"Hitchens' nervous breakdown"

[Cian]

steve philio said:
> --uhm, we're talking about a writer who slandered the holy hell out of
people
> like Noam Chomsky in the aftermath of 911 with claims that he and others
like
> him supported Al Qaeda as a liberating force...yada yada yada...

I was never wild about Hitchens when he was "on message" (though he's always
been a highly entertaining writer), but I think he has a point when he
emphasises how nasty a regime Iraq is. Just because the US is going to
invade Iraq (my bet is early November. Any others?), doesn't mean that the
left should cosy up to Saddam a la George Galloway. You don't have to look
hard for revolting human rights crimes by Saddam, and while he probably
hasn't been able to get nuclear materials, that hasn't been for lack of
trying. Yes Israel has nuclear weapons, but that's hardly an argument for
allowing Saddam to get them.

I doubt very much that the left can do anything to stop this invasion, but
perhaps they can prevent Saddam being replaced by another dictator and the
Kurds being screwed again. There is a depressing tendency, which Hitchens
has rightly pointed out, to think in binary terms on these issues. That many
of the left defended Milosovich blew much of the credibility that the left
had built up. Why destroy the remainder?