I came across this interview with Christopher Hitchens and I'd like to post a few excerpts from it. I've long had a fascination with Hitchens. His collection of essays, For the Sake of Argument, is one of my favorites, and I quite enjoy his wit. My earliest memory of him was seeing him on the CNN show Crossfire fairly regularly, where he was a master of the quintessentially British putdown. I particularly recall him going after a conservative guest in the mid-80s on that show, leading to this exchange:
"Do you know the phrase 'the global village'?"
"Yes"
Do you know the phrase 'the village idiot'?"
"Yes"
"Well there you have Ronald Reagan - the Global Village Idiot."
He is also the man who referred to another pundit by saying, "He thinks he's a wit; he's half right." In short, my kind of biting wit. But he's also a serious intellectual with a long history of supporting leftist causes around the world. All the more shocking to his colleagues on the left, then, that he has turned into the loudest cheerleader for the Bush Doctrine and something of an uber-hawk, eager for American military power to be brought to bear anywhere Islamic fundamentalists can be found. Part of the explanation for his anger at militant Islam is obvious. He is close friends with Salman Rushdie, the novelist who lived underground for many years in fear of a death sentence on his head issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini. But I also think that he has a point to make about, if not the complicity of some on the left, at least the lack of seriousness with which they take the battle against Islamic fundamentalism. And I think he's correct to point out that, absent the counterbalancing weight of their hatred for American imperialism (however justified it might be), Islamic fundamentalism represents everything the left should be most outraged at:
"The United States was attacked by theocratic fascists who represents all the most reactionary elements on earth. They stand for liquidating everything the left has fought for: women's rights, democracy? And how did much of the left respond? By affecting a kind of neutrality between America and the theocratic fascists." He cites the cover of one of Tariq Ali's books as the perfect example. It shows Bush and Bin Laden morphed into one on its cover. "It's explicitly saying they are equally bad. However bad the American Empire has been, it is not as bad as this. It is not the Taliban, and anybody - any movement - that cannot see the difference has lost all moral bearings."
I think he does have a point here. While there are elements on the right in America, particularly the Christian Reconstructionists (and I think they number more than most would like to think, at least in terms of the number of people who sympathize with them), who would, I think, be every bit as brutal and repressive as the Taliban if they ever managed to seize power, the fact is that they aren't going to seize power. But it's also true that one of the big reasons why they're not going to do so is that we have a tradition of individualism that simply does not exist in Islam to act as a restraint on the execution of raw totalitarian power. He continues:
Hitchens - who has just returned from Afghanistan - says, "The world these [al-Quadea and Taliban] fascists want to create is one of constant submission and servility. The individual only has value to them if they enter into a life of constant reaffirmation and prayer. It is pure totalitarianism, and one of the ugliest totalitarianisms we've seen. It's the irrational combined with the idea of a completely closed society. To stand equidistant between that and a war to remove it is?" He shakes his head. I have never seen Hitch grasping for words before.Some people on the left tried to understand the origins of al-Quadea as really being about inequalities in wealth, or Israel's brutality towards the Palestinians, or other legitimate grievances. "Look: inequalities in wealth had nothing to do with Beslan or Bali or Madrid," Hitchens says. "The case for redistributing wealth is either good or it isn't - I think it is - but it's a different argument. If you care about wealth distribution, please understand, the Taliban and the al Quaeda murderers have less to say on this than even the most cold-hearted person on Wall Street. These jihadists actually prefer people to live in utter, dire poverty because they say it is purifying. Nor is it anti-imperialist: they explictly want to recreate the lost Caliphate, which was an Empire itself."
He continues, "I just reject the whole mentality that says, we need to consider this phenomenon in light of current grievances. It's an insult to the people who care about the real grievances of the Palestinians and the Chechens and all the others. It's not just the wrong interpretation of those causes; it's their negation." And this goes for the grievances of the Palestinians, who he has dedicated a great deal of energy to documenting and supporting. "Does anybody really think that if every Jew was driven from Palestine, these guys would go back to their caves? Nobody is blowing themselves up for a two-state solution. They openly say, 'We want a Jew-free Palestine, and a Christian-free Palestine.' And that would very quickly become, 'Don't be a Shia Muslim around here, baby.'" He supports a two-state solution - but he doesn't think it will solve the jihadist problem at all...
