Comments on: An option Hitchens doesn’t consider

By: peggy

peggy — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:34:47 +0000

Frank Sneep in “A Decent Interval” described how we walked, actually helicoptered, away from the Vietnamese who were fatally compromised as CIA agents.
Why should we behave better towards Iraquis?
Maybe churches can try and wrangel visas for Christians, who are being killed by both Sunnis and Shiites.
As Hitchens says we have a moral obligation to the Kurds-perhaps some underpopulated Western state might want some sheepherders.

By: john m.

john m. — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 15:17:40 +0000

“It is not a responsibility from which we can walk away when, or if, it seems to suit us.”

The problem for Hitchens (and all the others who supported this act of total lunacy) is summed up by this sentence because he is, once again, precisely wrong – walking away is both something they not can, but will do now that it is a political imperative because (and I’m going to shout now) THEY DON’T FUCKING CARE AND THEY NEVER DID.

By: Penelope

Penelope — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 12:58:27 +0000

“…resettle Israelis in the USA.”

Didn’t Ahmadinejad make a suggestion like this? Except I think it was in Europe, not the USA.

By: Scroop Moth

Scroop Moth — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 05:19:01 +0000

A better idea would be to resettle Israelis in the USA. paid for by Iran and Saudi Arabia.

By: Ragout

Ragout — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 23:44:38 +0000

Chris Bertram, a Brit who has apparently never been to Orange County or Northern Virginia, writes,

“No doubt those states where the war was most enthusiastically supported would be the first to make generous offers to the Arab would-be immigrants.”

It seems that this is intended as sarcasm. But given recent US history I have no doubt at all that we’ll let in lots of Iraqi refugees after we pull out.

As other have noted, we let in several hundred thousand of our Hmong allies from Laos after the Vietnam War, as well as about 1 million Vietnamese.

By: Jim S.

Jim S. — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 21:38:46 +0000

Sorry if I sound obtuse, but how is endorsing a 1968 coup the same as intervention? And therefore is America’s responsibility all that great? It is considerable, but can be (and often is) exaggerated.

By: roger

roger — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 18:20:49 +0000

Damn. “Jonathan Schwarz.”

By: roger

roger — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 18:18:52 +0000

Jonathan Schwart quotes a story from an American soldier in Iraq about what the Pentagon is teaching the soldiers over there in group sessions about why we fight:

“Along with the whole question of mixing faith and politics, we’re also dealing with a schismatic religion and people who loathe one another. A Sunni won’t even use a toilet after a Shiite has. Now we want them to work together to create a new system of law? Then you throw in the Kurds, who are mainly Christian, of an entirely different culture, and whose claim to fame is that their mere existence is the one thing that brings the Sunnis and Shiites together. The Muslims and Kurds hate each other with a bloodthirsty passion most of us cannot even conceive.”

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/
archives/001180.html

Alas, I suspect more than a few right wing war supporters actually think that the Kurds are Christian. The name sounds Christian, no? It would be a real shock to this group if Kurds actually did come to the U.S. Hey, guys, what’s with the Koran?

By: bob mcmanus

bob mcmanus — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 17:57:12 +0000

I am, reading the daily news from Iraq, not finding this particular subject all that funny.
Sue me.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 17:36:50 +0000

Excellent idea; And back when England screwed over the residents of Hong Kong, I though we were fools not to offer them refuge en mass.

By: KH

KH — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 16:00:08 +0000

Equally to the point, what is to become, in the event of no withdrawal, of the many Arab & Kurdish Iraqis who do want to live in a secular & democratic & federal country? Hitchens implies that the US has the luxury of choosing between withdrawal & (at least some reasonable possibility of) a secular & democratic & federal Iraq. It doesn’t. Even if the US were to stay as long as he prefers, is there evidence it would be better able to forestall the bad outcome he wants to pin on withdrawal?

By: harry b

harry b — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 15:45:31 +0000

This is exactly what happened to the Hmong, as Kid Bitzer says. Relative numbers? I don’t know. But, there is a precedent.

By: Ray

Ray — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 15:39:39 +0000

Franck, you miss the point. Hitchens argues that since the US meddled in Iraq, it now owes the Kurds the chance “to live in a secular and democratic and federal country”. Chris is pointing out a simple way of living up to the responsibilities Hitchens has identified, not pointing out a general solution to ethnic cleansing.

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:56:06 +0000

Maybe they can build them an apartment block near Euston station.

By: franck

franck — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:50:33 +0000

I await with interest your proposal for resettling 8-10 million Iraqis in the US and UK. I find this proposal hilarious, considering the UK wouldn’t even take its previous subjects from Hong Kong in.