Yeesh … Now He Tells Us!
Bottle-scarred veteran of the Sending-Other-People-Off-To-Die-In-Wars Wars Christopher Hitchens has apparently stumbled off his barstool and wandered outside for a smoke (‘kazzle-frazzle Liberal anti-smoking law fascists mumble-grumble …’) and lo and behold! There’s a bunch of total fucking nutters gaining real political power in this country!
Thanks for noticing, Chris. But no thanks for helping to seed the ground for their emergence in your small way by reliably playing the role of ‘even-the-liberal-Christopher-Hitchens-thinks-killin’s-too-good-for-Muslims-and-anyone-who-says-different-is-a-traitorous-appeaser’ for the last decade.
But don’t worry. Andy Sullivan has held you a seat at the important people’s table. And they still serve Scotch!
H/t: wolf vostell in comments
While I disagreed violently with Hitch’s position on Iraq, I really doubt any wingnuts gave a shit that he agreed with them. I could be wrong, of course.
It’s not changing the opinion of wingnuts that mattered, N__B.
It was providing the corporate media another voice of “Even Chris Hitchens thinks those silly liberals who are against war are a bunch of smelly hippy-surrendercrats,” which helps rope in the independents…people who aren’t paying attention or else just naturally assume that the stance “moderate” carries some sort of virtue.
And he got paid for that, along with the other usual suspects.
O.T. I got my own Matt Bai screedifesto out on 12.05.2010 as well.
~
Yeah, but, as long as they didn’t oppose the War Against Saddam, they can be criticized.
Hitchens’ problem is that he thinks he’s thoroughly disillusioned, which is the most tenacious illusion of all.
ITTDGY –
I guess you and DA are right…does middlemurka know who he is?
It was purity trolling to be against the invasion of Iraq, because thousands of not-dead American and allied soldiers and hundreds of thousands of not-dead Iraqis are unicorns and rainbows.
Hitch wasn’t aimed at Middle America but rather to give talking points to war supporters on the coastal cocktail circuit.
In honor of Hitch, all meals today will consist of cigarettes and whiskey.
E.g. – ‘Your dithering over so-called humanitarian concerns is charming in its own rather naive way, Muffy, but as Hitch points out, who’s looking out for the Kurds, hmm?’
Or – ‘To your credit, Raul, you seem to care about the lives of ordinary Iraqis, but to Hitch’s point, won’t that all be somewhat moot when Saddam gases them all to death, as, by the way, he’s rather been known to do?’
Hitchens was stranded in Seattle when air travel was shut down on 9/11. That night he went out to dinner with the writer Jonathan Raban, who later wrote about it in a New York Review of Books article.
And he was exactly right. But the fact that Hitchens immediately understood what sort of evil shit was happening and still wound up supporting it makes him even more of an asswipe.
Or – ‘Laugh all you like about Saddam’s prospects for lobbing a nuclear warhead into the heart of Manhattan, Sally, but just ask Hitchens how humorous his friend Salman Rushdie finds the threat of jihadist retribution.’
Hitch wasn’t aimed at Middle America but rather to give talking points to war supporters on the coastal cocktail circuit.
E.g. – ‘Your dithering over so-called humanitarian concerns is charming in its own rather naive way, Muffy, but as Hitch points out, who’s looking out for the Kurds, hmm?’
I’m particularly dense this morning. Who benefits from that performance?
….when Saddam gases them all to death, as, by the way, he’s rather been known to do?’
Of course, that was way back in the 1980s, and that little bit of gassing the Kurds (with our helicopters) was a matter far too trifling for Reagan/G.H.W.Bush to separate themselves from their good friend Saddam over.
Fast forward a decade or so, and the same amoral greedy bastards were all “remember the Kurds!” as they launched a war for oil and defense industry profits (and the Likud party, of course).
~
Typical. Another Beltway celebrity-journo-pundit was asleep at the wheel for the last two years and finally wakes up to realize Tea Party folks are a bunch of insane racist, fascist, fundie-christian, right-wing morons. As are vast swaths of Red State America.
Where the fuck have you been, Hitch, you drunken buffoon? Oh, that’s right, singing for your dinner on FOX News.
N_B – I don’t pretend to know precisely how much Hitchens helped ratchet up the war fever at the time. Remove him from the dialogue and I’m positive it wouldn’t have made a difference. But he certainly added a variety of rhetorical flourishes to the memetic onslaught.