He is appalled that some people on the left are prepared to do almost nothing to defeat Islamofascism. "When I see some people who claim to be on the left abusing that tradition, making excuses for the most reactionary force in the world, I do feel pain that a great tradition is being defamed. So in that sense I still consider myself to be on the left." A few months ago, when Bush went to Ireland for the G8 meeting, Hitchens was on a TV debate with the leader of a small socialist party in the Irish dail. "He said these Islamic fascists are doing this because they have deep-seated grievances. And I said, 'Ah yes, they have many grievances. They are aggrieved when they see unveiled woman. And they are aggrieved that we tolerate homosexuals and Jews and free speech and the reading of literature.'"
"And this man - who had presumably never met a jihadist in his life - said, 'No, it's about their economic grievances.' Well, of course, because the Taliban provided great healthcare and redistribution of wealth, didn't they? After the debate was over, I said, 'If James Connolly [the Irish socialist leader of the Easter Risings] could hear you defending these theocratic fascist barbarians, you would know you had been in a fight. Do you know what you are saying? Do you know who you are pissing on?"...
He explains by talking about the origins of his relationship with the neconservatives in Washington. "I first became interested in the neocons during the war in Bosnia-Herzgovinia. That war in the early 1990s changed a lot for me. I never thought I would see, in Europe, a full-dress reprise of internment camps, the mass murder of civilians, the reinstiutution of torture and rape as acts of policy. And I didn't expect so many of my comrades to be indifferent - or even take the side of the fascists."
"It was a time when many people on the left were saying 'Don't intervene, we'll only make things worse' or, 'Don't intervene, it might destabilise the region.'", he continues. "And I thought - destabilisation of fascist regimes is a good thing. Why should the left care about the stability of undemocratic regimes? Wasn't it a good thing to destabilise the regime of General Franco?"
"It was a time when the left was mostly taking the conservative, status quo position - leave the Balkans alone, leave Milosevic alone, do nothing. And that kind of conservatism can easily mutate into actual support for the aggressors. Weimar-style conservatism can easily mutate into National Socialism," he elaborates. "So you had people like Noam Chomsky's co-author Ed Herman go from saying 'Do nothing in the Balkans', to actually supporting Milosevic, the most reactionary force in the region."
"That's when I began to first find myself on the same side as the neocons. I was signing petitions in favour of action in Bosnia, and I would look down the list of names and I kept finding, there's Richard Perle. There's Paul Wolfowitz. That seemed interesting to me. These people were saying that we had to act." He continues, "Before, I had avoided them like the plague, especially because of what they said about General Sharon and about Nicaragua. But nobody could say they were interested in oil in the Balkans, or in strategic needs, and the people who tried to say that - like Chomsky - looked ridiculous. So now I was interested."
I'll leave it at that, but there is more in the interview that is interesting. I don't agree with him across the board, but I think it would be foolish to dismiss his arguments out of hand. There is at least some of it that is quite compelling, I think. Any thoughts from my readers?
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Full disclosure: I usually vote Republican. That said, I remember that I was talking with some folks in the crowd at a small scale anti-war protest a little while back just to see how these folks think. I will never recall the horror when a young lady (whose political views were somewhere in the arena of communist/Green) saying words to the effect of "Who are we to say that it's wrong for the Saudis to control their women and make unmarried sex a capital crime? Maybe Saudi women are happier that way."
That was, btw, the point at which I gave up on the conversation, and it's still something I don't get at all. I have a certain respect for logical positivist, Soviet-style leftists who believe that *all* religion is a Tool of the Man.
I don't, though, get folks who follow the train of logic of: "Saying bad things about people of color is racist. Most Muslims are people of color. Therefore, criticizing any elements of Islam is racist."
I don't get it. Is there an attitude that since Islam is opposed to Christianity it is thus the "enemy of my enemy"? Is it a conflation of Islam with race? What's going on?
It's strange. I hang around with liberals and leftists all the time. Not one would say something that blatantly stupid.
Most were against the Iraq war for two reasons. One (quite common) was the belief that Bush would fuck it up (they had many reasons to believe this, ranging from purely partisan to an analysis of his personal history to an examination of the lameness of his WMD arguments).
Second, and almost as common, was the thought that, however bad he was, Saddam Hussein was so far down the threat list as to be ignorable. They much preferred dealing with those who could actually threaten us.
