"Hitchens, of course, is certain that terrorism is attributable solely to the desire of Islamists to destroy western civilization, and that Islamists will be able to recruit people to carry out such attacks no matter what US foreign policy is. It was when Sam Husseini from the Institute for Public Accuracy disputed this, right after the September 11th attacks, that Hitchens went berserk, calling Husseini's perspective 'utterly rotten at the very core of it.'
"So, here's a recent example of Wolfowitz expressing many of the same ideas. (He's actually made the connection between the September 11th attacks and our Iraq policy even more explicitly at other times, but I didn't bother digging them up.)
"I hope someone who knows Hitchens will ask him why exactly it's acceptable for Wolfowitz to say this, but not for Husseini to say what he did. (Dennis?) I wonder what his answer would be."
<http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030727-depsecdef0462.html>
Well, Jon, I think the main difference is that unlike Sam (with whom I once worked and did some public speaking with), Wolfie endorsed the invasion. Something along the lines of, "Say what you like, but at the end of the day, back Bush's policy." Or it could be yet another item on Hitch's growing list of double standards and revisions. I'd ask him, but he's been pissy with me lately, and I don't need the grief.
DP
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