Although if you remove all of the hundreds of Hitchens from the dialogue than maybe, just maybe you don’t have a war.
But he certainly added a variety of rhetorical flourishes to the memetic onslaught.
Absolutely. And he dropped a great deal in my regard, not that he cares.
Although if you remove all of the hundreds of Hitchens from the dialogue than maybe, just maybe you don’t have a war.
Maybe. Although I think that gets back to the middlemurka question. We went to war in Iraq because the assholes convinced the morons that Saddam was behind 9-11.
Maybe. Although I think that gets back to the middlemurka question. We went to war in Iraq because the assholes convinced the morons that Saddam was behind 9-11.
And two of the worst assholes in that regard were the “liberal” NYT and Washington Poop.
And they’re both still assholes.
~
We went to war in Iraq because the assholes convinced the morons that Saddam was behind 9-11.
And the assholes who pulled off that parlor trick had to rub elbows with people who might not be so easily fooled, but luckily Hitch was around to provide them with more high-falutin’ arguments for war.
Yup and yup.
OT, but related: back when there were a bunch of newspapers in every city in the country, no one in NY considered the Times to be “liberal.” It was “establishment.” Dorothy Schiff’s NY Post was liberal. The Herald Tribune was center-left, the World Telegram was right.
Got out of the boat and without warning, I see published under Hitchens’ byline, There was no need for this offense to come, but woe all the same to those by whom it came, and woe above all to those who whitewashed and rationalized it.
Snotted half a cup of coffee
N_B – I don’t pretend to know precisely how much Hitchens helped ratchet up the war fever at the time. Remove him from the dialogue and I’m positive it wouldn’t have made a difference. But he certainly added a variety of rhetorical flourishes to the memetic onslaught.
I, personally, don’t think that the practical results of his assholery matter that much–he’s morally complicit and he’s never changed his position, so that’s more than enough to call him a douchebag in my book.
T&U – that
We went to war in Iraq because the assholes convinced the morons that Saddam was behind 9-11.
Well, er…not exactly.
We went to war with Iraq because of 1) Bush’s Oedipus complex; 2) Cheney’s pals were itching to get their hands on all that sweet, sweet crude; 3) opportunity to pay back political contributors with no-bid contracts; 4) Rumsfeld’s desire to prove how large his big, swinging dick was.
As a matter of fact, on the eve of the invasion, a clear majority of Americans opposed it – the numbers were like 62% opposed absent UN agreement and a real coalition effort similar to the one in Gulf War I. At that point, at least, the majority of Americans did not believe that Saddam was behind 9/11, because otherwise, they wouldn’t have given a fig about that pansy UN and all those European nancy-boys who weren’t on board with George’s Excellent Adventure.
They’ve managed to re-write history to the extent that even most of us don’t remember that going to war in the way Bush did it was not supported by a majority of Americans.
Well, er…not exactly.
You disagree? THIS MEANS WAR!
Your 1-4 bullet points seem to me to be a good definition of who the assholes were; the morons are less the average people of this country (pace Mel Brooks) then they are the spineless, dumb, or deluded pols who went on TV and talked crap about Iraq. (And yes, I’m looking at you, Mr. Powell.) Once Rice’s “we can’t let the next terrorist attack be nukeular” idea got endlessly repeated, the number of average people who conflated 9-11 with Iraq just kept rising.
Eh. I’ve got no stomach for this discussion. We were fucked, we are fucked, we will be fucked. We are conjugate “to be fucked.”
“It was purity trolling to be against the invasion of Iraq, because thousands of not-dead American and allied soldiers and hundreds of thousands of not-dead Iraqis are unicorns and rainbows.”
It still is. Doubly so if you substitute Afghanistan for Iraq.
We went to war with Iraq because of 1) Bush’s Oedipus complex; 2) Cheney’s pals were itching to get their hands on all that sweet, sweet crude; 3) opportunity to pay back political contributors with no-bid contracts; 4) Rumsfeld’s desire to prove how large his big, swinging dick was.
Lettuce not forget PNAC.
~
From the wiki:
So I was off by one percent. It was actually 63% who opposed absent UN approval.
Hitchens was, I agree, the spice in the little self-congratulatory faux debate conducted among the power-worshippers — his unshaven-wreck schtick helped there, as did his practiced facility with phrases that sound witty until you realize they are either lies or fluff (or both); standard Oxford mannerism (I was his exact contemporary there), cultivated to impress the oafs. He almost certainly thought he was important. Somehow I doubt Cheney did.