As for Christopher Hitchens: I'd never read the man prior to his first Slate columns. Judging solely by his Slate columns (about all I ever read of him), well....I'd say he was a few crayons short of a full box.
Logic, reason, reality...they don't really appear in his works. Perhaps they used to, but all I get now is an image of a pissed off lout who takes a contrarian position towards anything, regardless of what he believes, then phones in the article.
I was a big fan of Hitchens, and severly dissapointed when he became the apologist for the Bush administration that he is today. But looking over the clips you posted from the interview, I think you're right- he does have a point. Like you said, Ed, I don't agree with him accross the board. And I still think the war in Iraq is a "load of dingo's kidneys" to borrow a phrase. But Hitchens makes an excellent point about the left and complacency with totalitarian regiemes. I had never approached it from that angle before. And were U.S. motives in Iraq indisputibly pure, I would be inclined to agree. But the United States regularly backs regiemes equally as bad as Sadam, and sometimes openly backs such leaders and puts them into power. It's hypocritical to look at Iraq as an example of American philanthropy and ignore all the cases where America is directly responsible for monsters like Sadam coming into power. I don't like Islamic fundamentalism (or any relgious fundamentalism) any more than Hitchens does- we are both atheists after all. But to support the overthrow of a oppressive regieme, I have to be convinced the motivations of the United States are not self motivated. More and more it is begining to look like the Iraqi's will end of with an islamic state arguably worse than the secular islamic nation under Sadam, and this possibly after a long and bloody civil war. And if that happens, we will be responsible for that. Hitchens is a brilliant man, but I feel he's being to dismissive of the left's concerns with this issue. He makes some excellent points, but doesn't seem to aknowledge that this situation, like most situations, is not as clear as black and white. This is an immensely difficult problem, and one that cannot be solved by adapting an attitude that essentially states "If you do not support this war, then you support monsterous dictators like Sadam." It's no different than the ridiculous attitude taken by some before the war that "If you are not with us, you're with the terrorists."
Thanks for bringing the interview to our attention, Ed. It's been a while since I've heard anything from Hitchens. And like always, he gave me much to think about.
Full disclosure: I am a raging lefty who always votes Democratic. I loathe George W. Bush and all that he stands for. I want him to go down in a humiliating landslide in November. That said, Hitchens's commentary in The Nation during the months following 9/11 was brilliant. I e-mailed piece after piece to my left-leaning friends and relatives who seemed a little too inclined to offer excuses and extenuations on behalf of Islamic fundamentalism. People on the left needed to grasp the profoundly illiberal, oppressive character of this movement. I am sorry that Hitchens has since gone over the deep end and embraced Bush's unfocused, reflexive bellicosity. Oppostion to Islamic fundamentalism should have been a liberal cause. Indeed, it is liberalism, and not Christian chauvinism, that is the true antidote to retrograde Islam Bush hijacked the cause and turned it into an excuse to bully the entire world. I don't understand why Hitchens refuses to see this.
This article, and Hitchin's opinions (mostly) go straight to the heart of the problem I have been having for a long time (specifically since a good friend's father was killed in the Khobar towers bombing).
I am so torn because I fundamentally agree with him that stopping / reversing the Islamic fascism virus is the number one priority in the world today, but that puts me squarely and rather uncomfortably in the 'conservative' corner for that issue. Even worse, having read the Commentary discourse on the bush Doctrine by Norman Podhoretz (link: http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=450 ), I found myself agreeing with large portions of it.
That's a pretty bad corner for someone with an otherwise liberal social belief system.
oops, wrong link and forgot to url it:
correct link
Sorry!
To the extent that people on the left do in fact downplay or underestimate the awfulness of the Taliban/Al Qaeda/Islamofascism, Hitchens has a point. However, I think it's largely a red herring. The real issue here is that the Bush administration is doing an abysmal job of dealing with the very real threat posed by Islamic fundamentalism, and I suspect you could find a dozen leftists who take this position for every one who makes foolish excuses for gender inequality in Saudi Arabia.
It's an emotional issue, of course, and I think one thing that happens is that any discussion of Islamic terrorism that fails to take a tone of righteous indignation is viewed by certain elements of the right (and apparently by Hitchens) as morally suspect. This, I think, is why anyone who tries to understand the phenomenon is loudly accused of excusing or condoning it - anything other than strident and self-righteous denunciations of the Islamofascists is seen as a sign that you just don't get it, that you're not taking terrorism seriously.
