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.
@Stephen,
“Look at what I said” — I can only go on exactly what you have said , and my accurate précis of the exchange of posts reveal exactly the context of your false insinuation against Craig; rather telling that you don’t want to admit to this, as this would mean having to apologise to Craig, so instead you state that you expect me to apologise to you ! For what ?? Your disingenuous sophistry ? ..don’t hold your breath.
“so why do so?” — Well I haven’t ! I didn’t state that CH was supporter of Israel nor that he was an Anti-Zionist; I just stated that his position wasn’t probably so cut & dried for various reasons, some of which I mentioned. Thanks for the clarification (if that is what it is) of Peter’s view of their Jewish ancestry, all Wiki gives is;
“Hitchens’ Jewish-born ancestors were immigrants from Eastern Europe (including Poland”
“HItch was not an Islamophobe” .. – Let’s just say that I don’t think you will not find many takers for that viewpoint; off the top of my head here’s some quotes from the great “Anti-Islamophobe” !
“I’m against the burning of books, except the Koran”
“Afghanistan, far from being bombed back into the Stone Age,, if anything, was bombed OUT of the Stone Age”
“The death toll is not nearly high enough… too many (jihadists) have escaped.” (on Fallujah)
“was a strong supporter of Moslems in Kurdistan and Bosnia” –- yes we all know all about“Good Moslems” & “Bad Moslems”, definitions that depend on entirely upon the usefulness of groups of people to the Neocon Agenda;.
“you wish to portray healthy debate” .. Rather telling that you chose to defend those creatures bickering at “Harry’s Place”, as only having a “healthy debate” ! There is nothing at all “healthy” to be found at that cesspit of odious fanatics.
Suhayl, I agree with you about not wanting Christopher Hitchen to have contracted cancer. And it occurred to me that when Decca Aitkenhead interviewed him (linked earlier by Jives) it was only about a month before he was diagnosed with cancer. That might account for why she found him in such a dishevelled state; or, of course, it could easily have been the booze.
.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/22/christopher-hitchens-decca-aitkenhead
Macky
I wasn’t holding my breath. Just look at what was said
I said in response to Leo “The difference is that Hitchens took on Falwell while he was alive.”
You said “wrong”
I said “The Hitch said plenty about Falwell while he was alive – just seacrh for what he said about Falwell’s inane comments that the US deserved 9/11 because of its moral decline.” – in direct contradiction to your assertion that my original statement was wrong.
Your response is to prattle on about sophistry – which just demonstrates a lack of basic honesty. Your comments about HArry’s Place further indicate that you form your views about honesty based upon peoples political views rather than just accepting that they may just disagree with you.
Btw I am not making insinuations about Craig’s comments but accusations.
Thanks, John.
.
Christopher Hitchens was a complex character. I think that many of the regular posters here would agree with Hitchens’s views on Palestine-Israel, for example. He remained a fervent and open anti-Zionist.
.
So, while fiercely critiquing the part he played as ‘intellectual renegade turncoat’ cheerleader for recent US military exploits, on this day after his death, let’s not forget firstly his excellent writing and secondly the good work he did in his younger days.
Stephen. Please go away again. You’re undesirable.
I like the content and the style of the writing by Alexander Cockburn on Counterpunch. He weighs up Hitchens accurately but not maliciously.
.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/16/farewell-to-c-h/
.
I hope that by tomorrow all that is going to be said in the press and elsewhere is said. Getting tedious.
Back to the brilliant writer thing. Hitchens was also one of the greatest literary critics of his generation, as his monthly book review in The Atlantic or his latest collection of essays, “Arguably”, demonstrates. Rather one beautiful writer than a million agit-prop politicos. Anyway, his beef was with religious totalitarians be they Israeli, Moslem or Christian. And on this, he was quite right. God is not great. I shall raise a glass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doKkOSMaTk4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEVA4EAP_S0
Macky
“I’m against the burning of books, except the Koran”
What is the source for this inaccurate quotation? Or did you just make it up – the only quote I can find from Hitchens on burning the Koran is calling the American pastor who did so moronic.
Kingfelix
Yes I’m sure I am undesirable in your eyes – but I’m not going to see a good man lied about just after he has died.
