UPDATE In response to the outraged, my position is simple. The Iraq War killed hundreds of thousands and maimed millions. Dead or wounded included over a million children. Those who planned the Iraq war, including those who used media positions to propagandise for it, have lost entitlement to the signs of society’s respect.
The world will undoubtedly be a duller place without Christopher Hitchens. Oh, and a better one too.
British journalism is full of people of the same generationwho have lurched from the Trotskyist far left to a crazed neo-con agenda with no intervening period of sanity. I suspect the available riches for zionist propagandists are a major factor. Hitchens, Aaronovitch, Phillips, Cohen. You can probably think of others. A strange and extremely unpleasant manifestation of intellectual prostitution.
Latest Private Eye has the alkie blowhard down as ‘The Hic’. Arf.
@Angrysoba, firstly I’m going to put down all your posts of today, were due to you having a breakdown, or being high, or intoxicated, or all three, and therefore best ignored.
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I was pissed to the gills. And Mary was in fact correct that sake was one of the culprits as I was drinking hot and cold sake with a group of engineers I teach. That on top of Asahi lager, black beer and later I made it to an Irish bar (hence the musical choice) where I drank red wine, Yebisu beer and maybe some Irish whisky.
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Now that I’ve just finished scanning the declassified docs, the “Dancing Israelis” !; Firstly, I stress that I of course don’t know anything for certain; I’m groping for answers, just like everybody else. The key thing is that explanations/events/whatever, must al least be rationally credible: for a long time the “Dancing Israelis” were dismissed out of hand by those branding everybody who question the official story as Conspiracy Nuts, the Dancing Israelis being just a fabricated modern urban myth, but since the release of official FBI & Police reports, they can no longer brush this off , so they are forced, as like the Truthers, to closely examined the details.
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I’m with you on that. There was more “substance” to the story than I had initially thought.
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Re the video camera question; why did I say it had been set-up? Because I recalled reading that the New York Times had first reported that “officials said the men had apparently set up cameras near the Hudson River and fixed them on the World Trade Center”.
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Yes, I found the original New York Times article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/us/after-the-attacks-the-investigation-bin-laden-tie-cited.html?pagewanted=all
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But just to take your “rationally credible” criterion, let’s look at the article as a whole and not pick a la carte from it. It is quite clear that what you might call the “official story” is the one that seems most convincing to the NYT reporters and given that we are inherently distrustful of MSM we have to apply the customary heap of salt to any “officials say…” pronouncements. In particular, who is the source for saying that the cameras were set up? We now know from the FBI records that no video camera was found and instead we have some conflicting reports of a possible small video camera with a screen that pops out on the side. Maybe this is true but it seems we have NO witnesses saying that video cameras were set up IN ADVANCE. Further, it seems to the credit of the FBI that they spent more than two months interrogating these guys and doing extensive searches for the video camera but found nothing and knew of no one who had seen a video camera. I think to apply the rational criteria we could say that the witness who thought she saw a video camera may have been mistaken. It is definitely true, for example, that the camera they were found with had a digital screen and it also has one of those flip-up thingies on the top of the camera. (Flip-up thingy being a technical term).
There were of course other similar reports, such as;
“Israeli Foreign Ministry informed by their Consulate in New York, that the 5 Israelis had been arrested for “puzzling behaviour”, having been caught video-taping the disaster, and shouting as to what was believed to be cries of joy and mockery.” & “Article in Tel Aviz newspaper (in Hebrew) reports that the five had gone up to the roof and started videoing the scene, telling “macabre jokes”
Why did I say that it appears that it was set up in advance ? Because they were spotted by witnesses who stated that they were filming within only five minutes of the first plane impacting; so allowing for hearing/seeing the impact, getting onto the roof, preparing & getting all their cameras operational, all within just five minutes seems pretty superhuman to me.
