Always an interesting topic. Basically, he’s a polemicist, a stylist, whose knowledge is a mile wide, an inch deep. I guarantee if you read an article on a topic he writes on which you happen to know a lot about personally, you’ll see he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about half the time. I found this in his discussions of Jefferson.

Basically, I find him to be an incoherent thinker who lacks a moral center. He only writes against, never advocates in favor. His militant – violent – anti-religiousity is disturbing, and perhaps a reason why his writing seems so decentered and incoherent. Because at the end of the day, he doesn’t offer a coherent worldview for which he advocates: only a series of targets for which to attack. What, after all, does Hitchens believe in, now he’s no longer a committed leftist/socialist?

In some ways, I find his support for Bush and the Iraq War almost comical. His complete inability to understand the relevance of any knowledge or context outside his almost messianic belief in himself as a defender of some kind of dessicated spirit of “principled leftism.” The guy might write well, but he sure doesn’t seem to read much. Once again, Hitch has backed the wrong horse.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=drink-soaked&btnG=Google+Search

File Hitchens under – “Court Jester”

Hitchens says ‘“Presumably, those who criticize Karimov’s internal conduct are not asking that we repudiate such help (or are they?).””

Of the two readings you suggest, only the first is tenable.

Not even for argument’s sake will I accept the premise that the Bush administration’s motivating concern has ever been humanitarian in any of its major military actions.

Should improvements in human welfare surface, grow and be maintained, such successes will still only be byproducts of largely (as measured by the stated objectives at the outset of the wars) failed incursions as measured—no WMDs and now there’s an al-Qaeda branch where none formerly existed; a narcostate and bin Laden still on the run.

The Bush administration set its own objectives at the beginning of these conflicts. Had they desired easier missions to accomplish, they should have dealt with Sudan. Don’t blame me for holding them to their own criteria.

1) Maybe there’s a middle road. Maybe we can keep our bases in Uzbekistan and financially punish the Uzbeki leadership. In general, though I’m not familiar with the specifics of the status of forces agreement between the U.S. and Uzbeki governments, American military installations overseas give priority in employment to host-country nationals. While the U.S. military isn’t a branch of the State Department or a contingent of Peace Corps volunteers, it can serve a very useful public relations role with the Uzbeki people. Employment on American installations provides Uzbeki citizens with regular contact with Americans and (likely) better pay than the local economy.At the same time, all American aid to the Uzbeki government (and most especially its military and security programs) should be halted, save for humanitarian and other aid distinctly for the Uzbeki people. (This means ending all joint training programs between Uzbeki and American forces as well.)

By taking a more nuanced view (and using U.S. military overseas hiring policy to one’s advantage), it almost seems like one gets to punish the leadership while continuing to build pro-American sentiment among the citizenry and, hopefully, solidifying a middle class that can ultimately take control of the country on their own (to some degree).

2) Military strategy toward China. I don’t think our East Asian bases can be viewed solely through the lens of current Middle Eastern-centered “war on terrorism” strategizing. Personally, I see American bases slowly hopscotching their way through the Middle East and getting closer to the China.

No no no no no no no. I don’t think ANYBODY is perfect, there is no such thing as a perfect government, and I certainly don’t expect perfection from a US President. My argument was rather different. The ‘anti-fascist left’ (ahem) have to argue, HAVE to argue that neoconservativism is a radical BREAK from Kissingerean realpolitik. If this is not the case, their argument breaks down entirely. Hence the reason, as i pointed out, that they consistently lie and argue that Kissinger opposed the Iraqi invasion (to reiterate, he SUPPORTED it, as is easily demonstrated in, oh, about 30 seconds by a quick websearch).

However, to repeat, if it were true that Bush was genuine about democracy we would see a number of things (listed in my post above) none of which have happened.

The only argument for the democratic credentials of Bush is the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. But here the point is quite simple. Do Bush and Blair intend to quit these countries? If so, when? And (as was quickly seen in the case of the Lebanon) given that a gigantic occupying power cannot help but sway the democratic process no matter how ‘good’ their intentions (again as was quickly seen in the case of Syria in Lebanon), then how does Bush square his commitment to democracy with the prospect of long term occupation?