I’ve just seen Blair (BBC News) paying tribute to Christopher Hitchens and I’m convinced he’s had a forehead job! He used to have this big W on his forehead, which God quite justly put there to show he was a warmonger, but which others think has something more to do with onanism. I don’t think make-up can achieve this transformation, not without Polyfilla.
The best quote i read about Hitchens and his politics du jour were that his day to day opinions depended on how many drinks he’d been bought.
.
I’ve met many such dandys and whisky-philosophers.Ironically enough Hitchens once explained his drinking as a way to make other people less boring.
Stephen, what is wrong with you? You come on this blog, a blog with which you clearly disagree. You make unsubstantiated insinuations about my knowledge of history, and claim not to be a troll. Just what is your problem?
The wisdom of C. Hitchens:
“I see you bought the … lies about there being no weapons of mass destruction …”.
[http://www.thenation.com/signupad/165194?destination=blog/165194/one-being-spit-upon-literally-christopher-hitchens]
You know, you weigh up the good things that this guy said, and then you compare them against the bad.
And then you make the discovery: ‘bad’ is *a lot heavier*…
M.
I’ve just seen Blair (BBC News) paying tribute to Christopher Hitchens and I’m convinced he’s had a forehead job! He used to have this big W on his forehead, which God quite justly put there to show he was a warmonger
.
Awwww! I thought you’d say it was put there by George Bush to show whose property he was.
.
Anyway, here’s Hitchens on Falwell. It does have him talking somewhat about Israel as well. It’s quite entertaining actually and I’m sure that Hitchens hiself wouldn’t expect people to cease-fire on him just because he’s dead.
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIviufQ4APo&feature=player_embedded#!
Back in the mid-Eighties, Hitchens was hanging around with Edward Said, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein and Rashid Khalidi. They put a book together called “Blaming the Victims” which is, perhaps somewhat appropriately enough, mostly a reaction to Joan Peters’ From Time Immemorial.
.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaming_the_Victims
Canspeccy,
.
“Hitchens’ only real crime was to support a government as it went about the dirty business of real politic as usual, something that most of us have done at some time in our lives.
And unless you’re a pacifist under all circumstances — is anyone — the question of which wars one supports is more a matter of judgment than morality.”
.
What about moral judgement? How can you seperate them?
Suhayl Saadi,
Who is revelling in the death of someone? The expressions of joy on display; are celebration of triumph of good over evil. The demise and destruction of yet another evil character, only reinforces the principles of natural justice. Regardless of the lamentations of some fuckwits for reasons obvious, about the loss of their mouthpiece, the fact remains; Hitchens et al sold the Iraq war and mass murder thereof to the populace. This is, and would have been considered as “supreme crimes against peace”, in the Nuremberg Trials.
,
Missing in the “RIP” Saint protector of the booze soaked souls, is the dirty tricks of selling a war, and giving credence, and plausibility to acts of mass murder on industrial scales, and plunder of the treasury of the aggressor nations, as well as the plunder and theft on grand scale of the assets and resources of the vanquished nation.
,
Chris Hitchens by plying his craft (instinctual prostitution, for no human is born evil) did not influence those whom came out in millions and were totally ignored, and denigrated, and discounted (five hundred thousand protesters), by a coterie of similar lickspittles in the “media”. The very same kind of prrestitutes whom will pen down, and or pontificate for a price. However, the nexus of these evil operatives did manage to change the minds of those with dispositions of weaker minds, as well as giving a platform to the war mongers bent on starting the blood letting ceremonials and affording acceptability (however tenuous) to get on with their own theft and plunder, after the starting guns were fired.
,
The mental pygmies and and intellectual midgets frequenting this board, and commenting can get on with regurgitation of their own distorted realities freely, because these lame of brains know not better, and to be honest are far too dim to be engaged with, in any kind of transaction. However, it is puzzling to see your contribution on the lines you have set out.
,
Finally the act of murder, whether by direct contribution or indirect contribution is the ultimate crime, and does not somehow find mitigation through apparently positive attributes of the mass murderer.
John
.
That’s right. Blair carries the mark of his deeds upon him till the end of days.