It's a pretty bizarre position, though, when you stop to think about it, because what we're being told here is that when confronted with a very serious problem, it's inappropriate to stop and think about it and try to figure out the best solution. Bush and his supporters seem to think the proper approach is to lash out blindly and assume that your righteousness will lead you to victory. The result, of course, is that we invaded the wrong goddamned country and millions of Muslims hate us more than ever due to our government's arrogance and belligerence. So Hitchens gets points for recognizing the seriousness of the threat, but there's no excuse for his failure to see that the solution he advocates is making the world less safe for everybody.
Funny how in the same sentence, the word "liberal" slides from meaning Enlightenment-era rationalism (which was not namby-pamby moral relativism) to generosity, to today's Leftism-Lite, Hurrah for Goverment Programs. Let's toss the word to the ideological scrapheap already; it has too many connotations and too little practical meaning.
A bit of a false dilemma is offered up there -- Al Qaeda and Wahabiist Islam in general despise what they see as our culture of license -- AND also for specific grievances... I agree that economic concerns are for them secondary, bur are tied to their view of our culture of license and debauchery -- they despise our economuc system (no interest is allowed on loans in strict Islam).
Back in 2002, Bin Laden worte an open letter detailing what they want of the West ... It is worth the read.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/worldview/story/0,11581,845725,00.html
Sorry for the spelling errors -- just too lazy to C&P from e-mail or word program...
I have always liked Hitchens, even though he has also always mystified me. But his support for the war in Iraq has steadily become more understandable to me. Hitchens believes state power can be used to solve social problems. The Islamists and/or Middle Eastern dictators are a social problem, therefore an application of state power is required. Where his views fail is at their very base -- that state power is a pragmatic tool for solving social problems. Government programs tend to fail most of the time. Indeed, they tend to cause harm that is worse than the problem they sought to solve. And war is just another government program. Therefore, government power will tend to make things worse rather than better.
A few examplesn from foreign policy:
Spanish-American war -- we liberated colonies from Spain only to make them American colonies, at the cost of much pain and suffering, especially in the Phillipines.
World War I -- without our internvention it is possible that the two sides would have made peace before the Bolsheviks had time to overthrow the Kerensky government in Russia. And would Hitler have come to power in a Germany that had signed a peace treaty rather than a surrender?
World War II -- I judge this one a draw. We defeated Hitler and Japan but half of Europe and all of China went to the Communists.
Korea -- Antoher draw.
Iranian subverision -- we overthrew a democratic government in favor of the Shah, and ended up with Islamist Iran.
Lebanon subversion -- the CIA destablized the Switzerland of the Middle East and made it a breeding ground for terrorists.
Vietnam -- We lost but the world didn't come to an end, and now Vietnam seems to be evolving in a good direction.
This last example is important. Vietnam is evolving. So is China. So is Iran. We are trying to force a revolution in the Middle East. It would be far better to set back, with hands off, and let things evolve. We won't like a lot of what happens there in the short term, but things would probably end up better, faster, if we did.
The Middle East is a very intractible problem. The states you see there today were created out of the Ottoman Empire by European powers after WWI. Europe refought WWI in WWII and the punitive armistice was replaced by a more emlightened Marshall Plan for Europe. THe Middle East still hasn't recovered from WWI.
I can't endorse religious extremeism that leads to suicide bombers. But neither do I have to support Israel taking control of the water supplies in the West Bank and building today's incarnation of the Berlin Wall to keep the Palestinian polulation away from all of the useful land.
I think we need a policy of constructive engagement with the Middle East. But I wonder if we really have anything to offer them.
I agree with Steve above wholeheartedly. As for Hitchens, I've never cared much for his writing, even when I agreed with him. Most of his pieces are little more than snide and bitter screeds littered with hyperbole, totally unconvincing to the unconverted. He recently wrote that Democrats are cheering for things to go badly in Iraq, a deeply offensive claim that he supported with nothing more than innuendo. Typical of his style.
Sounds like a false dilemma. You obviously don't have to fall into some "for american imperialism" or "for islamic radicalism" category. You can be against both. I'm a far left leaning liberal/libertarian, and I don't know of any liberals who have the view that islamic countries have the right to practice immoral institutions. I'm completely for self determination, but self determination at the expense of individual liberty is not self determination.
I'd venture to guess that those liberals who are saying these things are speaking out of emotion, and don't really feel that way.