Hitchens, Haditha, and My Lai

Real Clear Politics ^ | June 14, 2006 | Paul McNellis

[DJ Taylor]

"To be classified an "enemy of the people" by the Viet Cong or an "infidel" by Al Qaeda yields similar results: your humanity is denied, and your life becomes expendable as you become a mere means to someone else's ends."

[Candor7]

Soon there must be a high profile law suit for libel or slander to straighten the media out. These POSs need a few million bucks in civil damages for misreprting and ruining military careers with thier foolishness. Hitting a liberal newspaper in the pocketbook really makes them sit up and notice, screaming big time. Maybe the award would be big enough to drive one of them out of business.

Its past time for that to happen. I would contribute heavily to the litigation fund of any soldier who has a good case and wants to take them on.

[Jameison]

"But Hitchens' claims notwithstanding, there are some parallels between Vietnam and Iraq"

That's like saying there's some parallels between every war on the planet, after all in every war, you try to kill as many of the enemy as you can.
This guy is clutching at straws.
Hitchens is right

[johnny7]

If not challenged... history will always be re-written. Hitchens was... and still is... a liberal. He is simply continuing to do what countless other liberals have done since we abandoned South Vietnam.

[grey_whiskers]

Thunderous applause!

[Mrs. Don-o]

At least Hitch recognizes that the forces of Islamic Jihad are aggressive, serious, murderous, and need to be suppressed by force. An insight that hasn't occurred to too many liberals.

[Steel Wolf]

Hitchens is admirable in his clear view of the threat of Muslim extremism, but as far as Vietnam goes, forget it. His opinions on that matter are forever ingrained, and he'll be defending the nobility of the Viet Cong until his dying day.

As the saying goes, "You can't reason a man out of a position he wasn't reasoned in to". Let's just be happy that he's on board with today's threat.

[Thombo2]

High profile lawsuit for libel or slander?It would be satisfying,but "journalists" hide behind free speech.I'm not a lawyer,but i believe you have to show malicious intent in order to collect damages.The only way to put these folks out of business is to show the American people that the vast majority of the msm are anti-US and anti-democracy.I'd go even further and say they're marxists as well,but how do you prove it?

[nuconvert]

I'd like to read a Hitchens reply to this

[Candor7]

you have to show malicious intent in order to collect damages

That is true, but what I have seen actually is malicious intent.

Why else would the media brand these soldiers as rank killers and name several of them, without any facts.

The MSM drive by media is maliciously against the war and they need to pay for the attempted ruination of several military careers. What they have done here is far beyoond fair comment and the license of free speech.

[shalom aleichem]

You only need to prove malicious intent when the target of defamation was a "public figure". There hapless Jarheads sitting in a brig were not and are not public figures, but the media has ruined them. Actual harm caused by reports made with reckless disregard of the truth or falsity of claims.

[Nonstatist]

The basic difference is scale; the North Vietnamese maintained a functioning gov't over more than half the "country" (of Vietnam) and were supplied heartily by the Chinese. We couldnt bomb Hanoi or mine their harbors.

Al Qaeda might "rule" a couple towns, and then they might not. .It truly is apples and oranges, but for other reasons than Hitchens suggests

[Thombo2]

Thanks for clarifying for me.Maybe a suit would be successful?This is(sort of)off topic,but didn't the security guard(wrongly)identified as the bomber in Atlanta a few years back win some $$$ in court?

[laconic]

Hitchens is an unreconstructed Trotskyite and has never been a conservative. He's also a two-faced hypocrite which the author very deftly points out. The left can have him.

[cardinal4]

I agree. But for a liberal, Hitchens does come down on the right side from time to time. A stopped clock and all that..

[shalom aleichem]

Right. That was Richard Jewell. Also, When Ho Lee of the Los Alamos secret labs also brought a successful claim against media (and government leakers).
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2006/06/wen-ho-lee-case-settles-on-june-2.html

[Jameison]

"Hitchens is an unreconstructed Trotskyite and has never been a conservative. "

Is Hitchens a conservative?
Nope.
But he's one of the strongest and most erudite supporters of the WOT I know.
And Hitchens is right. There is simply no way Iraq is Vietnam

[denydenydeny]

Hitchens has a point, though, that the Left debases itself when they identify the terrorist cause as some sort of "legitimate people's struggle." It's exactly the opposite.

[MHGinTN]

This time around he is opposed to the forces of oppression, and that's why he's more interesting to read than they are. Hitchens is human, and it is human nature to remember the past live, from the perspective of what you wanted rather than what was reality. Hitchens' view of this conflict in Iraq id clored most by his fondness for the amazing Kurds in the North. To twist a Rushism, 'He's not always right, but he's never wrong' in his own mind.

[johnny7]

He should'a left out the revisionist history.