So Long, Fellow Travelers (Hitchens history lesson in the Sunday Washington Post)

Washington Post ^ | 10-19-2002 | Christopher Hitchens

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Is That All That's Left?
So Long, Fellow Travelers
 

 

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By Christopher Hitchens
Sunday, October 20, 2002; Page B01

George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as "evil." Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the "lesser evil."

This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, "lesser evil" is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright's veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism -- the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it -- is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than "cowboy" language.

Actually..

 

link > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50657  2002Oct19.html

[AZLiberty]

To Democrats (and other socialists), defeating Republicans is far more important than defeating real enemies. If losing a war helps put Democrats in power, then that's what they'll work for.

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

I found these two paragraphs to be especially good:

But the element of bad faith in the argument is far worse than the feeble-minded hysteria of its logic. In the Balkans, those on the Left and Right who favored intervention could not live with the idea that Europe would permit the extermination of its oldest Muslim minority. At that point, the sensibilities of Islam did not seem to matter to the Ramsey Clarks and Noam Chomskys, who thought and wrote of national-socialist and Orthodox Serbia as if it were mounting a gallant resistance to globalization. (Saddam, of course, took Milosevic's side even though the Serb leader was destroying mosques and murdering Muslims.)

Now, however, the same people are all frenzied about an American-led "attack on the Muslim world." Are the Kurds not Muslims? Is the new Afghan government not Muslim? Will not the next Iraqi government be Muslim also? This meaningless demagogy among the peaceniks can only be explained by a masochistic refusal to admit that our own civil society has any merit, or by a nostalgia for Stalinism that I can sometimes actually taste as well as smell.

[vbmoneyspender]

There is, of course, a soggier periphery of more generally pacifist types, whose preferred method of argument about regime change is subject change.

I liked this line.

[quebecois]

"..defeating Republicans is far more important than defeating real enemies"

Very true. The underlying reason for this is simple: the leftist elites desire to transform america into a socialist welfare state. This transformation will put them in control of every aspect of our society (the desire for total power to shape our nation along the lines of their "utopian" philosophy.....and the accompanying adulation and perks that they will accumulate along the way, is at the very center of the liberal psyche).

The muslims do not represent a realistic danger to this program. In fact, this war may allow the liberal elites to accumulate even more power and to degrade our constitution.

The conservatives, on the other hand, do represent a fundamental danger to this central goal of liberalism. The masses of "redneck white conservatives" could, if sufficiently unified and motivated, destroy liberalism in america (at least until a few more decades of immigration transforms america beyond the point of return).

Thus, while the liberals' desire to defeat Osama may be sincere.....defeating the much more dangerous enemy represented by the conservative white middle class is a much more urgent pursuit.

[SolitaryMan]

Saw Christopher Hitchens on FNC with Tony Snow this rainy afternoon. Great interview. Anyone have a link to the story of why he quit The Nation?

[KC Burke]

Great read>

[Trailer Trash]

I watched it also, and then did a quick search on news.google.com to see what was out there.

Tony said it was going to be in the Sunday edition, but here it is online now.

This new google news engine REALLY cooks!

[JennysCool]

BIG Hitchens bump! Thanks for posting!

[justshutupandtakeit]

I see no evidence that "white, redneck conservatives" can be depended upon for much but race-baiting. They have put Southern democrats into power for a century and I see little chance that will change. The class warfare card works too well with that group.

In fact, Hitchins refers to one of their own, Jimmy Carter, encouraging Saddam to go to war against Iran which is now blamed on Reagan.

[m1911]

Good article. Glad Hitchens has (at least partly) seen the light.

[Cicero]

Nice article. It really is a mystery how leftists can feel comfortable in bed with a bunch of fantically religious, woman-hating, homophobic, backward-looking Islamic thugs.

"But there were three ruling parties in the world that greeted the liberation of Eastern Europe with unreserved gloom. These were the Socialist Party of Serbia, the Ba'ath Party of Iraq and the Workers' Party of North Korea, guided by their lugubrious yet megalomaniacal leaders."

I would add Fidel, who lost his invaluable oil-for-sugar pact with the Soviet Union and now has to pay market rates for imports. I suppose Hitchens left Castro off the list because he knows how much American leftists all love him.

[Chi-townChief]

So Hitchens still appears to be a liberal but seems to have overcome the liberal mentality - interesting!

[fatguy]

Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism -- the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it -- is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than "cowboy" language.

Years ago I heard Hitchens say abortion was evil, but that he wasn't willing to support the politicians who were ready to fight against it.

[fatguy]

Christopher Hitchens is likely to turn around and bite the conservatives who are now cheering him on.

He was, afterall, the one who wrote "The Missionary Position", a book in which he claimed that Mother Theresa was a fraud.

[Neophyte]

Leftist prostitutes (of whom Mr Christopher Hitchens is an excellent example) retain all their slutish features even when pretending to be redeemed.

His article is full of namby-pamby commonplaces, lacks any real moral standing and is actually a part of inter-Left scirmishes.

Rubbish!

[I'mAllRightJack]

The closing paragraph is most interesting and well said:

Sooner or later, one way or another, the Iraqi and Kurdish peoples will be free of Saddam Hussein. When that day comes, I am booked to have a reunion in Baghdad with several old comrades who have been through hell. We shall not be inviting anyone who spent this precious time urging democratic countries to give Saddam another chance.</>

[Fintan]

In this moral universe, the figure of Jimmy Carter -- who incited Saddam to attack Iran in 1980, without any U.N. or congressional consultation that I can remember -- is considered axiomatically more statesmanlike than Bush.

I can't help but wonder how many sniveling, limp-wristed, pseudo-intellectual Marxists in the media would even know this let alone acknowledge it.

[kristinn]

TT, thanks for posting this essay by Mr. Hitchens. Some of you may remember when he stood with FR at the Treason is the Reason rally in 1999.

Mr. Hitchens is dead on with his criticisms of the left here. I hope a side benefit of our actions vis a vis Iraq is the meeting with his old friends he yearns for.

[Fenris6]

To Democrats (and other socialists), defeating Republicans is far more important than defeating real enemies.

Exactly. Socialist Demo-rats would rather destroy the country than have the Republicans in control.