| His own glorious little war.
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# posted by Sonic : 3:34 PM
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Via Counterpunch
The recent memorial for long-term New York Review co-editor Barbara Epstein, sadly felled by cancer on June 15, was disfigured by an unseemly outbursts from Christopher Hitchens. There was a list of invitees for the private ceremony and C. Hitchens -- a sometime NYT contributor was not on the list. He implored to be admitted, and some misguidedly decent soul gave him the green light.
Visibly taken with drink, in the estimate of at least one observer, Hitchens showed up and soon made his way to Jean Stein, a close friend of Barbara Epstein, also editor of Grand Street in recent years. Hitchens spared Stein the habitual presentation of his hairy cheek but made a low, facetious bow and offered his hand.
Stein icily declined, saying she had no desire to shake hands with him for many reasons, not least the fact that Hitchens had attacked one of her best friends, Edward Said, while he was on his death bed.
As Hitchens retreated, someone remarked to him, "So your glorious war has turned out to be a total disaster, hasn't it?"
"It is glorious," the sodden scrivener blared, "and it is my war because it needed Paul Wolfowitz and myself to go and convince the President to go to war."
As mourners digested this megalomanic outburst, Hitchens continued, "And we are going to kill every Al Qaida terrist and Baathist in the country and that's a good thing. They need to be killed and we will kill them."
May I take the time to apologise to Mr Hitchens for thinking that he was merely a journalistic cheerleader for the Iraq disaster. I now realise that, according to his own account at least, he deserves a good part of the credit for starting the war in the first place.
Still you have to admire the man for his honesty, so if you need 20 Rothmans sneaked into to your cell during your inevitable war crimes trial in the Hague just drop us a line.
Update
Christopher Hitchens has responded to the Counterpunch article on his own website, see Here |
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| What can we do to make you love us?
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# posted by Sonic : 2:09 PM
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Last week we asked a simple question of Christopher and the war party. It's your war, what is the plan to win it?
Now we have Christopher's answer, it's up to those against the war to bring victory
I kid you not.
Mr Hitchens has kindly laid out four tasks that we must perform, listen closely Children.
1) Turn the campaign against the use of land mines away from bothering the poor old USA into ratifying the international treaty against their use (US mines are good land mines you see) and instead campaign against the use of IED's in Iraq.
2) As the entire might of the US military cannot bring security to Iraq it's up to us to be "human shields" against insurgent attacks.
3) Mention that the lifting of sanctions has been a good thing as it has ended "a huge and very distressing statistic concerning the death and malnourishment and health crisis of the poorer Iraqis had been uncovered. Now I'm not one to have Christopher depressed by a statistic (not the actual people dying note, just the statistic) so let us not point out that the situation for the poor and sick in Iraq is worse than it was before Christopher's chums invaded the country. That would be churlish.
4) Recruit more gay people into the US military, presumably to have more equity in the casualty figures.
So there you go people, it's up to us, one and all to win Christopher's war for him. Ask not what Hitchens can do for you, ask what you can do for Hitchens!
Or is it that even Mr H now knows the war is lost, and this is a pre-emptive strike to make sure that the blame for the debacle rests not on those who cheerleaded the world into this mess, but on those who oppossed it?
Now that would be a cynical thought.
"This has been fun. Now, please, get back to Plame and Haditha"
Sorry to keep bringing up Haditha Christopher, I now realise that 28 dead civilians is probably a "depressing statistic" for you. We'll try not to mention it again. |
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| Strategic planning
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# posted by Sonic : 4:53 PM
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During last weeks scheduled love in with wild-eyed, right-wing loony Hugh Hewitt (See here for full transcript) we get a even more rambling nonsense than usual.
Read the whole thing.
However this is the quote that caught my little eye. When invited by Hewitt to be his pet liberal attack dog on a certain Hilary Clinton we get this statement from Christopher.
"when she said earlier she wants a victory strategy and so on, I remember John Kerry saying that when he ran. I would loved her to take just a moment, just one moment to say what she thinks it ought to be."
You know what I would love, for Christopher or any of his supporters who post here, to tell us what their "victory Strategy" is in Iraq? killing Zarqwawi seems to have made No difference at all |
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| Judge for yourself
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# posted by Sonic : 6:36 PM
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It's usually a good rule of thumb that whoever starts hystericaly blustering in a debate is losing. A email, puportedly from Wissam al-Zahawie responds to Christophers consistant charges that he was in Niger buying Uranium for Saddams non-existant nuclear weapons programme.
