Replies

These are worth passing along (via Instapundit).
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Christopher Hitchens' "7 Questions for war opponents":

I debate with the opponents of the Iraq intervention almost every day. I always have the same questions for them, which never seem to get answered.

1. Do you believe that a confrontation with Saddam Hussein’s regime was inevitable or not?

2. Do you believe that a confrontation with an Uday/Qusay regime would have been better?

3. Do you know that Saddam’s envoys were trying to buy a weapons production line off the shelf from North Korea (vide the Kay report) as late as last March?

4. Why do you think Saddam offered "succor" (Mr. Clarke’s word) to the man most wanted in the 1993 bombings in New York?

5. Would you have been in favor of lifting the "no fly zones" over northern and southern Iraq; a 10-year prolongation of the original "Gulf War"?

6. Were you content to have Kurdish and Shiite resistance fighters do all the fighting for us?

7. Do you think that the timing of a confrontation should have been left, as it was in the past, for Baghdad to choose?
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Hitchens has a knack for getting to the nub of a matter.

An old man and a young boy were traveling through their village with their
donkey. The boy rode on the donkey and the old man walked.

As they went along they passed some people who remarked it was a shame
the old man was walking and the boy was riding.

The man and boy thought maybe the critics were right, so they changed
positions.

Later, they passed some people that remarked, "What a shame, he makes
that little boy walk."

They then decided they both would walk!

Soon they passed some more people who thought they were stupid to walk
when they had a decent donkey to ride.

So they both decided to ride the donkey.

Now they passed some people that shamed them by saying "How awful to
put such a big load on a poor donkey".

The boy and man said they were probably right, so they decided to carry
the donkey. As they crossed the bridge, they lost their grip on the animal
and he fell into the river and drowned.

The moral of the story?

If you try to please everyone, you might as well kiss your ass
good-bye.

Christopher Hitchens' "7 Questions for war opponents":

Liberals are the same everywhere because similar questions I have when debating one get the "never seem to get answered" treatment. My standard question is, how long were we supposed to wait? (The answer every time): I don't know. The next question, one more month, 3 months, 6 months? Which goes to your conclusion that we would be unable to keep the troops ready indefinitely and the only reason that Saddam pretended to cooperate was because of the threat.

The answer is always, they don't know BUT we should have let the inspections go longer.

12 years of Saddam jerking us around just wasn't enough apparently. What a waste of space this bunch is.

They know they're wrong but like small children just can't admit it and resort to stomping their feet and pointing at someone else as the guilty party. If they admit that we were right to take out Saddam and his thugs then questions might arise as to why clinton allowed it to fester and spent time, energy and money on that pressing problem of Kosovo.