> It's not so much that Hitch himself is worth answering
> as an individual, but this comments show the kind of
> knots that defenders of the war have tied themselves
> into.
>
>> It wasn't that the Middle East "lacked democracy" so
> much that one of its keystone states was dominated by
> an unstable and destabilizing dictatorship led by a
> psychopath.
>
> On the contrary, Saddam, though cruel and brutal, was
> a rational and calculating actor in foreign affairs
> and even in his repression at home. The case for his
> madness in foreign affairs, I guess, is (a) that he
> got involved in a terribly destructive war with Iran
> in the 1980s, and (b) he invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Actually, I have an email from Hitch (among many others, like one where he calmly supported the razing of Fallujah) where he says that the US was right to back Saddam against Iran, since an Iranian victory would've been far worse. In other words, Hitch, retrospectively, supported Saddam's 1980 invasion, and all the bloodshed that followed (the gassings too?). That he routinely slimes those who oppose this madness by calling them "Saddamites" or whatever, is really the height of hubris. But then, H is allowed to be contradictory. After all, as he used to say, Marx introduced the word "contradiction" into the language, thus making it radical and right.
Dennis