I am mildy interested in the question of why some people who know what an asshole he was over Iraq take his atheism book seriously. Speaking as an atheist, I say it shows the same fraudulent habit of letting verbal facility paper over a fundamental lack of logic.
Jennifer, you are (as so often) correct. But that’s a mere majority of the people. Got any demographic data on the views of, oh, rich white male elected officials? Media mavens making millions? Any alliterative assholes?
Democracy would on the whole be a good thing, and removal of the franchise from people with penises would help. I’ll give up my vote if other males are forced to give up theirs; I’m not only a class traitor, I’m a gender traitor!
Democracy would on the whole be a good thing, and removal of the franchise from people with penises would help. I’ll give up my vote if other males are forced to give up theirs; I’m not only a class traitor, I’m a gender traitor!
You BASTARD!
Do we get to keep our Monster Trucks?
~
Wasn’t he battling cancer too? Not to defend his stance on anything, but just saying.
I like PS’s take on the Hitch. My problem has always been that I respect him as a literary critic, I think he is a good reader that makes interesting analyses (screw you spellcheck, I believe that to be correct) of 20th century writing. His essays into politics have been far less successful.
Not all penised persons are like that, you know.
Oh FYWP. I’ll give you too quickly
“N__B said,
I could be wrong, of course.”
oh sure, NOW you tell us.
“Middlemurka” decides nothing. American war-patriotism means that all the rulers need to do is start a war and there will never be sufficient political will to interrupt it. People like Hitchens were instrumental in convincing the few thousand people who matter — legislators, journalists, Broderites — that there was an enlightened, liberal cause for war.
one hundred minus forty seven equals fifty three. i could be wrong, but i doubt it. trust me.
I won’t forgive Hitchens until he crawls on his knees to Noam Chomsky and says, “I am a pompous unworthy pontificator who mistook wetting my pants after 9/11 for insight into America’s true purpose in the world.”
“his practiced facility with phrases that sound witty until you realize they are either lies or fluff (or both); standard Oxford mannerism (I was his exact contemporary there), cultivated to impress the oafs. ….it shows the same fraudulent habit of letting verbal facility paper over a fundamental lack of logic.”
You don’t have to have attended Oxford or be particularly intelligent to master that rap. Its used as a distinctive class marker here in Amurika, the land where supposedly class makes no difference.
Which I guess is why Fox News does so well, spewing that class-free garbage, littering streets and minds everywhere. While at the same time mewing and petting nasty, ragged, smelly old tomcat liberals like Hitchens that they found in the alley sniffing around in garbage cans, having been self expunged from the upper ranks of the white uber-liberal class.
“Hey you…yeah you, whatza matta’ The Nation ain’t givin’ you da facetime you deserve, wanna make a few cool million a night, c’mere kid…”
and so the New Hitchens was born; with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome it appears.
My my, what’s this? So suddenly the little Sorcerer’s Apprentice hates mops & brooms? How suspiciously reminiscent of the way he changed his tune on waterboarding once he got a taste of Dr. Cheney’s Magic Hydrotherapy Cure for himself – & again, the real-world damage is already done by the time his “DUH” light flickers on. For a bona-fide highbrow intellectual, he sure is getting mighty good at being a yut.
Cry us a fucking river, you mewling besotted sclerotic meat-based thesaurus.
“These aren’t the fat surly dickheads with assault rifles you’re looking for.”
@kate: Sure, you don’t have to go to Balliol to become fluent in supercilious asshattery … but trust me, it helps. They are really, really talented in that regard, by and large. I speak as a Trinity man, myself (hated it).
The pseudo-lefty variety of entitled egos is somewhat rarer sub-species but far from endangered. Generally, like Hitch, they metamorphose in later life.
@jim: “Meat-based thesaurus” btw is lovely.
@PM: As to individuals with penises, I remain one of that number. Regrettably, I tend to vote with the minority in the caucus.
“Stupid arguments with better grammar” is, I guess, synonymous with “high-falutin'”. “George Bush is right” as a rhetorical gambit was never to be taken seriously.
Good news: clog dancing may be making a comeback
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11930757
Cry us a fucking river, you mewling besotted sclerotic meat-based thesaurus.
