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Monday, March 20, 2006

Hitch’s Ideal War

Christopher Hitchens:

Up until now, I have resisted all urges to assume the mantle of generalship and to describe how I personally would have waged a campaign to liberate Iraq. I became involved in this argument before the Bush administration had been elected, and for me it always was (and still is) a matter of solidarity with the democratic forces in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan and of the need for the United States to change its policy and be on their side. I am now authoritatively told that we should have been on their side to the tune of 100,000 or so extra troops, and I must say I do not object. Nor would I have objected then. However, it's the point of principle that matters. And one simply cannot turn to international friends and say, look, what with the state of the opinion polls, I think we'll have to be seeing a bit less of each other.

This commitment doesn't override truth, and I know that a lot of people feel that they were cheated or even lied into the war. It seems amazing to me that so many people have adopted the "Saddam Hussein? No problem!" view before the documents captured from his regime have even been translated, let alone analyzed. I am sure that when this task has been completed, history will make fools of those who believed that he was no threat, had no terror connections, was "in his box," and so forth.


I've been saying the same thing about these Iraq documents.

Read the whole thing.

Comments

Avatar for Ken McCracken

Hitchens is a treasure - and the only leftist on earth with a functioning brain.  

Ken McCracken on March 20, 2006 at 09:05 pm
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Hey, don’t forget Lieberman.  And Tony Blair has been pretty solid on Iraq.


When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

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Rob on March 20, 2006 at 09:11 pm
Avatar for Ken McCracken

Yeah, actually I will always be especially grateful to Tony Blair, kinda like the way Americans are for Churchill.

Ken McCracken on March 20, 2006 at 09:52 pm
Avatar for Seth Williams

God bless the cockles of his little heart, he gets it.

Seth Williams on March 21, 2006 at 04:19 am
Avatar for richard

Just one problem with it. Saddam isn’t unique there are a lot out there like him with one exception he is the only one that we decided to attack. We do not apply the need to remove evenly. Oh and there is that nasty little thing about not attacking us.

richard on March 21, 2006 at 04:47 am
Avatar for Seth Williams

Oh come now, Richard. Every sadistically homicidal kleptocrat is special in their own way, and deserving of individualizied attention. Just because we overthrow one doesn’t mean we must (or even can) overthrow them all. Yet our inability/lack of desire (however you feel happier stating it) to overthrow all nasty dictators doesn’t matter one whit, because overthrowing even one of them increases the net level of good and safety in the world. Complaining that we didn’t overthrow all others is simply juvenile...scratch that, most juveniles employ better logic.

As for your claim that Saddam didn’t attack us...I guess that means our fighter pilots stop being American when they step in the cockpit? Or our ex-presidents stop being American when they travel abroad? He decleared himself an enemy of America in word and deed.

Saddam was dangerous to his people, the region, and the world. Everyone is better off with him out of power.

Seth Williams on March 21, 2006 at 05:22 am
Avatar for richard

As usual wrong again.

I do not want to over htrow any of them and after reviewing my post can not for the life of me see how you could come to that conclusion.

My point was simply he is not unique not by a long shot there are actually worse out there and some of them have the means and desire to attack us.

richard on March 21, 2006 at 05:30 am
Avatar for Seth Williams

Well fine, I want to overthrow all of them, Bush split the difference between you and me.

Seth Williams on March 21, 2006 at 05:37 am
Avatar for Seth Williams

By the way, did you really just declare that you’re against overthrowing those regimes that are declared hostile to us AND have the means to hit us? Do you have some sort of deathwish?

Seth Williams on March 21, 2006 at 05:42 am
Avatar for richard

Well I can see where you could get that and it was not my intnent to make that statement. I was attempting, very poorly, to point out that I  never said we should over throw anybody. 

richard on March 21, 2006 at 05:55 am
Avatar for Seth Williams

That’s clearer.

Seth Williams on March 21, 2006 at 06:27 am
Avatar for Ken McCracken

Uh, who the hell was worse than Saddam Hussein?

He started the third-bloodiest war of the twentieth century.

He used chemical weapons in that war, and used them on civilians as well.  

He used bulldozers to dig the graves of his political enemies and dissidents. 

And now we are finding out what tight connections he had with al-Qaeda

On and on it went - Richard, who was worse than this guy?

Ken McCracken on March 21, 2006 at 07:21 am
Avatar for Seth Williams

I suspect (but hope I’m wrong), that he’s unmoved by those well-known facts Ken. For some people, it just doesn’t matter if it doesn’t directly impact them--they never understand that events there do reverberate around the world and through time and end up having an impact in the here and now.

Seth Williams on March 21, 2006 at 07:28 am
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