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Freedom of speech was as important ten years ago than it is now and innocent people should not have to die for politicians to be reminded of that.
PS If you are an atheist, than obviously it is a fundamental issue. Either God exists or he doesn't. Either believers are deluded or they are not. There are no shades of grey with that issue and there is little point in beating around the bush. The word "fundamentalist" has a bad reputation due to religious fundamentalists who use violence to spread their views. Hitchens used his voice and the pen to promote his ideas. If he was fundamentally correct in his support of free speech, then yes, fundamentalist is a complement.
A fundamentalist, really? How many mosques did Hitchens burn or called to burn? Since he's as dangerous as those Islamist nutters... How many books he burned?
His comments are spot on imo.
Hitchens if I remember correctly was an enthusiastic supporter of Bush's 'War on Terror', which is argubaly one of the most catastrophic foreign policy catastrophies of modern time. Not only did it set back (understatement) Western interests in the Islamic world, it also led directly to the death of ten of thousands of people, and doubtless the destruction of more than the occassional mosque.
Just because the actors were Western states, it doesnt mean that the actions that Hitchens was advocating were any less murderous or insane than what the Charlie Hebdo murderers did. In case you are not aware, there are plenty of cases (some of which have led to criminal prosecutions but not all of which have even been condemned) of western troops raping, murdering and torturing their way across Iraq - a country that by pretty much any definition of modern war had not done anything to provoke the US's attack.
An unprovoked military attack that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people - sounds a lot like terrorism to me. 'Shock and awa' was basically explicitly deisgned to terrorise the Iraqi people. And Hitchens thought all of this was jolly good and clever, in order to defend his right and the right of others to publish some cartoons that had little satyrical intent and were primarily designed to offend Muslims.
That's what I mean by the danger of fundamentalism. Secular or religious fundamentalism - I don't think the supposed distinctions as the aetheists would like to imagine. Remember, far more people have been killed in the name of secular ideologies over the past 100 years than in the name of religion. And the same applies in the 'War on Terror'. The west has killed far more Muslims and than the Muslim world has killed westerners.
Having said this, to be entirely fair, I think you could argue that Bush and Blair's motivation in this case was actually religious - they believed they were doing god's work in taking on those pesky Muslims. It didn't matter they had nothing to do with 911.
Well, when a Muslim preacher teaches hate we seem to hold them responsible for the actions of those who embrace those teachings.
Hitchens was an advocate of stupid and murderous wars. Any one who advocates war and is ignorant of what that means is clearly an idiot - rape, murder, torture, the death of countless innocents - these are the hallmarks of pretty much every war throughout history. He may have thought his motivations were purer and more intellectually rigorous (sound familiar?), but I'd argue he was just a useful idiot for the American neo-cons. And yes, like all those in the west who supported the Iraq War, he bears moral responsibility for what has happened since.
We cannot call for Muslims to 'take a stand' against a few lone Islamist nut jobs, over whom it's practically impossible for them to have any influence, when we ourselves in the 'democratic' west have barely faced up to our own collective responsibility for the attrocities committed in our own names across the Arab and Muslim world. And in democracies like our own, we cannot say that we had no say, because we elected the idiots who wreaked this carnage.
And Hitchens was one of the most prominent and vocal advocates of the Iraq War and a generally violent response to the perceived threat from 'Islam'. A supposed left-winger who through his own intellectual lazyness and due to his ego and love of the media spotlight, had become a stooge of the warmongering oil and military-industrial complex interests.
The vast majority of the Muslim world does not go around getting offended or killing people.
You have to see us - 'the West' - from other people eyes. We invaded Iraq on absolutely no legitemate grounds at all and killed thousands of people. We locked up and tortured innocent people on an industrial scale. We literally trampled on the archaeological heritage of the cradle of human civilisation. Why would the Arab world see the west as anything other than murderous, hypocritical and barbaric.
Can't you see that the west's actions (not just recently, but over centuries) have given more than enough reason for lots of Muslims (and many other non-Muslims as well) to take pretty massive offense?
When we wage war, bomb, torture and murder, and then want to claim our 'right' to cause offense by publishing cartoons whose sole purpose is to rub Muslims' noses in the dirt, is it any wonder that people get pissed off?
The truly remarkable thing is actually the general moderation of the Muslim world in its attitudes and response to the west. Despite our own stupidity, most Muslims continue to give us the benefit of the doubt and believe that despite our deeply cynical military interventions and deeply ambiguous attitudes to democracy in the Arab world (why do we continue to prop up the evil Saudi royal family and its murdering, intollerant state) that we do actually mean what we say when we advocate human rights and democracy.
I'm not excusing the murder of the cartoonists. I'm pointing out that those murders were the acts of 3 fairly issolated nutters. Yet we demand that all Muslims take responsibility for the actions of 3 fanatics.
And yet when we invade a country that has done nothing to threaten us and kill thousands, we don't want to take responsibility ourselves. Where is the condemnation and repurcussions for those that waged an illegal war in Iraq?
