Posted on 08/05/2005 12:06:43 AM PDT by F14 Pilot
Christopher Hitchens is one of America's and the English speaking world's leading public intellectuals. He is the author of more than ten books, including, most recently, A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq (2003), Why Orwell Matters (2002), The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001), and Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001). He writes for leading American and British publications, including The London Review of Books, The New Left Review, Slate, The New York Review of Books, Newsweek International, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Washington Post. He is also a regular television and radio commentator.
For many years, Hitchens was seen as one of America's leading leftist commentators. Shortly after the September 11 attacks in the United States, he began publicly criticizing fellow leftist intellectuals for what he viewed as their "moral and political collapse" in their failure to stand up to what he saw as "Islamo-fascism". He publicly feuded with many of America's leading leftist intellectuals about the war in Iraq, which he supported, much to their anger. He subsequently resigned from his position as a columnist for the Nation, America's leading leftist magazine, in protest.
Born in England, Hitchens has lived in the United States for more than twenty years. He is one of America's most recognizable intellectuals and has taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Pittsburgh; and the New School of Social Research. He spoke with Washington Prism at his home in Washington D.C.
Q - Your much-discussed separation from the American left began shortly after the September 11 attacks. What prompted your displeasure with the left?
A - The September 11 attacks were one of those rare historical moments, like 1933 in Germany or 1936 in Spain or 1968, when you are put in a position to take a strong stand for what is right. The left failed this test. Instead of strongly standing against these nihilistic murderers, people on the left, such as Noam Chomsky, began to make excuses for these murderers, openly saying that Bin ladin was, however crude in his methods, in some ways voicing a liberation theology. This is simply a moral and political collapse.
But its not only that. It’s a missed opportunity for the left. Think of it this way: If a group of theocratic nihilists drive planes full of human beings into buildings full of human beings announcing nothing by way of a program except their nihilism and if they turn out to have been sheltered by two regimes favored by the United States and the national security establishment, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to be precise, two of only three countries to recognize the Taliban, and if Republicans were totally taken by surprise by this and if the working class of New York had to step forward and become the shield of society in the person of the fire and police brigades, it seemed to me that this would have been a good opportunity for the left to demand a general revision of all the assumptions we carried about the post cold war world. We were attacked by a religious dictatorship and the working class were pushed into defending elites by the total failure of our leadership and total failure of our intelligence. The attack emanated partly from the failure of regimes supported by that same elite national security establishment– Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. If the left can’t take advantage of a moment like that: whats it for? whats its secularism for? Whats its internationalism, class attitude, democracy for?
You don’t get that many measurable historical moments in your life, but you must recognize them when they come. This was one of those moments and the left collectively decided to get it wrong and I realized at that moment that, to borrow a slogan that slightly irritates me, but is useful: "Not in my name.” I'm not part of that family. I wanted to force a split, a political split on the left to which a small extent I think succeeded. Today, there is a small pro-regime change left and I'm a proud part of it.
Q - It seems that the left had less difficulty accepting the war in Afghanistan as they did the war in Iraq.
That is true, but of the hard core left it isn’t true. They also opposed the removal of the Taliban. When it came to using force, the least they did was predict a quagmire. By the way, there weren't alone. The New York Times did so too. They said at minimum we would witness another Vietnam, which is a pretty serious charge to make as someone who believes that then and now the Vietnam war was a war of aggression and atrocity and racism. When someone says something is another Vietnam, they better be serious because that’s a serious charge.
But lets look at the case of Iraq and the left. If you asked someone who has the principles of a 1968 leftist the following question: what is your attitude to a regime that has committed genocide, invaded its neighbors, militarized its society into a police state, that has privatized its economy so it is owned by one family, that has defied the non proliferation treaty in many ways, that sought weapons to commit genocide again and cheated on inspections, that has abolished the existence of a neighboring arab muslim state? What is your view of this as anyone who is a 1968 leftist? For me, I would be appalled if anyone knew me even slightly would not guess my attitude. Iraq should have been taken care of a long time ago. Instead, when I made my view public, I was berated by the left and my view was seen as an insane eccentricity.
I should also note that I have friends and comrades in the Iraqi and Kurdish left going back at least till the early 1990s. For me, supporting the war was an elementary duty of solidarity. I said: I'm on your side and I’ll stay there until you’re in and they’re out.
Q - If there was a Democratic president on 9/11, would there have been a difference of opinion in the American left about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Not from people like Michael Moore (the American film director and strong critic of President Bush), who makes a perfectly good brownshirt [fascist]. Or Noam Chomsky. No, it would not. To them it would have been further proof that the ruling class just has two faces and one party. But I think, in the mainstream of the democratic and Republican parties, you would have seen an exact switch. Richard Holbrooke’s position (Holbrooke was Clinton's UN Ambassador and is a leading Democratic foreign policy thinker) would be Dick Cheney’s position. The ones in the middle would have just done a switch, finding arguments to support or criticize the war. In fact, I remember that people in the Clinton administration spoke of an inevitable confrontation coming with Saddam. They dropped this idea only because it was a Republican president. That is simply disgraceful. It is likewise disgraceful how many Republicans ran as isolationists against [former Vice-President] Al Gore in the 2000 elections. The only people who come out of this whole affair well are an odd fusion of the old left – the small pro regime change left – and some of the people known as neoconservatives who have a commitment to liberal democracy. Many of the neocons have Marxist backgrounds and believe in ideas and principles and have worked with both parties in power.