The logical flaw is simply this: smuggling in your premises to your conclusions. The pro-war ‘left’ ASSUME that Bush’s intentions in Iraq and Afghanistan are good, and that they ‘intend to leave’ as soon as ‘the job’s done’. But that’s precisely the point: it is this intention to leave that is in fact the issue. If one rejects this assumption then the entire argument of the ‘antifascist left’ disintegrates, and they are no better than those who defended the Syrian impact on Lebanese politics on the grounds of Israeli aggression (or ‘aggression’ depending on your point of view).

The Left mostly opposed the Iraq war not out of reflexivw anti-Americanism but out of a judgement, partly due to the inherent weakness of the case for war and partly due to experience with Bush, that it would do much more harm than good. This judgement has proved correct.

If by Left you mean, say, Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali, then I agree that Hitchens had good reason to distance himself from them. But it’s possible to do that, and even to support the Iraq war, while recognising that Bush’s foreign policy is, like his domestic policy, based on rewarding friends and punishing enemies, and that Saddam just happened to be in the “enemy” category.

Uzbekistan provides a clear test case, and all Hitchens can do is ask for some rhetorical cover from Bush, while maintaining the alliance with Karimov.

Threw it away. I mean, double figures! Whoda thunk it?

First, I should say that I’m only the George who posted comment no. 17, and not any other George who has posted, which is why I’m now calling myself George XVII, to be clear.

What you say in comment no. 22 is fair enough, but the charge of double standards is often made not in the form of

“why regime change here & not (at least) carrots and sticks there?” but rather in the form

“why regime change here & not regime change there?”

when in fact those leveling the charge don’t want regime change anywhere, if Bush is the one making the change.

But even carrots and sticks—i.e., things short of regime change—can be demanded in bad faith. That’s not what I take you to be doing, but there are some who will criticize Bush whatever he does. Even when he does what they want, they will criticize him for the manner in which he does it. They have every right to do so, of course, but sometimes it is not concern for the greater good that motivates the criticism—it is just contempt for Bush, down to the way he ties his shoelaces.

Though Hitchens has written mainly on foreign policy, he’s written enough pieces here and there about his own position re. social conservatism (he’s, em, ***STRONGLY AGAINST IT***) to make his being called a “Bushie” sound odd to my ears.

If all that’s meant by “Bushie” is someone who voted for Bush, then fair enough. But that means that Democratic former mayor of New York Ed Koch—whose first ever vote for a Republican Presidential candidate was the vote he cast to re-elect George W. Bush (exclusively on security and foreign policy grounds), who urged voters to vote Democrat for Congress, and who is about as socially progressive as an American public figure can be—is a Bushie.

Back to Hitchens’ piece, though. I suppose he could have been more explicit in condemning what is going on in Uzbekistan. One interpretation about why he was less than fully explicit is that he is on some sort of path towards total sycophancy towards the Bush Administration. That’s your reading, I take it.

I give him much more credit than that, myself. I think he might have just lost his patience with the bad faith crowd, and thought to himself: “Let me be sarcastic and opaque. They see me as a traitor to the Left anyhow, so to heck with them.” If that is what he thought, then I can’t really blame him, though it would mean that on this instance, in this one recent Slate piece, he had not presented his best self.

Given that the Left has, er, on occasion, in recent memory, not presented its own best self, one might expect it to recognize a mild case of that flaw in an essay, and not to leap to thoughts about how this indicates that Hitchens is on some awful path.

I can’t speak for Hitchens, but I voted for Bush myself, so let me say, loudly and clearly:
THE ADMINISTRATION SHOULD USE (AND BE IN EARNEST WHEN IT USES) THE THREAT OF BASE CLOSURES AND OTHER MEASURES IN RESPONSE TO UZBEKI HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS.

Good?

Now that that’s dispatched, I won’t begin to tell you what I’d like the Left to say loudly and clearly. This comment is already a little long, and my expectations….my expectations are not what they once were.

Please. You may disagree with his opinions, but Hitchens is one of the better stylists around today. Not in Mark Steyn’s league, but who is?