This is a thing of beauty.
FYWP.
Compared to his brother, Christopher is the voice of reason.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1133033/PETER-HITCHENS-We-tolerance-gays-tyranny-return.html
Hitchens was part of the Pageant of War before and after the invasion and was drunk on top of the drunkeness of war fever. I’ve never seen anything like it. What a production! The last time I went to Walmart to shop for a caregiving client who was on a very fixed income, I walked in then walked out when I saw televisions suspended from the ceiling with war coverage—the Fox “Countdown”. It was all so bizarre, I often felt like someone had slipped me some acid. The media seemed to be quite complicit in drumming up war fever. The coverage of the bombing of Baghdad made me sick. It was presented as something glorious and beautiful. It makes me cry whenever I see it. It makes me furiously angry as well.
It was SICK. It was crazy. It was pathologically ill. What happened? Why? Why? Why? And why did so many liberals suddenly decide that the wars were necessary and “serious people” were all for it? Why did so many people have broken bullshit detectors?
You can pry my Monster Truck from my cold, dead hands.
And it is bepenised, I’ll have you know
SECOND AMENDMENT IS REAL!
Because SHUT UP THAT’S WHY!
Universal Health Care = liberal
Expansive Tough On Crime police powers = conservative
Opening marriage up to same-sex couples = liberal
Robotic deference to Authoritarian (esp. Military) Institutions = conservative
Tell me again, what the hell’s your point? That liberals should temper how much they want government to do things especially in the aid of the needy and oppressed because of why? Oh, because some day a jerkwad unitary executive warmongering psychopath might get into office, suspend habeas corpus and waterboard people on a daily basis. Yeah, that’s a problem with liberalism.
Pupienus Maximus said,
December 11, 2010 at 19:42 (kill)
“N__B said,
I could be wrong, of course.”
oh sure, NOW you tell us.
My god…is this the rush of power that Glenn Beck feels every day?
I beg pardon of everyone here. I’ve turned off all “serious” news for three days and my political sense is rapidly decaying. The Repubs shitting on the 9-11 responders’ health bill was a bit much for me, seeing as how I know several people who need it.
The Repubs shitting on the 9-11 responders’ health bill was a bit much for me, seeing as how I know several people who need it.
Let me clarify that. I also know people who need UI, and SS, and regular health care. But the blatant use of the WTC site workers by the Repubs a few years ago led me to believe that they would actually pretend to be non-sociopaths on this one issue so I am, to my great embarrassment, disappointed and upset about this one bill.
It was SICK. It was crazy. It was pathologically ill. What happened? Why? Why? Why? And why did so many liberals suddenly decide that the wars were necessary and “serious people” were all for it? Why did so many people have broken bullshit detectors?
My only explanation is that they were afraid.
I have never felt so helpless and horrified as when I watched it unfold.
But the blatant use of the WTC site workers by the Repubs a few years ago led me to believe that they would actually pretend to be non-sociopaths on this one issue so I am, to my great embarrassment, disappointed and upset about this one bill.
Understandable. I was pretty surprised and angry, too, and I don’t personally know anyone affected by it.
How do these people get away with being so jaw-droppingly vile?
When Hitch comes out and says, “I was wrong, wrong, wrong about the war and I realize it will take an extraordinary effort to win back any sort of liberal/progressive/sentient person credibility and I intend to do that,” I might listen.
Taking an artfully-crafted poke at the morons in the Teabagging Party does not qualify.
I won’t be holding my breath, either.
When Hitch comes out and says, “I was wrong, wrong, wrong
You funny.
My only explanation is that they were afraid.
I have never felt so helpless and horrified as when I watched it unfold.
This right here. And also the notion of how one responds to that feeling. Fear seemed to be the majority response and boy, can political operatives of all stripes play with that. Oy.
You funny.
Right.
Na ga happen.
“When Hitch comes out and says, “I was wrong, wrong, wrong…I might listen.”
Well, me too but with healthy skepticism. I’ll just figure Rupert took his bottle away and he’s doing ritual begging.
Hitch’s influence was important among the beltway wobblers, but there still would have a war without him. His worst sin, though, was the Niger Uranium bullshit, which he harped on & on about until it became accepted fact. Even though it was bollocks.
Less seriously, though, Hitch always reminds me of Stewie from Family Guy….