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Yes, but doesn’t that suggest that there was much “setting up” to do? It sounds as if they were only using a hand-held device whether it was a regular camera or a video camera. Nobody, as far as I can see, is reported to have said they were using a TV camera or a tripod-mounted camera.
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Why did I say that it seemed like a professional camera ? Well the aforementioned NYT report stated that cameras had been set-up, implying to my mind tripods etc; however now reading the declassified Police/FBI docs, according to one witness it was “Small dark coloured, with a pop-out screen that displayed the image coming through the lens”, which for 2001 seems quite an expensive bit of gear to me, but I may be wrong on that being as good as professional gear.
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I think there is no witness statement about tripods etc…
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Although no video camera was eventually found, because of the strong witness statements (I think three people in total), Maria & these two;
“believes it was a video recording device rather than a camera, it was been moved slowly from side to side, as if panning the area”
“Small dark coloured, with a pop-out screen that displayed the image coming through the lens, held up the camera up high continuously for a few minutes, moved it around, panning the view.”
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Maybe, I’ll have to read through them again carefully. Anyway, their behaviour was certainly suspicious enough for someone to call the police.
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The FBI had to marked this video matter as “remains unsolved”
I think most people reading through these reports will conclude that the Urban Removals Company was just a front for Israeli spies to operate from, as the reports are full of phrases like “Oddly, equipment typically used in a moving company’s daily duty was not found”, ““remarkably clean for a moving truck”, “he “didn’t look like he would work as a Mover”.
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Well, like I said, I accept that there is slightly more “substance” to the story. Although it should be pointed out that the FBI themselves seemed satisfied that they were not complicit in the attacks. It is interesting that these same Israelis also filed a lawsuit against the officers who interrogated them, claiming that they had been tortured and physically assaulted. It does indeed seem odd behaviour if they were part of the attacks to open up that line of inquiry again. I’m just saying that from what I think is a rational point of view. Wouldn’t you agree?
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However, unless something changes, we may not live long enough to know all the details as the 134 redacted/deleted pages are due to be declassified no sooner than 2035 !
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Unless you are saying that there could be nuclear war between now and then I do expect to be alive in 2035 as I’m 34 now. Of course, too many nights like the other night could shorten the odds.
I meant “whiskey”. D’oh!
In vino veritas. Glad you’ve Soba’d up now, anyway, I was concerned for you back there 😉
BTW Angrysoba, I agree with you about torture; what was the name of that souless journalist in one of the “respectable” papers, who wrote that it would be ok to torture the children of terrorists, for the greater good ?
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Bruce Anderson.
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A lot of Hitchens’ fans try to point out that Hitchens was against torture and they hold up his “waterboarding” antics as exhibit A. In fact, it the article is a perfect example of something that shows Hitchens was NOT anti-torture as charity dicatates that anyone who hadn’t expressed an opinion on waterboarding publicly would still be against it. Apparently Hitchens wasn’t sure until as late as 2007 or 2008 or whatever it was. That’s absurd. How could he not know?
Welcome back Angrysoba…our fste,perhaps,is too realise that sometimes this little crucible,for whatever it’s faults,is some kinda place.We’re not the worst in the world,really.
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Peace unto you and yours.
Hey Angrysoba: I have to say that it’s good to see you back, I’ve read this entire thread and you’re to be commended for remaining civil – not sure I could tolerate being damned as a “ziofuckbot” or whatever with such good grace for such an extended period. I would probably told them to [expletive deleted] long before your patience wore out.
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However, it was as inaccurate for you to declare the whole ix/xi suspicions as having been “debunked” on the dedicated thread here, as it was just plain risible for Stephen to say Iraq “slipped into war”, as if it was Iraq’s silly fault in failing to keep it’s eye on the ball somehow, and our invasion/ occupation just being an inevitable consequence they – darn, shucks – caused to happen.
