>From: "Yoshie Furuhashi" <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>>My own charge against Human Rights Watch is not that it
>>is "_neglecting repression_ of the Kurds in Turkey" but that it
>>actually went so far as to help persecute them, for instance by
>>pressuring the Italian and other governments to prosecute Abdullah
>>Ocalan for "crimes against humanity,"
><http://www.hrw.org/press/1999/jan/tur0120.htm>).
>
>Umm-- Yoshie, that statement was made in the context of also having opposed
>extradicting Ocalan to Turkey where he faced the death penalty. Ocalan is
>not equivalent to the Kurdish people-- he is a murderer and admits as much.
>Trying him as an individual under international law is hardly helping to
>"presecute" the Kurdish people.
>
>--Nathan Newman
There it is in a nutshell. -- Steve Philion: Speaking of Carrol's reference to Max's being more tied to left movement activity than Hitchens, which is spot on, I found Hitch's remark in his Washington Post "farewell" rant about nary being able to find any mention of Kurds at an anti-war meeting these days none too ironic....I mean, how would he know? When was the last time he went to one? --- Yoshie: Overindulgence in Hitchens may cause accelerated decrepitude....Read too much of an old crank, and you'll begin to sound like one. ------- Hey Doug started this off by posting the Hardball transcript. Complain to him.
I don't understand the pissing contest when it comes to activism.
The seems to comes out when someone's losing a debate or
getting frustrated. Besides Hitchens has met Ocalan, while
I doubt Carrol or Yoshie or Steve have. However I wouldn't
be surprised if Max has. ;)
>From a 1997 interview in The Progressive:
Q: Give me a few choice encounters with the famous people you've met.
Hitchens: Most of them are disappointments. Claude Cockburn once said that it's awful how things often turn out exactly the way they're supposed to be. Some things are what they're cracked up to be.
[clip]
Let's see who else we've got here. Abu Nidal offered to use me as someone to transmit a death threat to another Palestinian. Which he later carried out. Which I also delivered! These are all politicians, of course.
Andreas Papandreou was extremely rhetorical and bombastic.
Gerry Adams was very sentimental.
Willie Brandt probably.
Q: Why?
Hitchens: There was a meeting in Washington where everyone had come to accuse him of selling out the West for having doubts about Cruise missiles, and all that. "How dare Germany not be belligerent?" being the line of the day! And I said I had come to ask him what it was like being with George Orwell in Barcelona as volunteers fighting against fascism. He welcomed the change of subject.
Q: [Hitchers's wife, Carol Blue, intervenes: "What about the crazy Kurd with the eagle?"]
Hitchens: No one's ever heard of him. Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the PKK. Wore a Stalin mustache and had a large eagle--live eagle--tethered to his desk. I think to create some kind of impression--of destiny. He also brushed his hair like Stalin.