.
Praise the Lord.
.
I often think of him as a Dorian Grey figure, once young, sweet and beautiful, but now the squinting rat like features finally unmasking for the world his dark haunted inner soul.
.
Hitchins, I’m afraid, fausted out too. It was quite a turn of events when his post 911 outbursts made his brother’s much more traditional, sensible and principled conservative beliefs seem middle of the road by comparison. Both had been Trots in their youth, Chris remaining longer into adulthood.
.
Traditional conservatives are like angels compared to these neocons. I’ve noticed that with Peter Oborne too.
.
As I mentioned in a discussion with Jon once, it wouldn’t be difficult to make alliance with trad conservatives. We do have a common enemy.
FedUp: Who is revelling in the death of someone? The expressions of joy on display; are celebration of triumph of good over evil.
.
Well, it is actually the “triumph” of cancer over mortal human flesh.
.
The demise and destruction of yet another evil character, only reinforces the principles of natural justice.
.
You can only really believe that if you also think “natural justice” has an incredibly sadistic and arbitrary side to her when it comes to everyone else who has or has had cancer. In fact, if you look into it just a little you’ll find “natural justice” is supremely unprincipled even if, by statistical probability, she sweeps up a number of people you personally find repugnant.
Sounds like Blair’s had botox/collagen treatment.It wouldn’t surprise me.The vain little shit’s always been about style over substance-not that i thought he ever had any style i hasten to add.
.
Manic-eyed,Messiah complex,with the fixed idiot imp-grin of a third-former who’s stolen the keys to the tuck shop.Just gross.
Angrysoba,
.
“You can only really believe that if you also think “natural justice” has an incredibly sadistic and arbitrary side to her when it comes to everyone else who has or has had cancer. In fact, if you look into it just a little you’ll find “natural justice” is supremely unprincipled even if, by statistical probability, she sweeps up a number of people you personally find repugnant.”
.
Very true.
“You make unsubstantiated insinuations about my knowledge of history”
No I make allegations based on ridiculous comparisions of Blair with Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin which you try and support with a ridicusly glib analysis supported by insinuations and innuendo. If you want to call disagreeing and challenging such and similar viewpoints, which are on regular display here, trolling that is your prerogative. Need less to say the opportuniuties for trolling are limited in the regimes you noticeably fail to criticise, and I daresay would like introduced here given half a chance.
Fedup
Rather than delving further into your dictionary of abuse perhaps you might wish to address where you think Hitchens went wrong in his arguments for the war on Iraq – or even more constructively how else totalitarian regimes such as in Iraq (and more pertintly in Syria and Iran) should be dealt without resort to war?? Do you really think that all that abuse has the slightest impact on me – or is it just a way of releasing your angst.
Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld visualised for decades of a catastrophic and catalyzing event similar to Pearl Harbor that would trigger a clash of western civilisation against so called “fascism with an Islamic face” – an eristic manifestation of autocracy infected with the toxin of Islamic paranoia based on a cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises life itself.
.
That became an ‘axis of evil’ that threatened to envelope the world into one great revived caliphate that resembles the mad scheme of Nazi Germany. This catalyzing event would create the moment to countermand the internationally agreed condition for war and preempt an invasion of Iraq. For Hitchens, it was the opening maneuver in a grand, imagined clash of western civilization against the Islamofascist hordes.
It would become the terrible shock, the extreme awe, a grotesque error as chaos unleashed, a war that killed hundreds of thousands and maimed millions. Dead or wounded included over a million children.
.
Hitchen would align himself with Murdoch’s headline, ‘A war to Be Proud Of’ as death squads murdered Iraqi families and young teenage girls and boys surrendered to rape and sodomy by sex hungry fighters and soldiers. When torture, murder and sexual humiliation by reckless and irresponsible American officers and troops at Abu Graib prison numbed the minds of ordinary folk Hitchen wrote, “Prison conditions at Abu Ghraib have improved markedly and dramatically since the arrival of Coalition troops in Baghdad.”
.
To the shouts of lies that WMD’s threatened to nuke us or infect us with deadly toxins and that Saddam harboured al-Qaeda, Hitchen confers guilt on those dispensing – “sob-sister tripe pumped out by the Cindy Sheehan circus and its surrogates.”