Q – In your book, Why Orwell Matters, you noted that Orwell once refused an invitation to speak at the League of European Freedom on the question of Yugoslavian freedom – a cause he believed in. He refused to speak because he felt that the organization failed to condemn British imperialism in India and Burma. He saw that as a fatal flaw. Do the neoconservatives have a fatal flaw: on the one hand supporting Middle East democracy, on the other refusing to condemn Israeli policies that stifle Palestinian freedom aspirations?
A – Orwell said, at the time, that he would not speak for any organization that was opposed to tyranny that did not demand British withdrawal from India and Burma. He also noted that the liberation of Europe did not include the liberation of Spain from the fascists or Portugal. He also noted that it had included the enslavement of Poland.
In the case of the Palestinians, it is generally true that United States political culture doesn’t care about the Palestinians. We are taught to think of them as an inconvenient people who are in the way of Israel and a regional settlement. They are people about whom something should be done or, more condescendingly, for whom something should be provided.
I've spent three decades writing about the Palestinians and publishing a book with Edward Said [leading Palestinian intellectual and critic of Israel] about it. All political factions in this country have been lousy on this issue, but none lousier than the Democratic party. The Democrat party truly is what some people crudely say: a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Israeli lobby. It is one thing it has never deviated on: that and abortion. The only two things the Democrats have never flip flopped about.
The neocons are honorably divided on Israel. Take Paul Wolfowitz, for example. He is very critical of settlements and the whole idea of Greater Israel. Whereas Richard Perle (a prominent neoconservative thinker) doesn’t regard the areas known as Judea and Samaria (the West bank) as occupied territory. He regards them as part of a future Israeli state. I'm looking forward to the neoconservative split on this getting wider.
Q - Some have said that only columnists and public intellectuals can afford principles, whereas politicians sometimes must succumb to realism. In your book, Why Orwell Matters, you admired Orwell because you said that he understood that that politics are fleeting but principles endure. In our day, can a politician rule by principle?
A - It depends on what the principle is. If the principle is that all men are equal or created equal, I don’t think its possible to observe that principle in practice. But if the principle is, say, something cruder such as: can we coexist with aggressive internationalist totalitarian ideologies, then I think you not only can but you should act consistently against that. Never mind the principles for one minute, but the lesson of realism is: that if you don’t fight them now you fight them later.
They [Islamist radicals or, as Hitchens calls them, Islamo-fascists] gave us no peace and we shouldn’t give them any. We can't live on the same planet as them and I'm glad because I don’t want to. I don’t want to breathe the same air as these psychopaths and murders and rapists and torturers and child abusers. Its them or me. I'm very happy about this because I know it will be them. It’s a duty and a responsibility to defeat them. But it's also a pleasure. I don’t regard it as a grim task at all.
The SS was not a collection of street toughs, or brawlers like the SA. It was an elite group dedicated to Hitler while the SA were socialistic ex-soldiers devoted to Ernst Rohm. When it came time to deal with Rohm and the SA the SS were the ones who pulled the triggers.
The SS was modeled on the Jesuits in terms of organization and indoctrination. It is interesting that Hitler never wore the black shirt but always the brown uniform of the SA even after the Night of the Long Knives.
Wow, what a great experience that was! Some guys have all the luck.
Hitchens has the islamofascist terrorists down pat ~ Bump!
Hitchens is probably used to thinking of leftists as hard-thinking, soft-talking democratic socialists in cuddly sweaters with leather elbow-patches, thick wire-rimmed glasses and Birkenstocks.
He's right that the hard left came out against the war in Afghanistan. In my home town, a university professor who's a superannuated Mobe/SDS type and some of his little Leninist playmates had a street demonstration all ready to go with "stop-the-war" chants and signs that looked like they'd been in a closet since 1969. They started their demonstrations as soon as the bombs began to fall in Afghanistan.
Second point: Hitchens needs to recognize that his little socialist friends in Vietnam didn't go anywhere beyond Phnom Penh (to overthrow the Chinese-backed sweethearts of the Khmer Rouge, the rabid bats of the Leftist world) because our Vietnam veterans had eviscerated them. We killed a million of their cadres on the battlefield and in their trenches before Khe Sanh. We slaughtered their tank columns when the NVA divisions finally came out to fight classic Soviet blitzkrieg warfare in 1972. We gutted the Viet Cong's best units in 1968, during Tet, turning them into a shadow-puppet sideshow. We flat-ass ruined them, north and south. And Bangkok, Singapore, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur are all non-Communist because of what our veterans did in Vietnam. We lost three countries, but we guaranteed that six more would never be f____ with. It's why Malaysia's flag looks like ours -- it ain't red, Fred.
