| Lies and the lying liar who tells them.
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# posted by Sonic : 3:25 PM
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We have a new game here at Hitchenswatch, whenever Christopher produces a piece of work we play, find the big fat lie!
In his latest, re the comical Euston Manifesto it's rather to easy.
"However, that professed sympathy does help us to understand the second motive. To many callow leftists, the turbulent masses of the Islamic world are at once a reminder of the glory days of “Third World” revolution, and a hasty substitute for the vanished proletariat of yore. Galloway has said as much in so many words and my old publishers at New Left Review have produced a book of Osama Bin Laden’s speeches in which he is compared with Che Guevara."
New left Review are promoting Osama Bin Laden! that's unbeliveable if true.
It's not.
The book is actually published by Verso, it is called “Messages to the World –- The Statements of Osama bin Laden” edited and introduced by Duke University religion professor Bruce Lawrence.
Lets look at what the author actually Said about his work.
"A major goal of the book is to show, through his own words, how bin Laden’s views differ from mainstream Islam and even other radical Muslim thought, said Lawrence"...“It is not enough to say he is a terrorist and the scum of the Earth,” Lawrence said. “I think we need a balance. We need to better understand how bin Laden has wrapped himself in the cloak of Islamic legitimacy to support his cause and to attract followers.
“My hope -– and it is the best hope, I think -- is to have more Americans, both Muslim and non-Muslim, understand the goal of bin Laden and then reject it in search of a common agenda for productive change.”
So there we have it, an American professor writes a book aiming to show that Osama bin Laden in not only a "a terrorist and the scum of the Earth" but also how he is distorting Islamic teachings with the aim of having people "reject" his message, yet somehow in HitchensWorld (tm) this becomes an example of the left supporting Bin Laden.
Hitchens finishes with the bold statement "So call me a neo-conservative if you must" I think on this occasion we will just stick to calling him a liar.
More at Dave Spart and Doubleplusungood
Update
Thanks to Uncle Jimbo in the comments we have Bruce Lawrence's own website, I wonder how long it will be before the meme that he is he is pro Al Queda becomes and accepted truth online? |
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| Greywolf on Sudan
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# posted by Sonic : 2:05 PM
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Re the below Slate article:
To call Niger a “tiny African state” may be an innocuous, if
inaccurate, comment. But I wonder if it wasn’t also a Freudian slip
that revealed something deeper about the coiner’s attitudes to that
particular part of the Sahel or to Africa or the Third World in
General. Hitch is not a racist—far from it. Even when he’s waxing
poetic at the thought of somebody else suffering or dying, it is never
on account of their race or ethnicity, but because of something they
personally have said or done. But like most of us he was born and
raised in a culture pervaded by racism. And he is very fond of the
Flashman books, in which “looking down on Brother Darkie” is elevated
to a high art. So it wouldn’t be surprising if the odd subliminal
racially prejudiced thought or phrase danced across the synapses his
otherwise pristine humanist mind once in a while.
There is an episode of BBC comedy series Yes Minister in which the
Minister, Jim Hacker and the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby
discuss how to refer to Third World nations. Sir Humphrey explains that
in the past they were called Underdeveloped Countries. But because this
term was viewed as offensive they were then called Developing
Countries, and later LDCs (Less Developed Countries). And in the future
they will be called HRRCs (Human Resource Rich Countries), “which means
that they are grossly overpopulated and are begging for money.”
Eventually, the Minister comes up with his own acronym: TPLAC — Tin Pot
Little African Country, and this always gets a big laugh, at least from
British audiences.
My supposition is that Hitch, in clambering around looking for a
suitable way of describing Niger to round off his article and coming up
with a total blank, finds the phrase “tin pot little African country”
seeping into the back of his mind. Given Niger’s low per capita GNP it
seems an apt description, but too derogatory to use in print. So quick
as a flash and quite possibly without any conscious thought he mentally
edits it down to “tiny African state” and Bob’s your uncle.