A former Iraqi official replies
Christopher's response is, I'm afraid to say, bluster of the highest order.
ie in the first paragraph
"I feel quite tainted even discussing this question with someone who worked for the Baathist gangsters who fleeced and slaughtered the Iraqi people"
In the last paragraph
"Always happy to debate one of Saddam's toadies, however un-Baathist ("my dear fellow, much too vulgar for an aesthete like myself") he now claims to be
Anyway judge for yourself, and I'll get busy following the links. |
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| Irrefutable
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# posted by Sonic : 2:33 PM
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Has Christopher been channelling long-time HW commentator Exhibit? I only ask because of this.This
" that a regime like Saddam's obstensibly secular, totalitarian wouldn't collude with theocrats. Well, that collapses on its face. I mean, Saddam's main friend in the region was Sudan, a very highly Islamized regime, with which they had very openly, very fine relations. And I think at one point, bin Laden even considered moving to Iraq when the Sudanese threw him out. We don't know that for sure, but we know that they knew about each other's existence."
They knew about each others existence! The fiends |
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| Making it up as he goes along.
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# posted by Sonic : 9:46 PM
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Thanks to Stephen for his insight into this part of what is already going down in history as Christophers worst ever Slate piece.
"A suggestive new document from this trove has now been uncovered and analyzed by Ray Robison, a former staffer on David Kay's Iraq Survey Group. It details a meeting in Baghdad between Fazlur Rahman, a major Pakistani cleric and Taliban sympathizer, and Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam's vice president and chief party enforcer. Fazlur Rahman seeks and receives sympathy, brings a message of goodwill from Mullah Omar, and requests Iraqi help in mediating between the Taliban, Northern Alliance, and the Russians in Afghanistan. Though some of the conversation is opaque and hard to decipher, it clearly shows that a friendly informal contact existed between the two regimes."
Read Stephen's demoliton of Ray Robinson and his analysis here and for further fun read the comments from Mr Robinson himself at the bottom of the article. |
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| Lies, Damned lies and Statistics.
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# posted by Sonic : 8:58 PM
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Oops
Oh what fun this weeks Slate Piece has been. lets look at the last self-congratulatory paragraph.
"Postscript: A note of cheer to all those Slate readers who either attended the Solidarity With Denmark rally or sent encouragement, or rallied round to buy Danish goods. I have today received a note from one of the Copenhagen editors who published the original cartoons, informing me that in the last quarter, Danish exports to the United States have increased by 17 percent and that, overall, the Danish economy has more than compensated for the results of the unjustified Muslim boycott. Let us keep this example in mind."
Indeed lets, unless of course it is not true.
Now this business quarter runs April 1st to June 1st, so how anyone could know what the outcome of this quarters trade figures are is a mystery. However We can find out some of th figures as Danish exports to the USA are a matter of public record (see Here
This table gives us the last year of imports to the USA from Denmark.
Month Total Imports (US $ Millions)
Apr-05 360.4
May-05 433.4
Jun-05 438.4
Jul-05 449.2
Aug-05 423.9
Sep-05 518.2
Oct-05 545.8
Nov-05 485.6
Dec-05 388.2
Jan-06 323.6
Feb-06 312.5
Mar-06 474.8
Apr-06 409.3
The Hitchens inspired rallies happened in late Febuary/early March 2006, so you would expect a huge rise in the number of "freedom loving Americans" purchasing Danish bacon and lager in April. What do we get? a fall of $65.5 million dollars in Danish goods exported to the USA, making it one of the worst months of the year for our Danish Chums.
Of course it is possible that when next months figures come in Christophers wacky buy Danish campaign may have produced some results. However to snatch out of the air a claim like "Danish exports to the United States have increased by 17 percent" puts a wonderful seal on what must be the most error filled Slate piece Mr Hitchens has ever produced.
Update
There seems to be a bit of a debate in the comment boxes about these figures. Good friend of this Site, Greywolf, clarifies.
Danish editor’s claim, cited by Hitch: Danish exports to the US have increased by 17% in the last quarter.
Last quarter: January ~ March 2006
(Note to those chattering at the back of the class: April ~ June 2006 is the current quarter and is not yet over)
Previous quarter for comparison: Unclear (the writer was not being sufficiently assiduous in elucidating the specifics of his point)
Possible quarters for comparison: January ~ March 2005 or October ~ December 2005
Comparison of January ~ March 2006 against January ~ March 2005:
J~M 2005: 1,101.1 million US dollars
J~M 2006: 1,110.9 million US dollars
Rate of Increase: 0.9%
Comparison of January ~ March 2006 against October ~ December 2005:
O~D 2005: 1,419.6 million US dollars
J~M 2006 :1,110.9 million US dollars
Rate of Decrease: 22%
Conclusion: The claim is not borne out by US government statistics. |
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| Gimme Shelter
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# posted by Sonic : 6:42 PM
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Guest Quarters
Stephen Poole gives us the lowdown on Christophers recycled claims in this weeks Slate piece about the supposed sheltering of evil terrorists by Saddam Hussain.
