I haven't much Hitchens, but in the interview he basically managed to run through all the things he does that annoy me, while coming of as a fat, pussy toad. The most disturbing part was towards the end of the interview, though, when he started talking about all the "allies we don't know we have."
Basically, his big argument is that there is a war within Islam, of the Good Secular Muslims vs. the Bad Jihadist Muslims. The good guys like us, the bad guys don't like us. Also, the ones who like us are good, and the ones who don't like us are bad.
He's basically trying to frame the conflict in a way to appeal to (or at least shame) liberals, by appealing to their love of civil rights, individual freedom, separation of church and state, and and all that jazz. If you like these things, how can you not be on the side of others who like them?
Of course, there's the sticky question of whether that gives us the right to unleash all the death, destruction, injury, and misery that comes with war so we can implement a new society in another country. But he gets around this by inventing a silent majority of Middle Eastern Muslims who are not only liberal, but who love American culture too.
He avoids another issue by pretending that any secular Muslim who allies themself with the US is a good guy. It never occurs to him that someone may be secular, and may have a strategic reason to work with the US, but may not be entirely altruistic. So Hitchens winds up dissing Mother Theresa while he defends Achmed Chalabi.
There's also a big part missing from his calculus: people who might not be religious fanatics in either the Wahabbi or Khomeini mold, but who are also distrustful of the United States. For all his fancy words, Hitchens is basically pushing a version of the Manichean "they hate us for our freedoms" line. He equates discussion of US policy blowback in the middle east to appeasing terrorists, which is the sort of laziness you'd expect to find here, not in the pages of the snooty magazines that pay him.
There's a ton more to bitch about in the interview, including his fetish about the word "insurgents," but I'm trying to keep this readable. Oh well, at least Steven Colbert was good.
Basically, his big argument is that there is a war within Islam, of the Good Secular Muslims vs. the Bad Jihadist Muslims. The good guys like us, the bad guys don't like us. Also, the ones who like us are good, and the ones who don't like us are bad.
He's basically trying to frame the conflict in a way to appeal to (or at least shame) liberals, by appealing to their love of civil rights, individual freedom, separation of church and state, and and all that jazz. If you like these things, how can you not be on the side of others who like them?
Of course, there's the sticky question of whether that gives us the right to unleash all the death, destruction, injury, and misery that comes with war so we can implement a new society in another country. But he gets around this by inventing a silent majority of Middle Eastern Muslims who are not only liberal, but who love American culture too.
He avoids another issue by pretending that any secular Muslim who allies themself with the US is a good guy. It never occurs to him that someone may be secular, and may have a strategic reason to work with the US, but may not be entirely altruistic. So Hitchens winds up dissing Mother Theresa while he defends Achmed Chalabi.
There's also a big part missing from his calculus: people who might not be religious fanatics in either the Wahabbi or Khomeini mold, but who are also distrustful of the United States. For all his fancy words, Hitchens is basically pushing a version of the Manichean "they hate us for our freedoms" line. He equates discussion of US policy blowback in the middle east to appeasing terrorists, which is the sort of laziness you'd expect to find here, not in the pages of the snooty magazines that pay him.
There's a ton more to bitch about in the interview, including his fetish about the word "insurgents," but I'm trying to keep this readable. Oh well, at least Steven Colbert was good.
