Ya Bass

Another good piece by Hitchens in the Slate today

To be against war and militarism, in the tradition of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, is one thing. But to have a record of consistent support for war and militarism, from the Red Army in Eastern Europe to the Serbian ethnic cleansers and the Taliban, is quite another. It is really a disgrace that the liberal press refers to such enemies of liberalism as "antiwar" when in reality they are straight-out pro-war, but on the other side. Was there a single placard saying, "No to Jihad"? Of course not. Or a single placard saying, "Yes to Kurdish self-determination" or "We support Afghan women's struggle"? Don't make me laugh.

Gene at Harry's Place posts an interesting piece by Bernard-Henri Lévy about his journey through the United States in 2004 when he accompanied Hitchens in his pursuit of Kissenger:

It always takes a kind of courage to run the risk of disappointing or alienating your own followers; and in this case it takes courage to stand firm on both fronts—to stand in front of these 150 leftists for whom Hitchens used to be a hero, and who ask nothing more than to go on celebrating him as one, and tell them, "I am and I am not one of you. There is Hitchens No. 1, who is responsible for this film, and who, ten years later, wouldn't take one word or shot away from it. But there is Hitchens No. 2, who continues the fight without you, by supporting the war in Iraq

Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway meet again on Bill Maher's "Real Time", Friday 23rd September, 11pm ET.

Will be interesting to watch if only to see if Galloway has signed the affidavit he promised to during the first debate.

From the Daily Telegraph earlier in the week:Galloway is a hot, blustering bully - but I'm staying on his case until the very end'

It says something quite damning about the Guardian if a spoof article contains one of the more sensible comments to have made it's pages in recent months.

And if you were a senior voice on the left, you were in favour of defeating a fascistic dictatorship, not on the side of the murderous, leering tyrant and his slobbering death squads. If there's one thing I've learned in the past three years, it's this: the left hasn't just lost its way in this country, it's now so bereft of any sense of direction that it's gone blundering off after George Galloway, down the corpse-stinking ditch that ends in tyranny.

Speaking of Galloway, Republican Agent Provocateur.

The Honorable Member of Britain's House of Commons has become the new love-child of American progressives for his in-your-face accusations about our own government's mendacity in sending our troops to war in Iraq....But the man who saluted the "courage" of Saddam Hussein in 1994, who today can't and won't account for nearly a million dollars in income and expenditures for a charity he founded to buy medicine for Iraqi children is not, friends, the best choice as our anti-war spokesman.
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Where did this guy come from? Who invited him here? The answer: US Senate REPUBLICANS. As Cindy Sheehan was gathering public sympathy as the Gold Star mom against the killing in Iraq, the Republican party decided to import an easier target to pummel. So they brought over the "I-salute-your-courage, Saddam" religious fundamentalist crack-pot who can't tell us where the money went.

It's late and perhaps tomorrow morning i'm going to regret staying up to watch the Christopher Hitchens v George Galloway debate, but here are a few brief thoughts.

First of all i'll be open about my bias from the outset: As corrupt, sexist anti-semites who lick the boots of fascists go I tend to dislike Galloway more than most (I guess it's because he was my constituency MP for a time and i've got first hand experience of the man and his ways.) As for the debate - I don't think Galloway addressed a single point that Hitchens made all night instead prefering to wildly distort what Hitchens had said previously. For example: according to Galloway because Hitch supports the cause of Saad Eddin Ibrahim (a JAILED democratic activist in Egypt imprisoned for the crime of monitoring elections) that means he supports the regime that stuck the poor guy in jail! Then there was the apologia for fascist terror in Iraq and elsewhere - there can now be NO doubt (as if they ever was) what side of the fence Galloway sits on this subject - it was nauseating. There were of course some members of the audience who bayed and whooped like a bunch of drunken frat boys at a pantomine whenever Galloway made any points and who in turn kept trying to interupt Hitchens while he was speaking, but thankfully that didn't spoil the dismantling of the corrupt Dundonian Ba'athist. In the words of a semi unreconstructed Glaswegian (and proud of it): Hitch tore Gorgeous George a new arsehole tonight - so much so the shitebag wanted the debate to end earlier than planned because it was "running out of steam".
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Some background reading to debate:
George Galloway is Gruesome, not Gorgeous

Whats Left?

From an article by John Dos Passos in Life magazine 7th January 1946.

Sample quotes:

Europeans. Friend and foe alike, look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they are disappointed in you as an American. They cite the evolution of the word "liberation." Before the Normandy landings it meant to be freed from the tyranny of the Nazis. Now it stands in the minds of the civilians for one thing, looting.
. . .Never has American prestige in Europe been lower. People never tire of telling you of the ignorance and rowdy-ism of American troops, of out misunderstanding of European conditions.
. . .We have swept away Hitlerism, but a great many Europeans feel that the cure has been worse than the disease.

I'm sure I read this on another blog a couple of days ago and I was intending to just post the link to it - however on quickly looking through my .rss reader I cannot find the relevant page. So apologies for pinching your find, i'll edit this message to include a link if needs be.