here
Particluarly apt is this
"The most interesting of Hitchens's examples, though, is "Mr Yasin". Abdul Rahman Yasin was one of the conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had been questioned and released shortly afterwards by the FBI, after which he went to Iraq. What, precisely, does Hitchens mean when he says Yasin was being "sheltered" in Iraq? What, alternatively, did Hitchens mean when he wrote last year that the same Yasin was "a guest of the state"? As it happens, Yasin had since 1994 been imprisoned in an Iraqi jail: as reported by 60 Minutes, Saddam Hussein had made two offers to hand him over to the US, both of which were rejected. Suddenly, shortly after 9/11, the FBI put Yasin on its list of Most Wanted Terrorists. As reported by the New Yorker, Yasin as an example of Baghdad's links to terrorism was a favourite talking point of Paul Wolfowitz.
In saying that Yasin was "sheltered" in or "a guest of" Iraq, Hitchens thus chooses his words very carefully. He is speaking to two audiences at once. The first audience knows the truth about Yasin: those people will smile at Hitchens's cleverness, for it is not strictly inaccurate to say that a jailed man is "sheltered" (a prison provides protection from the elements) or even, ironically, a "guest". Hitchens's second audience is the great unwashed public, for whom he has such contempt that he thinks repeating such easily refutable "proofs" of Iraqi terrorism will suffice. |
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| A Quicky
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# posted by Sonic : 10:19 PM
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So much to look at in this weeks Slate piece that I'll take a day or so to post up a reponse.
Had to note one thing though.
"The Jordanian authorities thus had excellent reasons of their own to follow Zarqawi, and the kingdom's Mukhabarat—or General Intelligence Department, which generally earns high marks for efficiency—"
Quite
Update
Andrew Points out that criticisms of Jordan from Amnesty will cut no ice with Christopher and the neo-cons as they have long ago worked out that the organisation is merely another front for anti-Americal evil doing types. |
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| Black propaganda.
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# posted by Sonic : 7:53 PM
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On first reading Christopher's latest in the The Australian is a word for word repeat of his last Last effort in Slate
However we did not get where we are today (wherever the bloody hell that is) without taking the second look. The difference is instructive.
The opening paragraph of the Slate piece.
"The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is excellent news in its own right and even more excellent if, as U.S. sources in Iraq are claiming, it resulted from information that derived from people who were or had been close to him. (And, if that claim is black propaganda, then it is clever black propaganda, which is also excellent news."
Compare that to the new opening of what is essentially the same article
"The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is excellent news in its own right and even more excellent because it resulted from information passed along by a defector deep inside his inner circle"
Let us rejoice that Christopher has learned the first rule of black propaganda (the practice of spreading lies to keep your enemy off balance) It doesn't work half as well when you boastfully tell everyone that you are doing it. |
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| Slaying the Bogeyman
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# posted by Sonic : 4:23 PM
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Today must be a special day as Christopher rouses himself to contribute a fresh article to Slate joining in The celebrations of the happiest day for the warmongers since Saddam got caught
He is not really on very good form though as this opening paragraph gives rather a large hostage to fortune.
" The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is excellent news in its own right and even more excellent if, as U.S. sources in Iraq are claiming, it resulted from information that derived from people who were or had been close to him. (And, if that claim is black propaganda, then it is clever black propaganda, which is also excellent news.)"
Lying it seems is "excellent", especially if it is "clever" a point to remember the next time you read one of our hero's little pieces.
But Christopher being, well Christopher, it is not long before his happy mood is cut short.
"It hasn't taken long for the rain to start falling on this parade"
Oh no! who could be responsible for ruining Christophers lovely parade? step forward...
"Nick Berg's father, a MoveOn type now running for Congress on the Green Party ticket, has already said that he blames President George Bush for the video-beheading of his own son (but of course) and mourned the passing of Zarqawi as he would the death of any man (but of course, again)"
Vintage stuff, it's got the personal attack on someone who has actually lost someone they loved in Christopher's favourite war, the easy dismissal of his views as he is a "MoveOn type" (which means anything he says can be dismissed without any thought) and the world weary "(but of course)"
Damn leftists, just so consistant predictable. Especially those who won't shut up about their pesky dead relatives.