It was SICK. It was crazy. It was pathologically ill. What happened? Why? Why? Why? And why did so many liberals suddenly decide that the wars were necessary and “serious people” were all for it? Why did so many people have broken bullshit detectors?
because those of us that thought it might be a shitty idea are the real fascists, dont you see
Amazing catch by Roger Ailes over at Roger Ailes (not the other Roger Ailes)–Hitchens, presented by David Horowitz and introduced by Ann Coulter in 2000: http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg49784.html
…he harped on & on about until it became accepted fact. Even though it was bollocks…
Interestingly enough, Hitch knows the score. Take a look at Hitch 22 and you’ll see that much of the crap that he harped on about is missing (and the missing stuff is, of course, the stuff that’s all bollocks, even if Hitch spent a couple years of his life going on about it) and the people who built his career as a lefty and then warned him at length about Ted and Barbara and David and Ann are also left out. He knows.
He knows.
That’s what makes it all the worse. He can’t and he won’t ever fess up. His status as an important person would be compromised if he did. Truth? Decency? Not so much.
OT:Breaking some kind of douche record
I’ll always maintain that instead of pissing on Joseph Heller’s grave like that he should have called his autobiography The Hitchens Guide to the Galaxy. Not trying to be rude to the late Douglas Adams there; it would just have fit better with the I AM RIGHT YOU ARE WRONG GET USED TO IT persona (or, god help him, personality).
Also vacuumslayer – very good link. Especially liked the ‘earns/makes’ thing. It’s like that word they use, that an obscenely rich person ‘is worth’ £/$x million. No, they own £/$x million. They are not worth the shit on my shoe.
…well, he really does love me or he wouldn’t invite me to all those $30,000 a plate fund raisers and ask my opinion all the time, right?
Are you worried you’re going have to dip into your lobbying budget to pay your tax bill?
Hmmmph.
Needs moar waterboarding.
And your a rich bookie, Loeb. Did you really think it was love at 30 Grand a pop?
“become more centrist.”
“become more centrist???”
orly?
Problem is we’re living in world where the debate has shifted so far right, too many people have no idea what the center is.
#
vacuumslayer said,
December 12, 2010 at 0:29
Problem is we’re living in world where the debate has shifted so far right, too many people have no idea what the center is.
True.
And then we have D.A. defending disgusting shit because it’s the best that could be hoped for in the current climate. Which is partially true, but also dumb and a holding action that will only lead to more and more compromises and capitulations.
Having steel balls and platinum vaginas and actually fighting never comes up, except in jest and cheap posturing.
Having steel balls and platinum vaginas and actually fighting never comes up, except in jest and cheap posturing.
Not enough fisticuffs for you, Lad?
Actually, steel balls and platinum vaginas would make a hell of a racket.
Having steel balls and platinum vaginas
I’d love to meet the woman whose vagina sold a million copies.
I’d love to meet the woman whose vagina sold a million copies.
There’s a DKW’s Mom joke in there, but I can’t put my finger on it.
All the haters-will-hate stuff regarding Hitchens though really just boils down to “our media and media culture is broken”. Newsflash!
I.e., when Hitch is winning debates about the harm religion has caused, or whether Allah is not ackbar you aren’t seeing that wall to wall in “middle America”. If he’s on the air at all in America it’s at the service of some news exec making money. Cream. Get the Money. Dolla dolla bill y’all. He’s obviously not some pillar of Left Intellectualism, and to claim he is or was, and in that capacity he gave “The Left” or “The Center” a pro-war cover is basically bullshit.
The concession that the war would have happened without Hitch destroys the whole goddamn argument. Our failed media would have found someone else to say misleading stuff, or stuff that sounds good like “The world would be better off without Saddam,” or “There can be just war.” (Arguments actually made. These are debates still had.) If that fooled Serious Liberals into supporting the war, again, that’s either their own fault, or the fucking media culture.
Now, independently of the cocktail circuit and the beltway media crowd, there is something to hate Hitchens for (also mentioned above) and that’s the whole Yellow-Cake Plame Affair. Remember stuff like this: http://www.slate.com/id/2103795/ then later http://www.slate.com/id/2146475
Sheesh. Did he ever recant on that? Believing in just war is something you can take to the grave I guess — and considering he’ll be dead any minute I’m sure he will. The yellowcake stuff is just stupid. That’s the sort of error that you ought admit to and apologize for.
Sure you can. She won’t mind.