I have no idea if anything like this actually went on in Hitch’s mind,
but the supposition has the merit of accounting for his use of this
diminutive description, which I find hard to account for in any other
way. Niger could be described as “modest”, “minor”, or even
“insignificant”, but certainly not “tiny”. In terms of area, it
measures 1,270,00km2 — roughly twice the size of Texas and 29 times the
size of Denmark. Perhaps Hitch has one of those maps in his head that
shows the sizes of different countries in terms of their relative
population or GNP or rate of mobile phone popularization — you know,
the ones where the Isle of Wight is as big as Madagascar and Canada
looks like a squirt of toothpaste applied along the top of the US. As
with the reason for Mr. Zahawie’s 1999 trip to Niger, we may never
discover the real answer. But I can’t help wondering whether this
particular instance of the word “tiny” doesn't provide a rare insight
into to the normally closely guarded id of that celebrated journalist
we all love to read, Christopher Hitchens. |
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| Kill the Witch!
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# posted by Sonic : 3:24 PM
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As usual when the right-wing, online echo chamber screams for blood Christopher is right at front of the lynch mob it seems giving the wing-nuts a modicum of left cover is his new raison d'être.
On the whole it's a sad little piece, pomposity thy name is Christopher, for example.
"If Mary O. McCarthy should ever be so desperate as to need a character witness, or to require one so badly that she must stoop to my level, I declare in advance that I shall step forward pro bono."
Me, me, me, me, me, as my 5 year old neice might say.
Indeed that is what is most striking about this whole article, It could well have been titled "ya boo sucks to you, I was right and you were wrong"
However amidst the smug self-congratulation one fact gets nary a mention. Christopher gets highly indignant abount what he calls the "the press witch hunt against Lewis Libby and Karl Rove" (while happily joining the witch hunt against Mary O. McCarthy) he expresses his anger about actions taken by Clinton in 1999,(complaining of, and you'll laugh "lawless and capricious presidential violence") he even gets huffy about a speech Clinton made which allegedly plagiarised Michael Douglas.
But over the issue over which Mary McCarthey is being accused of leaking information, the fact that America has secret prisons "in which suspected terrorists were "disappeared" so they could be interrogated without the nosies from the Red Cross knowing about it and without any risk of having questions asked about torture in American courts." we get not a word.
Nice to know that Christopher has his priorities straight, the press asking questions about Karl Rove? an outrage! outsourced torture of suspected Muslims? who cares.
Update
Matthew Yglesias says it all.
"if you think that leaking classified information in order to expose illegal conduct by high government officials is the same thing as high government officials selectively releasing classified information in order to bamboozle the public into supporting a strategically daft invasion, then you're out of your mind. The issue, though, is that a certain number of people think that bamboozling the public into supporting the Iraq War was a good and noble thing to do, and a largely overlapping group of people think that arbitrary detention and torture are so vital to American national security that a little lawbreaking and secrecy is a small price to pay to ensure that the job gets done
Quite.
p.s
Christopher updates his Niger exclusive with the amazing news that"Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf—as having just possibly approached some Niger businessmen and officials at an OAU summit in Algeria in 1999"
"Having just possibly"? And to think I got all cynical. |
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| His masters voice
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# posted by Sonic : 3:54 PM
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(via the excellent Kirktoons)
Hugh Hewitt, well known attack dog for the Whitehouse interviewed Christopher yesterday
(you will have to scroll down to get the podcast, past Mark Steyn complaining he did not get a Pulitzer and Joe Klein telling us "that we have to keep the nuclear option on the table when dealing with Iran" it's that sort of show)
Most of it the interview is just the same old same old. We hear, yet again that Wissam al-Zahawie, the accredited ambassador of Iraq to the Vatican, visited Niger in 1999. and Joe Wilson gets the slime treatment for daring to contradict the official story that Iraq purchased, tried to purchase, sought to purchase, thought about purchasing, might have possibly once thought about purchasing uranium from Niger.
(I'm not quite sure what the party line is on that, except to consistantly mention that Wissam al-Zahawie, the accredited ambassador of Iraq to the Vatican, visited Niger in 1999. and demand that anyone who is against the war admit that this somehow means case closed)
We also get a lot of "Bush is not as bad as [insert name of bad president here] so therefore why do people criticise him"? (getting a leg amputated is not as bad as terminal cancer, why do people complain?)
