Edward Herman replies to Christopher Hitchens

[Peter K.]

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020128&s=letter#reply?i=20
020128&s=letter
Hitchens replies
Washington, D.C.
I'm happy to let readers decide for themselves about my
ideological character. But I don't mind having it said that I
favor physical force against fascism, and even relish it. And I
think Hobhouse is a dubious source for determining that
liberalism equals pacifism. Whether Herman is a pacifist or not I
neither know nor care: that he isn't an ally in battles against
fascism is already notorious.
Shortly after September 11 he wrote that the attack on the World
Trade Center was reminiscent of the methods employed by NATO to
get Milosevic out of Kosovo. Now his dismal search for moral
equivalence leads him to find serendipity in the apparent
symmetry of casualty figures. Well it now looks as if--supposing
his Afghan civilian numbers to be correct--there have been more
people killed in Afghanistan than in New York, Washington and
Pennsylvania combined. So perhaps his crass utilitarianism will
lead him to announce that the coalition's counterstroke against
the Taliban and Al Qaeda is not merely as bad as, but actually
worse than, the September 11 aggression.
I, however, will continue to presume that it is obvious that
those murdered in America on that day were not "collateral
damage." Their murders were the direct object of the "operation."
By contrast, we have had repeated and confirmed reports of
frustration on the part of American targeters in Afghanistan,
frequently denied permission to open fire because of legal
constraints imposed by the Pentagon. This is actually a tribute
to the work of the antiwar movement over the years; it seems
paltry in more than one way to be sneering at it.
Since every member of Al Qaeda has to be counted as a potential
suicide bomber, and since their Taliban protectors had created
vast hunger and misery in Afghanistan, the true humanitarian cost
of finding and killing them cannot be reckoned in Herman's simple
arithmetic. Nor can his outdated and arcane citations alter the
fact that aid of all kinds is now reaching those who most need
it. The necessary condition for that was always a short and
hard-fought war. Unless of course, for "humanitarian" reasons,
one was prepared to leave the Taliban/Al Qaeda regime in place. I
would not direct such a slur against Herman, even though I can't
help noticing that General Galtieri, trainer of the contras,
might still be in possession of both Argentina and the Malvinas
if Herman's counsel had been heeded. The chances of that,
however, have grown slimmer over the years and are now
approaching the nonexistent.
Finally, when I spoke in Chicago I said that the war against
Islamic fascism had been going on for some time before the Bush
family joined in, that it involved and involves a confrontation
with the oligarchies of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and that it
was therefore more a question of whether he should be allowed to
join our (not "my") war. Herman misses the point and the joke,
and I would put this down to his customary sloppiness if it
wasn't that, in his other misrepresentations of my published
views on Ashcroftism, he seems to be actuated by malice as well.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
(See below for additional comments from Hitchens.)
FURTHER COMMENTS FROM HITCHENS
Washington, D.C.
Readers of the website may not know that I generally don't reply
to critical letters printed in the magazine. This is because I
already have a whole twice-monthly page in The Nation, and think
that the limited letters-space ought to be reserved for the
readers. However, I do sometimes reply if I am directly slandered
or misrepresented, and such is the case with what Herman says
about me and the Guardian. The facts are these: while writing a
column last fall I was shown a highly anti-American speech that
had, I was told, been delivered by Harold Pinter the day after
the 11 September attacks. I made a disobliging reference to Sir
Harold in my piece, and then discovered before the deadline that
the speech had actually been delivered the day before. So I
telephoned the editors, asked them to remove the reference, and
was assured that this would be done. However, a second reference
lower down was mistakenly left in. So I wrote myself to apologise
to Sir Harold, as did the editors, and wrote a letter of
explanation which The Guardian duly published, along with another
apology of their own. Excision of the second reference would also
have removed my reference to John Pilger, to whom, for his
consistently disgraceful and misleading coverage of the
post-September events, I made, and make, no apology at all.
Herman can only say what he says if he was following the paper
that week. But, if he was reading the Guardian with any care, he
must know that what he asserts is false. Again, one can't be sure
whether this is the consequence of incompetence or ill-will. But
then, with him, one never can.
What I said on BBC Newsnight was that in the protected Kurdish
autonomous areas of Iraq there is neither famine nor repression,
and what I said the same week in The Nation was that this rescue
operation might supply a model for Afghanistan (which it since
has done). I make no apology for that, either. I have little
patience with those who attribute the deaths in Iraq solely to
Western policy: no children of army officers or Ba'ath Party
officials are among the dead, either. Of course there are
alternatives, as always. Saddam Hussein could be allowed to claim
credit for getting sanctions lifted, and press on with his
program of preparing for mass destruction of Kurds and others,
including ourselves. Or, regarding sanctions as unduly
indiscriminate, it could be decided to remove him by means of a
preventive war. I can only imagine how upset Herman would be if
that happened: he is still (in his spare time) in deep mourning
for Slobodan Milosevic. The friends of Galtieri, Saddam Hussein,
Mullah Omar and Milosevic make unconvincing defenders of
humanitarian values, and it can be seen that their inept and
sometimes inane arguments lack either the principles or the
seriousness that are required in such debates.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS