Our Friends in Bombay - We must stand by our most important ally - Hitchens

Slate ^ | 1 Dec 2008 | Christopher Hitchens

[angkor]

I hope I am not alone in finding the statements about Bombay from our politicians to be anemic and insipid, and the media coverage of the disastrous and criminal attack too parochially focused on the fate of visiting or resident Americans.

[snip]

Not to romanticize it overmuch, it is a huge and officially secular federal democracy that is based, like the United States, on ethnic and confessional pluralism. Its political and economic and literary echelons speak English better than most of us do.

[snip]

It would be good to hear from the president and the president-elect that we regard attacks on the fabric and society of India with very particular seriousness, as assaults on a close friend that was battling al-Qaida long before we were.

[snip]

An impressive thing about India is the way in which it has almost as many Muslim citizens, who live with greater prospects of peace and prosperity, as does Pakistan. This comity and integration is one of the many targets of the suicide killers, and it is another reason why firm, warm solidarity with India is the most pressing need of the present hour.

[jwalsh07]

Screw Hitchens, he's a coward socialist who votes for socialists. You can get the measure of the man by reading the same swill he wrote about Iraq and then he went and voted for OBama who would have turned Iraq over to the deadenders and jihadists 3 years ago.

He's a slovenly drunk and that's the likable part of him..

[Zevonismymuse]

Yo! Hitch! You backed ‘Zero’bama

Well, Hitchens is a socialist. Just because he agrees with some of the WOT stuff and is willing to criticize people on the left we should not assume he is a proud member of the GOP.

Hitchens is smart and generally a person whose only allegiance is to himself and his reputation as a fearless commentator. I don't want to only read people who feed my confirmation bias. I love Hitchens and Paglia because both are original thinkers. I think Hitchens makes some solid points re; India and Pakistan and this essay provides some excellent insight from a man who knows a bit about both countries.

[cricket]

Amanpour is the worst. . .that said. .

I love English accents. And why pick on Kissinger; when Ahhnold cannot pronounce - 'by our ear' - the State he is Governor of; or his own name for that matter?

Most accents are charming; some are tiresome if too heavy. But hey; they are at least speaking a 'second' if not third or fourth. . .language.

Meantime; am amazed at what we do; without an 'accent'. For instance. . .what we hear when words like nuclear and alzheimers are articulated. . .and there are plenty more. . .

[cricket]

Amanpour is the worst. . .that said. .

I love English accents. And why pick on Kissinger; when Ahhnold cannot pronounce - 'by our ear' - the State he is Governor of; or his own name for that matter?

Most accents are charming; some are tiresome if too heavy. But hey; they are at least speaking a 'second' if not third or fourth. . .language.

Meantime; am amazed at what we do; without an 'accent'. For instance. . .what we hear when words like nuclear and alzheimers are articulated. . .and there are plenty more. . .