.
To a world that witnessed U.S. Marines massacred 24 men, women, and children in Haditha. Hitchen’s would say, “We need not argue about the failures and the mistakes and even the crimes, because these in some ways argue themselves.”
.
Hitchens polemic and many times vitriolic style metered an articulate viciousness into the ears and minds of his opponents who he seered were not just wrong, they were mean or stupid, liars or just children.
.
Do we forgive and forget? – we forgive but never forget.
Like Stephen, I would be very surprised if this is an accurate quote:
“I’m against the burning of books, except the Koran”
.
Occasionally he did look around and notice some of the more insane people he had aligned himself with and did make some tepid admonitions towards those who vilified Muslims en bloc. But when it came to jihadists – or those who he perceived to be jihadists – he was quite happy to see many of them killed and was very direct and non-euphemistic about it. He said of his Leftist former friends that they saw bin Laden as some kind of slightly wayward anti-Imperialist and said to them something along the lines of “We are not fighting the Wretched of the Earth. We are at war with the scum of the Earth.”
Trolls are so boring. They are following an instruction manual. Dont feed them.
@ Mark Golding,
.
Read the Decca Aitkenhead/Hitchnes article if you get the chance.There’s a couple of links earlier in this post.Tellingly Hitchens wife relates that he was a wannabe man-of-action,clamouring after the clarity that he believed(as did his father)that war offers,supposedly.I found it immature and sad but also quite chilling.
Stephen: Rather than delving further into your dictionary of abuse perhaps you might wish to address where you think Hitchens went wrong in his arguments for the war on Iraq
Come on, Stephen, this is just a little silly now. There was that whole WMD thing which Hitchens argued showed that Saddam Hussein was “not contained”. In particular, he argued the case for “yellowcake from Niger” long after most people had concluded it was baseless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger_uranium_forgeries
– or even more constructively how else totalitarian regimes such as in Iraq (and more pertintly in Syria and Iran) should be dealt without resort to war??
.
Now, I hope I am not reading this correctly. Or I hope you wrote this badly. Because from what you have written you appear to be saying that war with Syria and Iran is unavoidable and, in fact, a desirable method for dealing with those two countries as it is the only option. Is this really what you mean?
Mark Golding – Children Of Iraq,
Forgiving the evildoers such as Chris Hitchens are not ours to do, that right belongs to the victims of this evil fuckwit. Not forgetting remains our only choice.
,
The notions of Pearl Harbour are appealing to the base instincts, which clearly is a window to the opinions of the proponents of the war, and their vies of anyone outside their cabal; apes to be used to kill other apes, or apes to work and pay for the cost of the enterprise of the mass cull of the apes. That filthy fascio will fall prey to natural justice too.
Well, you know, FedUp, Paul Robeson never criticised Stalin. He had a romanticised view of the USSR. But I am a great admirer of Paul Robeson, he was a great man and an incomparable talent and I was terribly sad when he was destroyed by the USA and later, when he died. So, to look at the complexities of a human being does not mean we are acquiescing in any way in relation to their views or actions. I look at Churchill, Lenin, Che Guevara, de Gaulle, Leni Riefenstahl, Tito…
.
Politics is not religion, its boundary conditions are seldom absolute.
Angrysoba
.
At the moment I’m more concerned at how we deal with the creeping totalitarianism of the US and western political class and their organ grinders.
.
Their wealth destruction, trickle up and increasing criminalisation of western populations seem to me to be a much greater existential threat than Iran or Syria, or indeed Libya or Iraq, for that matter.
.
Iran and Syria are distractions to those problems we could well do without.
.
I’m sure there’s some reasonable explanation as to why we’re being asked to look for enemies abroad when we’re being destroyed by those within.
.
Have these neocon former Trots taken power and decided to so fuck things up that at last false consciousness will dissipate and finally they’ll have the revolution they always dreamed?
Herbie,
.
I remember as a kid at the dinner table my Dad would sometimes point at something outside the window.Whenever i turned my head back i always seemed to have less chips.It’s an old trick.