July 9, 2005
Don't Read This
Unless you can handle verbal violence and a serious metaphorical beating of one of the squirreliest figures in American politics, don't read this interchange between Christopher Hitchens and Ronnie Reagan.
CH: Excuse me. When I went to interview Abu Nidal, then the most wanted terrorist in the world, in Baghdad, he was operating out of an Iraqi government office. He was an arm of the Iraqi State, while being the most wanted man in the world. The same is true of the shelter and safe house offered by the Iraqi government, to the murderers of Leon Klinghoffer, and to Mr. Yassin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. How can you know so little about this, and be occupying a chair at the time that you do?
I no longer seek out aggressive punditry; I was into it during the Clinton Impeachment contretemps, but I now prefer calmer, internecine rifts.
Having said that, I would really, really like to see this takedown, I may go hunting for a replay.
Hat-tip: Insty
UPDATE: Here's the video!
On the web Posted by jk at July 9, 2005 3:06 PM
Abu Nidal was kicked out of Iraq in 1983. Hitchens interviewed him long before then. Pretending that Abu Nidal had anything to do with our reason for being in Iraq in 2003, a year after A.N. was killed in Iraq upon re-entering it, is stultifyingly absurd.
I admire C.H. quite a bit, but his facts support nothing.
I still have seen no good reason for us being in Iraq, other than the fact that we are there, and can't leave.
Let's bring the fight back to Afghanistan so the extra-national terrorists follow us there and the Iraqis will start paying attention to their country, not our occupation of it.
BTW, Zarqawi was in the northern territories before we got there either working with Kurds on a plan for secession from Iraq, or for disrupting Baathist control of Iraq. He was no friend of S.H, and we've never seen proof of it. Asserting it as true is without merit.
Posted by: Chris Cronin at July 9, 2005 9:28 PMAnd what of Mr. Yassin and Leon Klinghoffer's murderer, whom Hitch didn't name? Do you have explanations for them as well?
Hitchens' point was that Saddam HAD supported terrorists during his regime, subsequent disfavor notwithstanding. Iraq may not have been "a center of terrorism" but it was indeed a terror sponsoring state (openly so when it suited its purpose), and an outlaw regime in the eyes of the UN (if it ever opened those eyes) to boot.
Despite these facts I too have reservations about our soldiers, our neighbors and countrymen, being in their sad country to do their dirty work for them. These brave men and women are risking their own lives to wage a careful, deliberate war against murderers in the midst of civilians, rather than more safely conducting stand-off bombing with every means at our disposal, which was and is morally justified. The one justification I see for this riskier form of warfare is that in Iraq, as in America and the rest of the west, there are those who love life and liberty and will fight for them if given a chance. By risking their lives to kill those who "love death like you love life" our troops are giving Iraqi patriots that chance.
Posted by: johngalt at July 10, 2005 10:35 AMYou can disagree with Mr. Hitchens, but the telling item to me is RR's insistence that the 9-11 commission report completely exonerated Hussein's Iraq from all terrorism before and after. Abu Nidal, payments to the families of PLO suicide bombers -- all were wiped away by the 9-11 commission.
Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard is not even ready to disaow Iraqi involvement in 9-11 (we'll now provide a brief pause for all the lefties to roll their eyes). He's still at it in this week's Weekly Standard:
Posted by: jk at July 10, 2005 11:45 AMhttp://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/804yqqnr.asp
"Hitchens' point was that Saddam HAD supported terrorists during his regime"
Well, following that logic, Cuba would be justified in invading the U.S. for harboring the terrorist Orlando Bosch. Not only is he given safe haven in the U.S. but Jeb Bush actively campaigned to get him released from prison even though he was convicted of trying to blow up a Polish freighter after he had been convicted of blowing up a Cuban airliner killing 73 people. And his crimes don't end there.
This is just one example.
I still don't think that would justify an invasion of the U.S. and I don't think that Christopher Hitchens would argue that either.
Posted by: Also at July 10, 2005 8:35 PMI know Bosch is a cause celebre of The Nation and the left. I am reluctant to establish equivalence between a lenient sentence given to a man Alexander Cockburn feels is a terrorist and Hitchens's claims Abu Nidal had a government office in Iraq.
I don't know the details, but Bosch was not convicted in a US Court for the airplane bombing. The suggested government ties are tenuous at best.
As a flippant aside, let me say that I hope we are a sufficient threat to Castro's sovereignty that he has a right to attack us. But I'll join you in hoping that our government was not complicit in facilitating the release of one who targeted civilians.
Posted by: jk at July 10, 2005 11:45 PMCuba has airliners? Wow. You really do learn something new every day!
Posted by: johngalt at July 13, 2005 4:23 PM | What do you think? [6]