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“Copy of complaint in pdf form: http://hotair.cachefly.net/images/2007-05/jfk.pdf “

Thanks. A useful glimpse of the enemy. Reminds me of the e-mail correspondent that C. Hitchens referred to in a recent conversation recorded at:

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=28552

That and several other insightful comments. An excerpt:

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The worst is over. What’s the worst? How could it be worse than 9/11? Oh, God, it could be much worse. What about the years when they knew they were at war, and we didn’t? What about the years when the fatwa could be defended by stupid American intellectuals? What about the years when the USS Cole could be blown up and people thought it was some episode? What about our embassies being torn apart? What about Afghanistan being reduced to slavery? What about Iraq becoming the incubator of a terrifying nihilism — all of this ignored by those in search of a quiet life? No, no, that’s over. Good. We’re at war now. Excellent.

And those who guard us while we sleep — and who are fighting in Anbar province now, and in the southern provinces of Afghanistan; and taking down these people — need every atom of support we can give them. And to be involved in this, frankly, just makes me happy.

Peter Collier: Well, you mention Anbar. And over the weekend, there was this grudgingly upbeat article in the New York Times, indicating that, in a grim and somewhat dour, down-in-the-mouth way, that U.S. forces might just conceivably be making progress there.

Christopher Hitchens: Yeah.

Peter Collier: You think our political culture is capable of actually acknowledging success, if by some miracle, a concept that is, at least, you know —

Christopher Hitchens: Well, Peter —

Peter Collier: — a contested concept in your mind, if it actually happens?

Christopher Hitchens: Well, Peter, as you implied, not without being grudging. I mean, I have been having an e-mail conversation with a young lieutenant of the Marines in Anbar province for, oh, a year and a half now. I guess I shouldn’t say his name. I don’t — he doesn’t ask me to keep it a secret, but — never mind. But he had been telling me — he’s a very sober and brilliant young man. He signed up to do this. He’s been — reading his e-mails has taught me five times as much as I can learn from any other of the major media every day.

And he’s been serving for a long time. “We are slaughtering these people here. The al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia wishes they had never taken us on.” He said, “Sometimes you may read that our marine detachments take more casualties in Anbar than anywhere else.” Said, “Don’t worry about it, I promise you, don’t worry. It’s because we go looking for fights. We don’t sit there waiting for us — waiting to be hit. We go looking for them. If there’s nothing going on, we go out and make sure something’s going on. We don’t give them any peace.” That’s what I want to hear. That’s how I’d like to hear the President talk.

Let me put it like this. How often have you read that every time the United States does something — in Afghanistan, for example — a tough place to be; I’ve been there, too — or in Anbar, or anywhere else — every time we do this, we make enemies. We make recruits. You’ve read it, haven’t you? Have you not read it?

What about the marines, young marines, who joined up and wrote to me, “I watched a video the other day of them sawing off the head of a child. And it made me angry enough to join the marines.”

Why aren’t they scared of our recruits? Why aren’t they scared of the number of people their atrocities will bring into our ranks, to make sure that nothing they do goes unpunished? Why are we afraid of what they think of us? Why don’t we make sure that they are terrified of what we think of them? How do they dare to have us in thrall or in fear for one single second? Isn’t it contemptible that we wonder about their recruiting, and we don’t praise our own? This is insufferable.

And the young men and women of this country who, despite all the contempt and the sniggering, carry on signing up to do that.

And if I didn’t know better, I’d say they were doing God’s work.

Let them fear us. That’s the thing — let them fear us.

Unidentified Audience Member: Yeah!

Unidentified Audience Member: Hear, hear!

Christopher Hitchens: Let them worry! I want to see it, I want to see it on the Taliban websites — can we keep on taking these casualties? I want them to ask.

We lost 1,000 yesterday, and we only killed one marine. Can we keep on doing this? Can we take it? Can we take the contempt and rage the rest of the world feels for us, the scum of the earth as we are, who butcher people on video? Don’t we think that maybe European opinion might turn against us? Like to hear them ask that.

Maybe the UN even won’t like this. I’d like to hear — they must ask these questions, not us. An end to masochism, an end to self-pity — don’t get me going.

