Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bel LaZaar on December 17, 2011 at 7:16pm

The Difference being Mr Hitchens would be fine with that criticism and would likely be open to listening to your position while defending his own position with an intellectually honest report.

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Permalink Reply by sukhdeep on December 17, 2011 at 7:40pm

u should know that he was a free-thinker not an ass-hat, and did not give crap what liberals or conservatives thought, ass-hat  might describe u better as u mostly ascribe to liberal side from what i read in ur post and don't want to take on the establishment. living in iraq or having ur relatives killed with chemical weapons, u would have had other idea about the war. exposing mother teresa was an eye-opener for a lot of people in the world, who would only keep her in the highest esteem. he had his flaws and accepted them but if u didn't like what he thought or said or could not understand where he was coming from on a particular issue than that is a flaw in ur part not his. 

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Permalink Reply by Mike Baker on December 17, 2011 at 11:27pm

I suppose under that line of thinking the same thing could be said of Hitler and Mein Kampf. He had his reasons.

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Permalink Reply by Scott H on December 17, 2011 at 11:35pm

Indeed, Hitler had many reasons for what he did, Mike.  None of those, however, involved something like taking action to save the lives of innocent Germans, about to be imprisoned or slaughtered by rampaging Jews.

Hitchens, on the other hand, by supporting the war did indirectly condone killing, but to be sure, it was the killing of a despot and his minions, who already had demonstrated their willingness to imprison, torture, gas and murder the innocents of their own nation over a period of decades that he had personally witnessed.

I would like to think you could find the ability to make a moral distinction between that, and the atrocities of the Third Reich.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Baker on December 17, 2011 at 11:53pm

Hitchins: "If you're actually certain that you're hitting only a concentration of enemy troops . . . then it's pretty good because those steel pellets will go straight through somebody and out the other side and through somebody else. And if they're bearing a Koran over their heart, it'll go straight through that, too. So they won't be able to say, "Ah, I was bearing a Koran over my heart and guess what, the missile stopped halfway through." No way, 'cause it'll go straight through that as well. They'll be dead, in other words."

"Cluster bombs are perhaps not good in themselves, but when they are dropped on identifiable concentrations of Taliban troops, they do have a heartening effect."

Juxtapose that with the reality which Hitchens undoubtedly knew that cluster bombs statistically were killing many more civilians that combatants and tell me about moral distinctions. Saddam was bad but read about what the Americans did in Fallujah. Hitchens was an unapologetic cheerleader far after everyone knew how corrupt and criminal the invasion was. Yes, I find these views of his morally repugnant. That said, his atheist stuff is really good.

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Permalink Reply by Reggie on December 18, 2011 at 1:03am

Indeed, Hitler had many reasons for what he did, Mike.  None of those, however, involved something like taking action to save the lives of innocent Germans, about to be imprisoned or slaughtered by rampaging Jews.

Hitchens, on the other hand, by supporting the war did indirectly condone killing, but to be sure, it was the killing of a despot and his minions, who already had demonstrated their willingness to imprison, torture, gas and murder the innocents of their own nation over a period of decades that he had personally witnessed

That is a terribly unequal comparison. For starters, the Iraqi's were not on the verge of committing genocide against Americans, which is the inverse of the premise you'd might extend to Hitler to even the scales. And the idea that internal strife and suffering is justification, then I have to ask why Hitchens didn't make an even bigger case for war against North Korea.  Maybe he did, but I can;t recall him being as vocal about it as he was about Iraq.

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Permalink Reply by Albert Bakker on December 18, 2011 at 2:15am

"..the Iraqi's were not on the verge of committing genocide against Americans..."

Which is why the Bush administration had to resort to creating the illusion this was the case. I remember vividly the sudden boom in the duct tape trade by Americans. Three people died while sealing their house in fear of the impending Iraqi invasion. There was this giant mushroom cloud shot by Condoreezza Lies from her smoking gun. And there was endless, endless, endless tales of infinite amounts of weapons of mass destruction on hair-trigger alert, going to be dropped on us if Saddam Hussein felt either sickly or giddy or in case he lost a game of checkers with one of his sons.

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Permalink Reply by Reggie on December 18, 2011 at 2:22am

Ugh!  Don't remind me! 

Actually, I wish I could forget. Sometimes.

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Permalink Reply by 3equ3cp1fsw0n on December 18, 2011 at 11:40am

Someone wrote:  "..the Iraqi's were not on the verge of committing genocide against Americans..."

Albert replied:  Which is why the Bush administration had to resort to creating the illusion this was the case.

@ Albert - Illusion, my ass hat. I for one, was terrified at what was pulled off on 911. On that day, there was a window of time where it seemed the world might end. It was one of the scariest days of my life.

But that's just me.

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Permalink Reply by Albert Bakker on December 19, 2011 at 12:57pm

Since that has nothing to do with anything I'll take it as you just wanted to get that off your chest.

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Permalink Reply by 3equ3cp1fsw0n on December 19, 2011 at 6:39pm

@ Albert - Ugh. Bad guy hit good guy, UGH.  Good guy hit bad guy back, UGH.  Hitchens on good guy side, UGH.

Does that make it any clearer for you?

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Permalink Reply by Albert Bakker on December 20, 2011 at 1:24am

No, it doesn't at all. And it still hasn't got anything to do with either the Americans never being on the verge of going extinct through an impending Iraqi invasion, never being threatened by an Iraqi attack of weapons of mass destruction, let alone a nuclear holocaust or any of the other lies being made up to so successfully instill war fever in the American public 2002-2003.

I hate to point out that neither had Iraq anything to do with 911 nor was it by any stretch of the imagination a genocide. So in your terminology I suppose I have to answer back that bad guy hit good guy, good guy puts blindfold on and starts hitting lots of people having nothing to do with it, Hitchens cheering him on. Ugh.

Does that make it any clearer to you?

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