On Tuesday, February 25, 2003, at 07:16 AM, Dennis Perrin wrote:
>> Help, I'm starting to sympathize with Christopher
>> Hitchens. Someone please make this feeling go away.
>
> Just remember that Hitch truly believes that this war is about Kurdish
> democracy and general Iraqi freedom. We're seeing how that's, um, a
> bit down
> the list at the moment. Even the gung ho Andrew Sullivan, who's been
> panting
> for months for war, recently mumbled that, hey, maybe this isn't about
> "democracy" after all. Andy's starting to scratch his head in
> confusion.
> That's a good sign.
>
dennis is right on point, here, imo. we don't have to cheer for clark and i would agree that a press conf or press release or op-ed or *something* elaborating on his visit is in order, BUT (1) a story spinning this as saddam and clark yukking it up is pretty disingenuous; and people like hitch are (imo) right that this kind of *appearance* of yukking it up with saddam -- which clark has got to know is the way saddam will use it, whether clark approves or not -- is precisely the sort of thing the anti-war movement doesn't need and shouldn't want.
further, (2) as dennis points out, the democracy aspect of this liberation project (and, by extension, hitch's position on the war) is rapidly losing credibility. on the strength of some of the recent material from and about chalabi, et al., a friend of mine who has been leaning hitch's way for a long time agreed that some clear, coherent, plausible plan for something like democracy is necessary (if not necessarily sufficient) to justify a war. as he put it, "This is what the war comes down to - I freely admit that without some sort of hope of a democratic transition, any war to remove Saddam loses all justification. And, so it happens, this seems to be truly up for grabs, just as it reflects splits in the Bush administration. I'm not in love with Chalabi, but this seems sort of principled - and a view shared by all the groups meeting in Iraqi Kurdistan." exactly. i'm less sanguine than he about just how "up for grabs" it truly is, but the point is the same.
hang in.
j