Moving on swiftly
"Zarqawi contributed enormously to the wrecking of Iraq's experiment in democratic federalism. He was able to help ensure that the Iraqi people did not have one single day of respite between 35 years of war and fascism, and the last three-and-a-half years of misery and sabotage"
On his own he wrecked Christophers Beautiful dream, despite being "a semiliterate goon and former jailhouse enforcer from a Bedouin clan in Jordan, a goon and an arab it seems. Awful, awful man.
How did this fiend manage it?
"How much state and para-state support did he enjoy?"
Aye there's the rub.
" know that Kurdish intelligence had been warning the coalition for some time before the invasion that former Afghanistan combatants were making their way into Iraq, which they saw as the next best chance to take advantage of a state that was both "failed" and "rogue." One might add that Iraq under Saddam was not an easy country to enter or to leave, and that no decision on who was allowed in would be taken by a junior officer."
Unless of course you happened to be entering Kurdistan, which to the best of my recollection was not controlled by Saddam, however this is old news to us all.
"That bomb at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, for example, was no improvised explosive device. It was a huge charge of military-grade ordnance. Are we to believe that a newly arrived Bedouin Jordanian thug could so swiftly have scraped acquaintance with senior-level former Baathists? (The charges that destroyed the golden dome of the Shiites in Samarra were likewise rigged and set by professional military demolitionists.)"
Interesting point that. A bunch of "professional military demolitionists" in army uniforms show up and blow up a mosque while the occupation forces look away. Even someone deeply suspicious of conspiracy theories would be hard pushed not to conclude that, perhaps...It was Iran!
"Zarqawi was all along receiving help from the mullahs in Iran. He certainly seems to have been able to transit their territory (Herat is on the Iranian border with Afghanistan) and to replenish his forces by the same route. If this suggestive connection is proved, as Weaver suggests it will be, then we have the Shiite fundamentalists in Iran directly sponsoring the murderer of their co-religionists in Iraq. This in turn would mean that the Iranian mullahs stood convicted of the most brutish and cynical irresponsibility, in front of their own people"
Truly one could not make it up.
Lets leave it there for now. It's a great day for Christopher, and a great day for all warmongers and I for one do not wish to be seen to be raining on anyone's parade.
Others, of a more cynical nature than mine, might wonder again at how convenient Mr Z's actions have always been for the US and it's partners. He pops up just before the war to give Colin Powell his Saddam-Osama link, He manages to time the beheading of Nick Berg just as the Abu Graib scandal was breaking, he could always be relied on to give living proof that the "insurgency" was alien to Iraq and linked to Osama and now he happens to get himself blown up just as the exposure of the Haditha massacre has driven support for the war to a new low.
Makes you wonder why they are so happy he is gone. |
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| Justifing Slaughter
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# posted by Sonic : 3:32 PM
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Christopher has finally spoken up about Haditha . For the sake of what is left of his reputation he should not have bothered.
We are told the massacre is "not like My Lai" indeed that is true, for one thing some US soldiers intervened to stop the My Lai massacre, in this case they did not.
However the whole "not like My Lai" argument is of course a smokescreen. We could add that certain features of this massacre are not like Glencoe, the rape of Nanking, Sabra and Chatilla etc etc etc. The point of the comparison from Christopher is not to add to our understanding it is to divert it, to move the argument from a very dangerous channel for the war-mongers (Your troops are killing the people you claim they have liberated) to an convienent one (Look at those stupid liberals, they know nothing about Vietnam)
The whole piece is sickening, it does it's best to justify the slaughter ("It's not amusing to see fascist killers hiding behind human shields and then releasing obscene videos of the work that they do. Nor is it rewarding to clean up the remains of a comrade who has been charred and shredded by a roadside bomb. To be taunted while doing so must be unbearable") then this line.
"Only pacifists—not those who compare the Iraqi killers to the Minutemen—have the right to object to every casualty of war."
So no objecting to children being shot guys, unless of course you are Ghandi.
Finally this
" People like to go on about the "fog" of war as well as the "hell" of it. Hell it most certainly is—but not always so foggy. Indeed, many of the dilemmas posed by combat can be highly clarifying, once the tone of righteous sententiousness is dropped."
Got that everyone? get rid of your "tone of righteous sententiousness" and all will be well. Stop worring about the dead children for goodness sake you pompous moralisers.
I'll leave it there apart from one little point. Nowhere in this essay does Christopher show even the slightest hint of concern for murdered Iraqi women and children, not a word of sympathy or regret. Indeed he seems to be arguing that even to mention them is not worth his attention. Lets all keep this in mind the next time our Christopher decides to weep crocodile tears for the fate of the Iraqi people.
They mean nothing to him.
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