California Conservative

Last night, Christopher Hitchens was Larry King’s guest to discuss Operation Swarmer. During their half hour, Christopher delivered another tour-de-force performance. The highlight for me was Mr. Hitchen’s humiliating of ‘Hurricane’ Katrina vanden Huevel, though his humiliation of Michael Weisskopf was pretty choice, too. Let’s go to the transcript for the first exchange:

KING: Katrina, don’t you count it important if true that this was an Iraqi concept, an Iraqi idea?

KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL, EDITOR, “THE NATION”: You know, Larry, the intensification of airstrikes has been going on for five months. Seymour Hersh has reported that in the “New Yorker.” But I think this is a sign of desperation, a sign of desperation, a war that is un-winnable that is unlawful, unnecessary.

And also, you know, you’re dealing with the slaughter possibly of innocent women and children and you possibly create more insurgents. The resentment against America is so deep. I think it’s very important to understand that we are now, the United States is in a brutal occupation, is in the middle of an Iraqi civil war with America having turned against the war and 87 percent of Iraqis wanting an end to the U.S. occupation, 72 percent of U.S. troops in Iraq want us to come home.

So, I think this is a sign of desperation and it is a very important moment to assess the need to begin to find a way out with honor and dignity for Iraqis and for Americans who are serving there.

KING: Chris Hitchens, if what Katrina says is true, what do we do?

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, “VANITY FAIR” COLUMNIST: Well, could we dispense with that if for a second? May I quarrel with you for saying there’s an attack on Iraq, both in your caption and what you said to open. It’s not an attack on Iraq at all.

It’s an attack on the enemies of Iraq who are trying to poison its life and destroy its democracy and it’s absurd to talk about this being an occupation. Would anyone around this table look into the eyes of President Jalal Talabani and say he’s occupying his own country? He’s the only person who has ever actually been a genuine insurgent in his own country, led a real people’s army, is now brilliantly I think and very, very self sacrificing given that he’s originally Kurdish, not putting his own faction, his own tribe or his own confession forward but trying every day at the risk of his life to get the parliamentary factions of Iraq together and make a country and a republic and a federal democracy, which is the only alternative to partition or civil war or invasion by countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey, which we are currently fending off.

The United States is very nobly acting as the militia now for those who don’t have a militia, for those who don’t have any thuggery or IED at their disposal. It’s the best thing we’ve ever done and shame on people who sneer at it.

HOORAY FOR CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS!!! Notice how efficiently he’s destroyed the false premise that King tried passing off as fact. Notice how his arguments are fact-based, logical and ultimately sane. This is how destroying someone’s childish arguments is supposed to be handled.

He’s right in demolishing the argument that this is “an attack on Iraq.” It’s nothing of the sort. As Hitchens says, it’s an attack on those who prefer a despotic Iraq over a democratic Iraq. Furthermore, the point he makes that America is acting “very nobly acting as the militia now for those who don’t have a militia” is brilliant. Nobody on the panel until that point cared about the welfare of the people that the terrorists and insurgents wanted to ruin.

It’s also worth noting how little Ms. vanden Huevel knows about the Bush administration. She says that the war is unwinnable and that the airstrikes are acts of desparation on President Bush’s part. Talk about stupid. Nothing’s further from the truth. How can she say that it’s desparation when each week, we see the raw data showing how more Iraqi troops are getting trained and accepting leadership roles?

How can she think that when we see reporting in the Washington Post of how the U.S. military is assuming more of a training and support role and that Iraqi forces did well in quelling the violence in the aftermath of the Samarrah Mosque bombing? The talk within the Agenda Media awhile back was about whether President Bush lived in a bubble. Obviously he doesn’t. That said, ultra-fringe Fever Swampers like Katrina don’t live in a bubble; they live in Alice in Wonderland’s hometown where facts mean nothing.

Finally, shame on ‘Hurricane’ Katrina for sneering at the average Iraqi who desparately doesn’t want to replace one brutal dictator with another. Were it not for the American and Coalition militaries, that’s exactly where they would be right now. This type of liberalism talks about human rights violation only when they’re accusing the American military of that type of atrocity. They turn a blind eye towards it when a thug like Saddam brutalizes Iraqis. That’s intellectually incoherent and morally bankrupt and it shouldn’t be tolerated in civil society.