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That aside, you’re completely right on the torture front – how could Hitchens not know that torture will produce immediate compliance, and tell the inquisitor everything he simply wants to hear? After all, the techniques used by the American inquisitors (including the water-torture) were derived from a 1950’s torture manual from the Chinese which explicitly stated an aim of producing _false_ confessions. How could Hitchens fails to know such basic facts, and use an assumption of ignorance of same in the audience/interviewee without employing intellectual dishonesty?
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Willful ignorance is bad enough, intellectual dishonesty is abusing a gift not granted to many, in pursuit of an evil outcome. Stephen does this. Most of our “leaders” and their apologists do this. Hitchens did this far better than most, and for that I cannot forgive him, any more than I could refer to the doubtless many good sides of any given monster.
Glenn, thanks for the kind words.
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In fact, Hitchens even had the waterboarding techniques used on him by the SERE team whose ostensible purpose is to train US military personnel how to survive, evade, resist, escape (I think) torture. It is predicated on the idea that waterboarding is torture which is why they train people in its use. You know, so that they can learn to survive it or resist it.
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Having said that I doubt it is so refined that it can only be used to extract false confessions. I am pretty sure that true confessions can be extracted too. The difficulty is in knowing which is which. For example, if someone is demanding, “Where’s the money?” and is periodically smothering his client with a wet rag, he may discover the whereabouts of said cash. Of course, if his client is repeatedly told, “Confess! You like to wear ladies underwear. Say it!” then you could also force a false confession. The difference is that some admissions are demonstrable and some are not.
Macky,
You damn fine well know Norman Finkelstein is a self hater, and he hates himself so bad, and stuff!!!!!!!!!!!! In fact the arch ziofuckwit Alan Dershowitz, made sure poor Norman got kicked out of his Job, for his troubles.
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The admission to overdosing on horlicks somehow does not help the case of the five dancing Iswaily caught on 9/11. The facts remain; West is not facing any dangers, and 9/11 was a put up job, that was accomplished with the aid of the Iswaily security companies “guarding” the three airports, and WTC, not forgetting the “odigo” text messages clearly indicating thus.
Angrysoba, were you trying to do a Charles Bukowski or a Tom Waites? Sounds like a fun night! Play it just more time, as the dawn creeps over the hill…
From Dianna Moylan:
My abiding memory of Christopher Hitchens was a debate he had with Tony Blair. His argument was masterful and he made a clever and experienced debater look rather silly. I was delighted with his wit, power of expression and reason. I have no right to feel a personal loss, but I do.
Letter to the National Secular Society
From Abdul the young son of a dead Iraqi Father;
Chris. Hitchens was an animal, and an opportunist wanker, who only thought about getting his next pay cheque to buy more booze. It mattered very little to this lowlife how many souls were killed, and maimed and how much damage was done to the environment? For Chris Hitchens was on a mission to enable the warmongers to get on with their war, so that he could buy his booze.
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As per Nuremberg Principles Chris Hitchens is a war criminal, as well as those other bastards who along with him did sell the Iraq, and Afghanistan wars, and ought to expect the same treatment.
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The letter could not be posted because of the on going Iraq war.
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Now we have fundamentalist militant secularist strutting their stuff, such is Zeitgeist
I’m sure all those upset at Craig’s posts are of dawkinista ilk, they hate their heroes being bad mouthed.
Jimmy Hoots: Clearly, then, you did not bother making any effort at acquaintance with the posts and posters, before making such a conclusion. Are you fond of saying “I’m sure” before uttering demonstrable untruths?
“It does indeed seem odd behaviour if they were part of the attacks to open up that line of inquiry again. I’m just saying that from what I think is a rational point of view. Wouldn’t you agree?”
One word, “chutzpah”.
Quite predictably, a thread on Hitchens quickly devolves into blaming the Jews for 911. Morons.
…”Morons”. Ah yes, we recognize the traditional, measured, adult, tasteful zionist response when challenged by reality.
Call any Jew a moron, criminal or liar, and OMG you are
Aunty Seemite!!