Hitchens hero or goat?

Thoughts on Christopher Hitchens: By Angelo P
Christopher Hitchens in my estimation is a great writer of politics and current events. He contributes for Vanity Fair as well as Slate.com and The Nation. Those of you who are daring enough to actually read politics should at some point in your page turning have come across Mr. Hitchens work.
Those in the “know” are also aware of Mr. Hitchens’ popularity nose dive as of late. Many including myself think he should be writing Bush’s speeches or at least use a radio and tell Bush what to say during those embarrassing and laughable press conferences. I’ve always admired his views (until recently) and his ability to engage people in debate and fire off lesser known facts has always astounded me. If you watch any cable news show you might find him cutting off other speaker’s on whatever panel he’s on. If you happen to tune in the midst of the verbal combat, He’s kinda fat, British and no doubt reeks of Gin or Whiskey. However being that this would be on the telly, you might not smell him. Just imagine what a Gin soaked writer might look like and that’s probably him. I’m not sure what they drink over at Vanity Fair, maybe Skyy Vodka. All the trendy and well dressed drunks suffering from some sort of mental imbalance drink Skyy Vodka. They tend to wash their pills down with a swig of “the good stuff” then throw the bottle at someone. Nice.
Hitchens certainly seems an expert on recent events however he is no longer the outspoken voice against the war and current political trends…was he ever? I still admire his command of the language even though he subscribes to the paradox, of “we needed to invade” Feb 13 Slate.com. I’ll give him credit on his views for intervention even though I don’t believe they warrant this kind of bloodshed.
In his recent article for Slate March 20 2006, he claims: “This commitment does not override truth, and I know that a lot of people feel that they were lied into war.” Yes Mr. Hitchens we were in fact lied into war. Many of us with jobs and some with families haven’t the time and in some cases the stomach to embark on a massive conspiracy crusade. Since many of us are not privy to the ins and outs of Washington popularity contests, disgracefully we must be dependant on local and cable news for information. So when an elected President stares at the camera and scares the crap out of the population by saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and Saddam will use them against us. People will tend to listen, especially when 9/11 still keeps those same people awake at night.
FDR would be rolling in his grave right now “Didn’t I tell these people that they have nothing to fear but fear itself?” Yes sir you did. The Bush Administration lied to us and the international communities, except some of our allies were not as willing to commit. Those who did back the plan later recalled troops etc…ask the current Spanish government what they think. Hitchens claim for this is the deplorable Oil for Food fiasco and Russia and France being the loudest voices that also benefited and were against intervention.
One of the other reasons Hitchens claim for war is a “system of hideous cruelty we have learned to take for granted.” I’m assuming that he means the systematic oppression of Iraqi and Kurdish civilians. While I agree that these people were horribly oppressed can you ask the average Iraqi on the street at which time was the chances of their surviving a trip to the Mosque better? Americans in general are good decent people sure we suffer from a sort of inferiority complex at not being able to live up the ideals of the Constitution when it first came out. But were doing better now. The point is if we wanted to help the Iraqi people depose Saddam Hussein there could have been better ways. Many can argue that Saddam pushed deadline after deadline to the limit. There is speculation however; that Saddam did in fact try to communicate with Washington right before “Shock and Awe”, again this hasn’t been proven yet. I’m neither an arm chair General nor policy maker but c’mon check the latest body counts. Are we really helping? The latest chatter from the more conservative news media is that we are being manipulated by Al-Qaeda. Cable news is only showing death and destruction as opposed to schools being built. Maybe, if a tree falls in the woods…you know the rest. All of this is happening good and bad. Mostly bad. These are undeniable facts; scores of civilians are being killed by Sectarian violence everyday.Iraq has become the final exam for any foreign wanna-be terrorist to earn his stripes. “Survive Iraq and you’re in.”
You guessed correctly if your thinking im using my dislike of Hitchens to expand my thoughts on the war, however since I still admire Hitchens I can do both. If America was as righteous as to rid the world of oppression why haven’t we taken out North Korea with stylish Kim Jong Il at the helm of a nuclear armed and illegal drug producing nation? No we tried that and while it was going good, once the Chinese decided to intervene that pretty much ended at the 38th parallel. Speaking of the Chinese, with their very public displays of human rights abuses, why don’t we free a few billion Chinese? Well that won’t work either, America’s insatiable hunger for cheap foreign goods overrides kids getting run over by tanks on television…anyone remember Tiananmen Square? How about forced miscarriages, maybe Sam Walton of Wal-Mart will swoop in and hand out gift certificates saving the poor unborn children of defiant Chinese citizens. You can see the ones he saved greeting you with a blank smile and empty eyes when you walk into your local Super Wal-Mart. Ok let’s move on to Africa where over 200,000 Sudanese refugees are streaming into neighboring Chad and Uganda escaping the violence of so called emerging Democratic governments, this according to the C.I.A. website. We did not intervene when mass genocide was occurring in Rwanda. Not as Americans and certainly not as a world community. Yes that was under Clinton however the facts remain. Let’s be honest about is going on and then decide.
Hitchens toward the end of his recent column tries to time travel to Bush’s Sept 12/02 speech to the United Nations, this time he tries to include the entire international community by trying to stay the dogs of war, changing his view to where it once was “I believe that armed assistance to the imminent Iraqi Kurdish revolutions can not only make some durable friends, it can give the Theocrats and their despotic patrons something to really hate us for.” To something less aggressive like: “Let us collectively decide how to move long suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era.” I will give Hitchens credit he has kept to his guns on this and has only recently shown slight wavering.
Mr. Hitchens there are plenty of things we are now hated for. Maybe time travel can change that. Since it will take a whole lot of time to fix this mess, especially not the Republicans. Someone pass me the Skyy and my pills.