However the most interesting point to me was Hugh Hewitt's repeated requests for Christopher to write an article attacking Joe Klein and Sean Wilentz.
HH "You've got 30 seconds. I hope you'll write about this in Slate"
HH "Well I...(laughing) hope you do write up, because it does require rapid response"
One might think it odd that a self-proclaimed progressive is being urged repeatedly, by a Bush supporter, to write a particular article. It shows again what Christopher's role is American political life has been reduced to. Writing articles that can be quoted by the Right with some varation of; "Even well known Liberal Christopher Hitchens agrees that [insert right-wing hate figure of the day here] is a lunatic,lying, extremist who must be disowned by all decent minded people"
That's why Christopher so rarely attacks anyone other than opponents of Bush. He smears Michael Moore or Cindy Sheehan to order. Joe Wilson is threatening Bush's credibilty? Christopher is on him like an ill-trained spaniel.
like the rest of the Vichy left Mr Hitchens has found his niche, being the pet leftist Bush's media army can rely on when they need a quote to discredit anyone who is against the GOP party line. Grieving mother = anti-semite, ex-us ambassador = liar, left-wing filmaker = brownshirt.
Well it's a living I suppose.
update
Larry Johnson makes some excellent points |
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| Utterly Clueless
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# posted by Sonic : 6:40 PM
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Sometimes a smart journalist, on the tail of a good story, will drip-feed out the facts. You raise the issue, await denials and then reveal the bit you have held back.
So when I saw that Christopher had returned again to the Niger issue ( Utterly Clueless ) I thought, here we go Christopher is about to reveal the killer fact and show us whiny anti-war WMD deniers what for.
But what do we get?
Wissam al-Zahawie, the accredited ambassador of Iraq to the Vatican, visited Niger in 1999.
Seriously that's it, that's all there is. Christopher Slides over the fact that the documents Bush relied on have been shown to be crude forgeries (produced according to Christopher "in order to discredit a true story")
He forgets to mention that there is no way in a million years Iraq could have got yellowcake from Niger as one of the mines was flooded and the other French controlled.
He somehow fails to recall that Iraq was under international embargo at the time so could not have imported yellowcake.
He manages to avoid referring to the fact that three years of postwar searching have shown that Iraq had no equipment and no programme to use the yellowcake for anything at all and that anyway they already had 500 tonnes of the stuff.
What have we left?
Wissam al-Zahawie, the accredited ambassador of Iraq to the Vatican, visited Niger in 1999.
Why embarrass yourself any more Christopher? the war you shilled for has left, at least, tens of thousands of dead and the nation of Iraq virtually destroyed.
There were no nukes, no nerve gas, no unmanned planes, no anthrax, no threat to destroy cities in 15 minutes. It was all a lie.
I know it, you know it, the dogs on the street know it.
Do you really think the world will forgive you because you have found out that Wissam al-Zahawie, the accredited ambassador of Iraq to the Vatican, visited Niger in 1999? |
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| Yo Dogs lets get down with the Jiggy etc
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# posted by Sonic : 3:20 PM
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Much has been made of Christophers comments on MSBC ( video Here ) Viz
"THOMAS: Yes, but one of the problems, he wasn't against the war. He was against doing the war right then. If you talk Richard Armitage's aide, they were ready to go war, they just didn't want to do it that year.
HITCHENS: Their aides? Their bitch, you mean.
MATTHEWS: His what?
HITCHENS: His bitch. Why are you calling Colin Powell a good soldier?"
Much ink has been spilled attacking Christopher for these innocent comments, what none of these Frenchified, islamojihadifascist lovers realise is that is just the first stage of a cunning plan!
Christopher is a smart guy, the war is losing support, especially amongst the young. It's time for all those who care about the victory of the west to get their message across in language that the youth can realate to.
This is just the first stage, we here at HW can exclusivly reveal that future Slate colums will include "Why Bush is Da bomb" and "Chomsky's mama so fat that when you get on top of her your ears pop, Y'all"
I'm sure you can do better, leave suggestions in the comments. |
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| Via Wonkette
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Wednesday, April 12, 2006 |
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# posted by Sonic : 6:20 PM
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Or Maybe He’ll Really Shock Us and Write A Column About Not Liking the New Ghostface Album
The Post, today:
On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile “biological laboratories.” He declared, “We have found the weapons of mass destruction.”