KING: Katrina, then do you see anything into the timing of this operation, days before the third anniversary, same day the new parliament meets for the first time, same day the White House releases an updated national security strategy report?

VANDEN HEUVEL: Again, I come back to I think this administration is desperate. I think we need to stand back for a moment, Larry, and understand the staggering cost in lives and money but also what has happened in the region as a result of going into Iraq, the invasion, the occupation. We have created greater insecurity. We have undermined American security. We have killed thousands of Iraqis. We need to now find a sane, just security policy. We do not have the legitimacy or know-how to be in the middle of an Iraqi civil war.

Look at Katrina’s utter recklessness with the facts: “WE’VE KILLED thousands of Iraqis” as though this was done in a vacuum. It isn’t that thousands haven’t been killed but this statistic, like so many others, aren’t put into the context that the majority of those deaths were caused by insurgents and terrorists. Her wording makes it sound like she thinks that American and Coalition forces killed these Iraqis.

Also worth noting is that alot of those causualties were Iraqi military KIA’s. Rule # 1 is that, in war, soldiers will die. It’s inevitable. To lump Saddam’s forces in with those he tortured is disgusting morally.

Here’s a sharp exchange between Hitchens and Time reporter Michael Weisskopf:

KING: Michael, who’s closer from your perspective to being right here, Christopher or Katrina? WEISSKOPF: I’m not sure which history books either of them are reading. I’ve been to Iraq and…

HITCHENS: So have I.
KING: Let him finish Chris.
HITCHENS: I didn’t interrupt. I just commented.
WEISSKOPF: …a couple of times and I don’t know…
HITCHENS: A couple of times (INAUDIBLE).
WEISSKOPF: …what sense he has, what sense he has that the country was imploding under Saddam. Probably the only guy who successfully was able to unite Shia and Sunni albeit under a banner of terror is the guy now in the dock of a courtroom…

HITCHENS: You’re not serious.

WEISSKOPF: …outside of the Baghdad International Airport just through terror and it might take terror in order to rule that country. And, what the United States did in an effort to bring democracy to that country was obviously loose the dogs of civil strife and that’s what we’re all living under.

Listen to the moral relativism dripping in Weisskopf’s answer. Look at Hitchens’ response “You’re not serious.” To infer that Hussein brought Shia and Sunni together without a cost to both groups is intellectually lazy at best. At worst, it’s being Hussein’s unpaid apologist. We shouldn’t tolerate that type of relativism. Ever.

KING: Katrina, you wanted to say?

VANDEN HEUVEL: I wanted to say that the longer we stay the more difficult it will be to leave with honor. It is an untenable situation. It grows increasingly untenable as sectarian strife is exacerbated by the occupation. And I think if we believe the Iraqi people are a sovereign people and respect them, we would heed the fact that again a vast majority wish an end to this occupation.
I would simply say I do not speak for the Democratic Party. “The Nation” magazine at the end of last year said that there can no longer be any doubt that this was now an occupation is a political catastrophe. We will not support any candidate who does not seek a speedy exit to this was.

And, Christopher knows history. All occupation, though I defer to him on the British Empire, but Russia in Afghanistan, the French in Algeria, occupations are unwinnable by their very nature and the sooner we bring our men and women home and provide for reconstruction aid, not war profiteering which is going on the better.

Again, the nonsense about Americans occupying Iraq. It doesn’t matter to loons like her that the Iraqi government wants us there until their military and security forces are up to the task of defeating the terrorists. In the occupations that vanden Heuvel cites, each were occupiers in the sense that they wanted to rule over the different countries listed. That’s the opposite of what’s happening in Iraq. In vanden Heuvel’s mind, Talabani and those elected by Iraqis are nothing but an American puppet regime. That’s how deep her hatred and mistrust is of President Bush.

Suffice it to say that I’ll keep this transcript as a reminder as to just how unfit like-minded loons like vanden Heuvel are to run the military. To give them control of the country would mean disaster. And we won’t give them that chance, whether it’s this November or in November, 2008.

Cross-post at LetFreedomRing

This entry was posted on Friday, March 17th, 2006 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Iraq, Liberals, Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.