Hitchens makes an interesting point that I've seen elsewhere, that the neo-cons are ex-Trotskyites and to a large extent neo-Marxist. In the Middle East, their agenda happens to run parallel to that of National Greatness Republicanism, which is the Bush-McCain brand, and opposed to the paleocons' adhesion to George Washington's advice on foreign policy. Washington was a Federalist, and McKinley and Roosevelt (Teddy) were heirs to the Federalist legacy as Republicans; but they'd also realized that coal-burning warships could put strong forces on our coasts in a week's sailing from European ports, and had changed from Washington's policy of non-involvement to the Mahan Doctrine of forward engagement.
Or as Hitchens puts it, you can fight them now, or you can fight them later -- when they come to see you. Forward engagement, which is a non-Marxist, non-Leftist doctrine, says the same thing: if there are going to be unpleasantries, engage the enemy far out to sea, with the Navy as your long arm and the Marine Corps as your power-projection arm, your mailed fist. Engage the enemy as Grenville did at Seville, before the Armada was ready for sea. Engage the enemy before he is ready to engage. That doctrine has been fundamental U.S. military and foreign policy since World War II.
Hitchens is certainly smart enough to realize that the American left's greed-induced hatred of capitalism and its self-loathing guilt at being American are the factors that trump everything else. In any event, Hitchens certainly does not fit that mold, not at all. One thing Hitchens is NOT is a humorless malcontent.
By the way: Engage the enemy before he is ready to engage. That doctrine has been fundamental U.S. military and foreign policy since World War II.
So then I take it that you disagree with Bill Mahr who said, "When the terrorists actually nuke New York City, then we should go after them militarily."
What you say about the SA and SS is true -- I didn't know about the Jesuit influence -- but the doctrine was nothing the Jesuits would sign off on. Himmler was an odd duck, and although he insisted that all SS men be "gottglaeubig", vis, "believers in God," it was actually up in the air what god he was talking about. The spooky midnight solemnities at the tomb of Friedrich Barbarossa, the SS-Ahnenerben mumbo-jumbo about Bronze Age Aryans mixed in with medieval chivalry -- men in 13th-century armor decorated with Indo-Aryan swastikas -- made it more than a little doubtful whether he was talking about the God of Abraham.
In practice, Nazism was hostile to real Christianity, even as it battened on Christian virtues and civilization, and if you ever visited europa.com, a neo-Nazi site, you'd see that expressions of waspish hostility toward Christian symbols are common.
save
As Hitchens makes clear whenever anyone does it on air, he hates -- really hates -- being addressed as "Chris".
A very informative post. Thanks...
Well, Phil Hendrie put it very much like Christopher Hitchens. The left claims they are against fascists, dicatators, religious zealots, bigots, and sexists. So here you have Islamo-fascists meeting every criteria and the left is sitting in a cafe, hating America.
Honest people will disagree, but the mot that William F. Buckley likes to quote (wish I could remember who said it) is worth remembering, that "the problem with capitalism is capitalists, but the problem with socialism is socialism." Hitchens seems to understand that, without giving up the point that (as recent trials have shown) the problem with capitalism is capitalists -- a point made about 250 years ago by Adam Smith.
With capitalism, you always need plenty of honest policemen. Of course, the capitalists you are trying to police (like Leona Helmsley with her famous saying: "Paying taxes is for little people!") will try to buy off the police, so you have to be really cool, really tough, and really alert to the sound of bribes hitting a desk somewhere. About eight years ago, Bo Pilgrim, the chicken tycoon, was videotaped from the gallery strolling around the floor of the Texas senate while it was in session, handing out envelopes with serious money in them, as a "thank-you" to helpful senators who'd just voted him a piece of custom-fit legislation. When the video hit the 10 O'Clock News, the embarrassed senators gave the envelopes back -- but Pilgrim never went to prison or even, so far as I know, had to answer any awkward questions.
Business isn't inherently moral; the values of the marketplace are pre-Judaeo-Christian and are often in conflict with society's ideas about civic conduct. Corporate governance, monopoly, oligopoly and oligopsony, tax evasion, and the drive to dominate competitors, suppliers, employees, and customers will always be a problem with private businesses -- a problem that grows exponentially with the size of the enterprises being policed and their ability to evade, forestall, compromise, and defeat the watchdog agencies charged with their oversight.
Bono may be honest, however he is an idiot imo.
If someone declares you his sworn blood-enemy, it isn't necessarily incumbent on you to pay him a visit until he starts messing with you, which I think has been our rule. But when he does, the gloves should come off right away. The idea that declaring you to be anyone's sworn blood enemy should become an unpopular idea.
Thanks.
Pretty telling, isn't it?
And, of course, the brazen shakedown of private businesses by politicians becomes a problem that grows exponentially with the size of government.
By the way, re: your story about Bo Pilgrim. Years ago I remember listening to a radio interview with Gore Vidal who said that his father was a bagman for LBJ - - said he routinely delivered brown paper bags full of cash right to the the man's desk.
bump!
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