Love, Poverty and War

My favourite contrarian, Christopher Hitchens, was on the radio this morning talking about his latest book Love, Poverty and War. Although Hitchens can be infuriating to listen to when you disagree with his usually contrarian views, he does make you think. Indeed most of the infuriation comes when you find yourself gently lulled into agreeing with him. At that point you jerk out of it with an angry and indignant start.

Hitchens' is still very much in support of the war - he rarely if ever changes his opinion on things like that. He was criticising "Fahrenheit 9/11", Michael Moore, and of course the liberal left for not supporting the war.

I emailed him a question hoping to draw him out on why he thought it was okay to pursue non-military means to bring down the North Korean regime, but not in Iraq. The question didn't get asked but I suppose his answer would be to repeat his comment that repeated military simulations of an attack on North Korea had predicted an attack on Seoul by North Korean artilery that is located within shelling range, just across the DMZ. But that wasn't my point - he had suggested non-military actions in north Korea to work and would hasten the fall of Kim's regime, so why didn't we just do that to Iraq which by all accounts was just as likely to teeter out of existance in a few years if we'd just stopped boosting Saddam's power by concentrating all our rage on him.

I also wanted Hitchens to say what he thought about what he described as Americas "imperial" aspirations in Iraq. Was that a good thing? Wasn't it more of the same of the awful things we've done elsewhere, especially in South America. My interpretation of Hitchens views is that he believes Iraq is finally a righteous war that the world should have gotten behind. A little late (about ten years), but righteous none-the-less. But if it was really done with the intent of building a democracy in Iraq why didn't Bush say that all along, and why isn't Bush charging ahead full steam against all non-democracies in the world - for instance Saudia Arabia? Why the special and expidited treated for Iraq?

Basically I'd just like to hear Hitchens focus his laser like perception and criticism in some other direction and perhaps come out with something, anything, negative about Bush and his motives for backing of war on Iraq. So far Hitchens seems to be keeping mum on that point - I haven't even heard any criticism of Bush's non-war policies but it could be that I haven't been looking or listening hard enough. Surely Hitchens doesn't think the Bush regime, so representative of its NeoCon backers, is entirely wholesome and wonderful for the world? Or is Hitchens deliberately keeping mum on that point so he can be welcomed deep into the Bush confidence only to later do a contrarian exposee of it?

The only glimmer of hope for something positively negative about Bush was the comment that Richard Perle (who was on the same radio show the day before) wasn't a person that Hitchens would want to spend any time with. Clearly he had some negative feelings or thoughts on Perle, one of the leaders of the NeoCon klan that is pulling the Bush puppet strings. It would be nice to hear some more of his thoughts but unfortunately this wasn't the show to get that opportunity.