine, who’d ended up more or less where Hitchens got to, trumpeting away about “Islamo-fascism” like a Cheltenham colonel in some ancient Punch cartoon. I used to warn my friends at New Left Review and Verso in the early 90s who were happy to make money off Hitchens’ books on Mother Teresa and the like that they should watch out, but they didn’t and then kept asking ten years later, What happened?

Anyway, between the two of them, my sympathies were always with Mother Teresa. If you were sitting in rags in a gutter in Bombay, who would be more likely to give you a bowl of soup? You’d get one from Mother Teresa. Hitchens was always tight with beggars, just like the snotty Fabians who used to deprecate charity.

One awful piece of opportunism on Hitchens’ part was his decision to attack Edward Said just before his death, and then for good measure again in his obituary. With his attacks on Edward, especially the final post mortem, Hitchens couldn’t even claim the pretense of despising a corrupt presidency, a rapist and liar or any of the other things he called Clinton. That final attack on Said was purely for attention – which fuelled his other attacks but this one most starkly because of the absence of any high principle to invoke. Here he decided both to bask in his former friend’s fame, recalling the little moments that made it clear he was intimate with the man, and to put himself at the center of the spotlight by taking his old friend down a few notches. In a career of awful moves, that was one of the worst. He also rounded on Gore Vidal who had done so much to promote his career as dauphin of contrarianism.

He courted the label “contrarian”, but if the word is to have any muscle, it surely must imply the expression of dangerous opinions. Hitchens never wrote anything truly discommoding to respectable opinion and if he had he would never have enjoyed so long a billet at Vanity Fair. Attacking God? The big battles on that issue were fought one, two, even five hundred years ago when they burned Giordano Bruno at the stake in the Campo de’ Fiore. A contrarian these days would be someone who staunchly argued for the existence of a Supreme Being. He was for America’s wars. I thought he was relatively solid on Israel/Palestine, but there too he trimmed. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency put out a friendly obit, noting that “despite his rejection of religious precepts, Hitchens would make a point of telling interviewers that according to halacha, he was Jewish” and noting his suggestion that Walt and Mearsheimer might be anti-Semitic, also his sliming of a boatload of pro-Palestinian activists aiming to breach Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. (His brother Peter and other researchers used to say that in terms of blood lineage, the Hitchens boys’ Jewishness was pretty slim and fell far outside the definitions of the Nuremberg laws. I always liked Noam Chomsky’s crack to me when Christopher announced in Grand Street that he was a Jew: “From anti-Semite to self-hating Jew, all in one day.”)

As a writer his prose was limited in range. In extempore speeches and arguments he was quick on his feet. I remember affectionately many jovial sessions from years ago, in his early days at The Nation. I found the Hitchens cult of recent years entirely mystifying. He endured his final ordeal with pluck, sustained indomitably by his wife Carol.

nagirrac

The key point in the interview above is at 8.21 when Hitch changes the subject to his new book. Stewart absolutely owns him in this interview. At this stage (2005) most Americans with a brain had seen through the lies, Hitchens was still in denial, a position he maintained until his death, or at last his last writings and interviews.

ThirdMan

nagirrac wrote: »

I simply can't understand how some people still salivate over Hitchens

nagirrac wrote: »

Hitch is generally trotted out as someone to be admired on this forum. If you don't think that is the case, you must not visit very often.

I'm mainly interested in Hitchens as an essayist, particularly on the subject of literature. He was never less than interesting. But I didn't always agree with him. In fact, the reason I started this thread was to re-read, and save for future reference, one of the few articles that put the boot in on him when he died. So much of the coverage of his death was embarrassingly reverential. He was on my mind yesterday only because his Arguably collection was on sale in Chapters and I ended up thumbing through it for the afternoon.

nagirrac

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Why did he think the war was just and necessary?

Because he hated religion, and specifically Islam, there is no other sensible answer. The same reason Sam Harris thinks we should consider nuking "them". He used 9/11 to grab the spotlight and vent his spleen against all things and all people of the Islam faith, ironically taking the side of religious fanatics who believed their God was the right God and a war supporter. Its what allowed him proudly boast that the Koran in an Islamists clothing would not protect them from a cluster bomb, while kids were being blown apart by cluster bombs.

