Remember Iraq? Of course you do. It was that insignificant, backward little country that somehow (who knows how?) ended being governed by a terrible Evil Fascist Communist Islamist Dictator, Saddam Hussein, who was, briefly, The Most Evil Man Who Ever Lived.
Luckily 'we' invaded and installed a pro-American puppet government so that the natives would never have to be governed by Arabs again. With a burly white hand on the tiller, Iraq is now steering to success, until it is now the happiest best and brightest country in the world, or possibly the Universe.
Well! With Iraq having been such a success, it stands to reason that other countries should be next. And Kommander Kris 'Itchens of the 101st Fighting Typists (the famed 'Keyboard Kommandos') points us in the direction of...Iran!
'Michael Totten: If the Obama Administration calls you up and says, "Christopher, we need you to come in here, we need your advice." What would you tell them?
Hitchens: I would say, as I did with Saddam Hussein—albeit belatedly, I tried to avoid this conclusion—that any fight you're going to have eventually, have now. Don't wait until they're more equally matched. It doesn't make any sense at all.
The existence of theocratic regimes that have illegally acquired weapons of mass destruction, that are war with their own people, that are exporting their violence to neighboring countries, sending death squads as far away as Argentina to kill other people as well as dissident members of their own nationality—the existence of such regimes is incompatible with us. If there is going to be a confrontation, we should pick the time, not them.....Unless an Obama Administration person can say to me, "No, the confrontation can be avoided, there isn't really a casus belli here," unless they could persuade me of that, I'd say that once we've decided this, the fight should be on our terms. We should not allow them to get stronger and acquire more of the sinews of warfare.
They'll say I'm asking for war, but I'll say no. I'm not. I'm recognizing that someone is looking for war. We should be firm enough to say "Alright." We didn't look for it. We've tried everything short of war for a long time. Everything. We went to the International Atomic Energy Authority and found them cheating everywhere. Their signature on the Nonproliferation Treaty is worthless. We have the names of members of the Iranian government who are wanted for sending assassins to Europe and Argentina. We know what they've been doing to subvert Lebanon, to make trouble in Iraq....'
I know this seems extraordinary but I really think that this is Hitchens' best interview ever. It is the Platonic ideal of Hitchens. All his best points are here. There is the constant references to 'friends' and 'comrades' who he 'stayed with' or 'met' (none of whom are ever named, and the language in which he speaks to these people never being specified) all of whom agree with American foreign policy, the world over. There is his extraordinary erudition, which means that Hitchens knows facts that no-one else on earth knows ('Hitchens: Call me chauvinistic if you will, but I think India would be better under British rule. That's what Karl Marx said. He said, don't imagine that India will not be colonized. It would be invaded by either Iran, Russia, or Britain. MJT: Well, you know what Karl Marx thought of Russia. Hitchens: He hated Russia. He loved America. MJT: How counterintuitive that is if you don't know it'......well, Totten, not only do I not know it, I don't know it because it's not true...I do like, however, how Totten pretends to care what Marx thought because he is in awe of Hitchens' public school accent and wants to butter him up).
And most of all there is the call for other people to fight and die in the endless wars that Hitchens will watch on TV.
However, finally, let's have Hitchens describe his own actions, in his own terms (from part 1 of the same interview).
'People like us went to fight in Bosnia.' (emphasis added).
“The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant." • "If it is an offense to justice to hold people who may have been victims of mistaken identity or of vendettas by other factions, then it is also an offense to justice to release psychopathic killers who believe that they have divine permission to throw acid in the faces of girls who want to attend school." • "Don't be such a lesbian!
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