The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.Hey, what’s that? Do you hear something comin’ down the tracks? Why, it sounds like tomorrow’s Slate splash page!
Original here |
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| Fool me once shame on you, fool me for the 100th time...
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# posted by Sonic : 9:51 PM
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Christopher is at his scathing best re the niger forgery in this weeks Slate
but Iraq did go uranium shopping in Niger.
"someone produced a fake document, dated July 6, 2000, which purports to show Zahawie's signature and diplomatic seal on an actual agreement for an Iraqi uranium transaction with Niger. Almost everything was wrong with this crude forgery—it had important dates scrambled, and it misstated the offices of Niger politicians"
Quite right, indeed he goes on to speculate at what dastardly motives could have propelled this forgery and comes up with quite the little conspiracy theory to account for it.
"There seem to be only three possibilities here. Either a) American intelligence concocted the note; b) someone in Italy did so in the hope of gain; or c) it was the product of disinformation, intended to protect Niger and discredit any attention paid to the actual, real-time Zahawie visit....
Forgery for disinformation, if that is what it was, appears at least to have worked. Almost everybody in the world now affects to believe that Saddam Hussein was framed on the Niger rap."
It obviously makes Christopher's blood boil, so perhaps we can suggest that he turn his ire to those misguided "useful idiots" who defended these documents.
"The bogus document produced by an Italian con man in October 2002, which has caused such embarrassment, was therefore more like a forgery than a fake: It was a fabricated version of a true bill."
Bogus yet true, how low will these people sink?
So who is this dastardly fiend who is spreading this misinformation?
Step foward
Christopher Hitchens!
But seriously folks
The simple fact is that the US government has had three years and has yet not managed to find any program that could utilize yellowcake even if it fell from the sky as a gift.
In that ever changing sphere that is Christopher's head The documents used to be true, and then they were "fabricated version of a true bill," and now that they are totally discredited, they become a reverse proof, a "product of disinformation"
What does reality have to produce to satisfy this man that the whole WMD scare was just that.
See also
Hitchens jumps shark. |
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| Do at least try and keep the story straight.
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# posted by Sonic : 6:29 PM
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Still no Slate article, and as I do not (and never intend to have) a subscription to Atlantic I cannot review his latest pro-war outing.
However this did catch my eye
Christopher Hitchens' view of immigration, his disagreement and dislike of Republicans, and his contempt for Democrats
Now I realise that this is a transcript of a talk, not an article, but really it is all over the place.
"Well, the European problem is a different one. It's certainly a much more rapidly aging population, and tremendously low birth rate as well. And coupled with the fact that a large number of immigrants come from Muslim countries, and are viewed increasingly by some, and sometimes spoken for by their organizations as if they had an agenda of Islamization. That's what makes people chilled. In this case, I'm rather surprised. I mean, the largest number of immigrants come in, the ones that I think people are most alarmed about in point of numbers, cross the border from Texas and California. And there's been no objection to them being Catholic"
?
Or
"HH: Now I want to switch on that. That having been said, you've got a very personal response. But I still haven't heard from you whether or not you think politically, Republican majorities ought to reject this, or whether they're simply obliged to by virtue of majority/minority states in which they have to compete.
CH: I hate to do this. I don't feel it's my problem.
HH: All right. Interesting.
CH: I mean, I'm not a Republican, among other things."
Apart from that whole voting for Bush thing that is.
This is the best bit though.
" HH:...do you read the blogs, Christopher Hitchens?
CH: I don't, you know. I mean, people send me some of the garbage that's on them. I don't surf them myself, but I mean, I'm sometimes attacked on them, so people send me the gunk that is circulating."
Compare and contrast with this quote
" It got also an awful lot of play on the TV and in what I sometimes think of as the informal media, the Web logs, the Web sites, the online magazines and so on, which is something I follow"
(http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0307/11/i_c.00.html )
So which is it Christopher? |
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