Any intelligent analysis of the Middle East conflict finds its roots in imperialism. The youth who are drawn to extreme militant groups led by the bearded lad in a cave do so for two reasons; they want to overthrow the puppet regimes in places like Saudi (where most of the 9/11 hijackers were from), and they want western military forces out of their countries. The correlation between terrorism and the presence of western military is ten times the correlation between terrorism and religion. The Arab Spring uprisings across the region are driven by exactly the same sentiments.

Blaming terrorism on Islam is the intellectual equivalent of blaming the Catholic church for the formation of the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland.

[-0-]

Alright, let me clarify as I have been accused of being condescending.

nagirrac wrote: »

Except political commentary was what he did, and did passionately for the last decades of his life. If he hated it, then why do it,

He didn't always hate it. I said "By the end, he hated politics". This clearly means by the end of his life he hated it. If you can't follow how clear that message is, what hope do we have of having meaningful discourse with each other?

step aside and do whatever you love, he was brilliant enough. Except, the opposite is actually the case, he found one "cause" to hang his hat on, and it consumed him for his last decade where he became a political ideologue, and a truly dangerous one.

This just shows you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. One cause? He was involved in all things political from a teenager on wards. He was a marxist and a trotskyist in his teens, he opposed the Vietnam war and was arrested several times during those protests. He changed sides over the course of his political life.

Please do yourself a favour and read Hitch-22 before continuing this conversation. I refuse to sit here, quote the book to you, and have this forward-and-back debate because you have no issue with having a point of view that is based on a perception which is founded on ignorance.

ThirdMan

[-0-] wrote: »

He changed sides over the course of his political life.

I agree. And we certainly know what side he finished on.

Brown Bomber

Mark Hamill wrote: »

I hate these threads were someone starts complaining about something "X" atheist said, but no one ever explicitly says what "X" atheist said. I don't read other atheist so I can never follow these conversations

Can whoever it is that is complaining about Hitchens please quote or describe the explicit positions of his that you have problem with?

This is a good place to start. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2006/04/wowie_zahawie.html

Sorry everyone, but Iraq did go uranium shopping in Niger.

By Christopher Hitchens

The reality.

Facts:
The Bush claim was false, as the Italy/Niger documents were proven to be forgeries even before the war began. The documents were filled with glaring errors: one letter, dated October 10, 2000, bore the signature of a Foreign Affairs Minister who had been out of office since 1989; another document contained the forged signature of Niger President Tandja Mamadou – a forgery so poor that it was clearly not that of Mamadou.
In addition, yellowcake uranium comes from two mines in Niger, both controlled by a French mining consortium that tightly controls the uranium from the time it is mined to the time it is loaded onto ships for transport overseas. As stated in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on page 43, “It would be difficult, if not impossible, to arrange a special shipment of uranium to a pariah state, given these controls.”
There has been no evidence to show that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991 or renewed indigenous production of uranium since the end of the first Gulf War.


Overview:
Despite repeated briefings from top CIA and other U.S. intelligence officials warning that the Italy/Niger documents were obvious forgeries, President Bush and his team chose to cite this faulty intelligence in his 2003 State of the Union address and elsewhere.
http://www.leadingtowar.com/claims_facts_yellowcake.php

nagirrac

[-0-] wrote: »

This just shows you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. One cause? He was involved in all things political from a teenager on wards.

I'm well aware of that. By "one cause" I mean the one cause that defined him, the cause that he will be remembered for (very badly). You are entitled to your opinion like anyone, but warmongering neo-cons are the last group of people I would want to be associated with, let alone be the public cheerleader for.

[-0-] wrote: »

Please do yourself a favour and read Hitch-22 before continuing this conversation. I refuse to sit here, quote the book to you, and have this forward-and-back debate because you have no issue with having a point of view that is based on a perception which is founded on ignorance.

The last place I would start if I wanted to study a public figure is their autobiography. I have lived in the US for most of the time Hitch lived here, have a strong interest in politics, so if you don't mind I'll judge him based on what I saw and heard myself, rather than what he has to say about himself.

What is your opinion on Hitchens' strong support for the Iraq war?

[-0-]

To this day I still support the war on Iraq.

Turtwig

HansHolzel

[-0-] wrote: »

To this day I still support the war on Iraq.

congrats