"(1) If [Sam] Husseini knows what was in the minds of the murderers, it is his solemn responsibility to inform us of the source of his information, and also to share it with the authorities. (2) If he does not know what was in their minds--as seems enormously more probable--then why does he rush to appoint himself the ventriloquist's dummy for such a faction? Who volunteers for such a task at such a time?
"Not only is it indecent to act as self-appointed interpreter for the killers, but it is rash in the highest degree."
Sam is an old friend and former FAIR colleague of mine, and he and I shared several podiums during the Gulf War. Sam is not given to rash statements (though when on TV he can seem impatient with the host and other guests, but in most cases that's understandable), and I would like to see his entire criticism of Hitch, if there is indeed more. If there is not, let me say this: If the Taliban and/or some Bin Laden surrogate is responsible, then you cannot physically connect what is going on in Palestine and Iraq with what happened on 9-11. In that sense Hitch is correct, but only to a point. While it's true that these snake handling nazis would proceed with vile and criminal acts regardless of backdrop (their internal behavior serves as an adequate guide), that backdrop helps to frame their case to those with nothing to lose. Yes, they could give two shits for Palestinian autonomy or Iraqi democratic ideals; but so long as the US allows Israel to commit its crimes, and so long as the US is content to strangle Iraqi children while backing other Arab dictatorships, Bin Laden doesn't need to go that extra step to recruit followers. If "we" suddenly decided to help democratize the region, to fill the bellies of the starving and protect Arab dissidents from the bullet and the noose, Bin Laden and the Taliban would remain as fucked up as they are. But they'd have a much harder time railing against infidels and using the infidels' misdeeds as cover for their fascist agenda.
"The Pentagon, for all its symbolism, is actually more the civil-service bit of the American 'war-machine,' and is set in a crowded Virginia neighborhood. You could certainly call it a military target if you were that way inclined, though the Bid-Ladenists did not attempt anything against a guarded airbase or a nuclear power-station in Pennsylvania (and even if they had, we would now doubtless be reading that the glow from Three Mile Island was a revenge for globalization)."
War machine is now in quotes? Those poor fools who marched on it in 1967 (led by, among others, Chomsky). How they must blush now with shame knowing that they were premature aiders and abetters of the apologists of fascist Islam. As for the latter bit about Three Mile Island, to quote ODB, "nigga please."
"The Capitol is where the voters send their elected representatives--poor things, to be sure, but our own. The White House is where the elected President and his family and staff are to be found. It survived the attempt of British imperialism to burn it down, and the attempt of the Confederacy to take Washington, DC, and this has hallowed even its most mediocre occupants. I might, from where I am sitting, be a short walk from a gutted Capitol or a shattered White House. I am quite certain that Husseini and his rabble of sympathizers would still be telling me that my chickens were coming home to roost."
This is embarrassing. You'd think Hitch was writing about holy ground, the secular Mecca, if you will. I'm sure he donned his Lincoln stovepipe hat before sitting down to type these lines, humming "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" between hits on his ever-present Rothman.
"Only the stoicism of men like Jeremy Glick and Thomas Burnett prevented some such outcome; only those who chose who die fighting rather than allow such a profanity, and such a further toll in lives, stood between us and the fourth death squad. One iota of such innate fortitude is worth all the writings of Noam Chomsky, who coldly compared the plan of September 11 to a stupid and cruel and cynical raid by Bill Clinton on Khartoum in August 1998."
And now we arrive in Bill O'Reilly territory. Whatever the truth of the fourth plane (either passenger revolt or shooting down by US fighter, the latter bit still not entirely discounted, to my knowledge), Hitch's crude attempt to link the deaths of those on board to Chomsky's first take on the WTC/Pentagon bombing is shitty and deceitful, and it clearly stems from their disagreement over NATO's strikes on Serbia. As I said here to Leo, I think that using the Sudan bombing as a counterexample of terrorist violence was a weak tactic by Noam, especially since no one really knows how many Sudanese have died as a result of lack of medicine. But this was not the only counterexample Noam used, as Hitch well knows, and in subsequent interviews (available at Z-Net) Noam has expanded his focus and analysis to include many examples of imperial and fascist violence, connecting one to the other in a meticulous fashion. There is nothing "cold" about Noam's takes, and his repeated denunciations of the WTC/Pentagon bombings shows he's aware of the tragic human dimension involved.
I won't go into into the rest of Hitch's piece. Suffice it to say, he's in favor of toppling the Taliban and, I suppose, replacing them with the Northern Alliance (moderates?) if not a straight-out Western puppet. And then what? Do we mass murder every Islamic fundamentalist as a preventive measure? After all, you never know when the devout will go nuts. And then, in the interests of regional balance and fair play, do we insist that the Israelis do the same to their holy rollers?
As with Serbia, Hitch is going with an imperial force to attack what he despises. Of course, I think all of us here (and Noam and Sam) despise the same things, it's just that we are reluctant to applaud and support those whose interests are entirely opposed to ours as they bomb, maim and butcher their way through the world. And if they happen to take out a worthy target, will they allow something decent and humane to flower in the rubble? I'd like to see the evidence that they have, or even have the desire to do so.
DP