Peter Collier: I remember reading someplace that somebody — one of the journalists who’s been at you —had asked you what you wanted your children to inherit from you. And you gave the one-word answer which was “struggle.” There followed upon that a very funny, I thought, anecdote about Valentine’s Day. But I think it concealed a more profound truth than that quotidian experience that you described.

So what is the —

Christopher Hitchens: What are you holding back on Valentine’s Day? I can’t remember now.

Peter Collier: Oh, it was a kind of P.C. anecdote about your children getting Valentines kind of compulsorily, not in —

Christopher Hitchens: Oh, right, yes.

Peter Collier: — the sort of existential fear and dread that you had as a young boy —

Christopher Hitchens: That’s right.

Peter Collier: — wondering whose Valentine you would get, and whether you would get them?

Christopher Hitchens: Yes. The cost-free Valentine’s Day.

Peter Collier: Yeah.

Christopher Hitchens: Every kid has to write a Valentine to every other kid in the class —

Peter Collier: Yeah. It’s a compulsory —

Christopher Hitchens: — lest anyone feel left out.

Well, I know what you mean. And that’s why I also said “struggle,” because — and this is why I’m not a believer in any form of faith or religion. Because the promise that it offers — it seems to be not worth having. I’m told that if I could accept only a savior that I would be consigned to bliss, a world without anxiety. There would be no more pain, no more struggle, no more contest, no more — it’s called by the Jains and some other Indian religions Nirvana. It’s called by the Muslims Paradise. No more pain, no more struggle.

I do not, in fact, believe that those offering this to me could supply it. Fact, I’m perfectly certain they couldn’t supply it to me. But I’m much more certain of another thing. If they could supply it, I don’t want it. I do not want to live without anxiety and conflict and struggle. These are everything to me. This is what life is to me. Keep your Nirvana, keep your bliss. Keep your life without the mind. Keep your 72 Virginians, or whatever it is that they want.

You know the joke, by the way — the jihadist blows himself up, and he presents himself. His guide says, “Well, here’s Mr. Madison.” He says, “Hello, Mr. Madison.” “Like you to meet Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Monroe, Mr. Patrick Henry.” “Fine, this is all great. But what-what?” He said, “Well, you wanted 72 Virginians, and now you’ve got them.” Seventy-two Virginians I could stand, but not bliss. Not Nirvana. I don’t want it.

So yes, struggle. Sure. Yeah. As I say, it’s enough to be at war. It’s a privilege to be at war. It really is a privilege to be at war. We’re lucky to be in the fight. Those who have no stomach for it don’t have to take part.

Peter Collier: Well, you’ve made the transition —

Christopher Hitchens: I took my son for Christmas in Iraq. I was very proud that he came. I don’t know whether he wants to sign up or not. And I would have no say in it.

By the way, can I go on about this for a second?

Peter Collier: Please do.

Christopher Hitchens: You know this moronic way people talk now, “Would you send your own son,” as if —

Peter Collier: That’s the Michael Moore question. Yeah.

Peter Collier: — fathers sent sons to the army. I couldn’t do it if I wanted to. All this garbage — if you wanted to, I — it’s entirely up to him. But if he wants to know what it is like to defend the secular democratic Kurdish republic that’s emerging in Northern Iraq from the barbarians and the theocrats he’s had a rough idea what it would be like to do. I can’t go any farther than that; I’m too old to shoulder a rifle in any meaningful sense myself.

But when I said, “Well, we have an offer to go to Baghdad, too, if you want, and I promised your mother that I wouldn’t take you there — but do you fancy it? And it’s no shame if you say no,” and he said, “No, let’s do it,” then I did actually feel a twinge of pride, I have to say. I did.

end of excerpt
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I think Hitchens is wrong-headed about his militant atheism (and so does David Horowitz, who offers a useful corrrective at: http://frontpagemag.com/blog/index.asp , and Douglas Wilson, who is currently engaged in a debate with Hitchens at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/mayweb-only/119-12.0.html )

but Hitchens does understand the joy of “life as struggle”, though he does not understand that is is also true for any well-informed Christian (Eph 6:10-18 is not merely metaphorical!). Perhaps that will change.