Late comments on thread;
Actually, methinks the war was first and foremost an attempt by Bush to project an image of competence (and, as a secondary purpose, to create a hammer with which to crush political opposition – the timing of the 2002 midterms was too perfect).
Bush had no clue what happened on 9/11 or how to deal with it – we’ve all seen the deer-in-the-headlights look in front of “My Pet Goat,” and it stayed pretty much that way for the rest of, well, his life. Neither he nor the people he listens to were sure how to handle al-Qaeda, so instead of handling it, they deflected people’s attention onto familiar, conventional enemies (the Axis of Evil), picked the weakest one and destroyed it. Projects the illusion of “doing something,” deflects attention from still-at-large Osama, while appeasing the thirst for hajji revenge blood that so many of us seemed to have.
(Incidentally, now that it has nukes, North Korea joins al-Qaeda in the category of “problems that we can’t resolve with a quick and convenient war, and don’t really know how to resolve at all,” which is at least part of the reason why they obsess so much on Iran instead).
Oh, bloody fucking shit.
Actually, that saying is an example of an aphorism which is supposed to make the speaker sound clever and, on closer examination, doesn’t fucking mean a thing.
A government doesn’t HAVE to be strong enough to give you everything you want, to still be strong enough to take everything you have. I mean, examples of this aren’t hard to find; Middle Ages Europe, hell, ANY form of tyranny that existed before welfare states started developing in the late XIXth century, could and did take away everything from people for the flimsiest reasons. And they never had the capacity, or the inclination, to give people everything they want.
The Old Republican Saying infers a causal relationship where none exists, which in plain simple English means it’s a meaningless bullshit. Funny how often that happens to Old Republican Sayings.
There’s an old Republican saying that “Juan, if you tell my wife what you and I do at these meetings, I will fucking kill you and everyone in your family, got it? Now hand me the dildo.”
Give the man some credit. He isn’t entirely wrong to grumble about the “anti-smoking law fascists.” And I’m all in favor of booze. Oh yeah.
Besides back in the day when I used to go to bars they were sometimes entertaining — drunk people do sometimes say the funniest things.
Once booze is as frowned upon as those evil ciggies, even the smoke free bars won’t be any fun, assuming people still bother with those sterile fun zones. Yay!
Let’s face it:
How else was an ex-Trotskyist–and a loudly open one at that–going to get the American citizenship he was so desperate for if he didn’t dance a few of the tunes of the American government?
Or it could be that Hitchens’ opposition to anything that reeked of a Stalinist government (like Iraq was) made him willing to side with anybody who would wipe that out for him.
Once a Trotskyist–always a Trotskyist.
Hi everybody!
I never paid the slightest bit of attention to Hitchens at all–then or now–so I don’t have much to contribute on that score.
One of my clearest memories of the run-up, however, was of Minority Leader Dick Gephardt standing at a White House podium and deliberately cutting the knees out from under any meaningful debate in the House. Democrat Gephardt threw one helluva vicious chop-block to open a hole for the Republican ground game.
It’s easy and comforting to lay the tragedy at the feet of Bush, Cheney, Big Oil, Rumsfeld, the PNAC, the Media Whores, and Amurka’s uninformed and unwashed morans.
But don’t leave Democratic complicity and active collaboration out of the picture. Simply consider the record of Democratic ‘opposition’ to Iraq–even after public support for the war cratered. Most of the SAME obstuctive legislative tools that the Republicans have used so effectively over the last two years were available to the Democrats then.
Don’t forget or excuse the responsibility of Democratic Party for the Iraq war. They enabled it. Hell, they actively colloborated with it.
Leprosy then. Leprosy now.
I believe Hitchens sincerely cares about democracy in the Middle East. How on earth such an informed leftish fellow as him could think that the American Republican party cared about it, too, concerns me still. Toppling Saddam would be the shared goal of somebody who cares about democracy, and somebody who merely wants Iraq as a place to build 4 or 5 megabases from which to project power/shake a fist at Iran. But don’t be surprised if the imperial agenda somehow doesn’t find too much time or energy for the democracy thing, long-term.
Late to the party as usual, let me remind you all of this classic:
http://exiledonline.com/big-brothers-george-orwell-and-christopher-hitchens-exposed/
Wasn’t he battling cancer too? Not to defend his stance on anything, but just saying.
No, he was not. He had done his damage long before he learned that we were doing ours.