When you're on the receiving end of a bullet you probably don't care if it's come from a jihadi's Kalashnikov or an American sniper's rifle - the effect is terror and an understandable rage.
Hitchens was an advocate of illegal wars that wreaked carnage and terror across large parts of the world. Did he not bear moral responsibility for that?
The Muslim hate preachers don't necessarily pull the trigger or plant the bomb themselves - they urge others to do it, with the justification being their own unique claim on 'truth'.
911 was basically the work of some lunatic Saudis, probably with Saudi financial backing. Yet Saudis are our 'allies' and so our response was to invade and kill lots of Iraqis. Our actions in the west have been irrational, cynical, and have led to the deaths of thousands of innocents. And yet Hitchens was absolutely convinced he was on the right side of the argument.
He also had an absolute, unshakeable belief that his world view and ideology was 100% true and infallable.
That makes him an extremely dangerous person in my opinion.
Word! =D>
I have been trying to say the same things myself on this thread, but wasn't able to do it as impeccably well as this!
Some quotes:
I can't understand some of these so called 'intellectuals'. If they're so smart, they should have owned up to their mistake in advocating for mass murder & terror in Iraq. That was a completely disgraceful episode and entirely unjustifiable. Any intellectual who advocated for it should hang their heads in shame.
The same goes for some of the current advisors like Bernard Henri Levy. I saw him on Charlie Rose recently spouting drivel, as he did when he advised Sarkozy to intervene in Libya some years back.
We have to start taking responsibility for our actions. That doesn't mean that we condone any terrorist or any act of murder. However we shouldn't condone our own murdering ways, or methods that cause terror as well. We should openly acknowledge it and not ignore it.
But this is non sequitur anyway because we are not debating the Iraq war. And whatever wrongs the West did the cartoonists were not murdered because of Bush and Blair. Or because of all the wrongs the West did. Their killers were.motivated by religious devotion.
The problem with such a statement is it implicitly suggests that it's ok then, since the target was not the civilian population, that more civilians (thousands and thousands more, over several years) died in Iraq (for no reason whatsoever) than died in France a few weeks ago. It is not.
That's the argument the Israelis use to mass murder Gazans every few years.
It doesn't matter what the good hearted, democracy spreading, freedom loving intention is imo. The result is what matters.
Yes, absolutely true that the recent killers did not murder due to Bush and Blair. However, the next one might.
#religionofpeace
The next one might. The next one would be just as wrong. But this terrorist attack was an act of devotion.
No one is saying it's all our fault. Not in the slightest. However, we are not above reproach either. Not in the slightest
The Sunnis and Shias do butcher each other and I've yet to understand what that problem is all about. However, we're taking sides - and from my perspective, we're taking the wrong side - because we actively supported the Sunni rebels in Syria who then morphed into ISIL (who were actually funded initially by the Saudis). From my point of view it is Sunni extremism that is dangerous. That's where all the recent problems have stemmed from.
True, the current act was one of misguded devotion. However, Hitchens did not properly take ownership for his misguided advice and recommendations. Neither is Levy, who is currently making the same mistake.
This is the issue.
There were debates at the time about sending in special forces (James Bond types) to take out Hussein only. It was deemed impractical. B/S if you ask me. They could have tried it for 10 years and at some point would have got him. Better than what they ended up doing.
Hitchens had no leg to stand on regarding advocating for mass war in this instance. As an intellectual, he disgraced himself on this matter, although I have great respect for his views on other things. Many of us knew that war was a mistake at the time....why some of the smart people didn't confounds me to this day. Only fear could have caused smart people to mess up like this - it clouds the mind.
So even though he was clearly wrong on Iraq, and thousands died, he still insisted that he was right and that all the killing was justified because...?
The only explanation I can think of is that he was such a neo-con fundamentalist and believed so absolutely that he had a unique monopoly on truth (sound familiar?) that all the killing and spreading of terror across the Middle East was justified by the ultimate goal of imposing his enlightened ideology across the globe.
Hitchen's world view was the stance of distant, arm-chair politician, who never stood for public office and considered intelligent debate to be about shouting people down. The point that American guy was trying to make to Hitchens in that interview was that the cartoons alienate normal Muslims - people that the west should be engaging and making common ground with in the fight against extremism. But Hitchens wasn't interested in hearing this point - he called it 'blather' - he was only interested in being 'right'.
As @bondjames has said, this is not about saying we are to blame for everything, but if we refuse to even look at ourselves even slightly critically, and take responsibility for our own mistakes (crimes, some might say) then we're not in a strong moral, intellectual or security position.
The point I've made in previous posts is that most Muslims are not fanatical extremists, even though western action has given lots of people around the world every reason to hate us. We need to step back and look at our own actions. Obama literally bowing to the Saudi royal family, while Saudi citizens are whipped for voicing the most moderate criticism of Islamic clerics. The UK occupying Helmand province in Afghanistan - an area where the locals remember and hate the British for dirty colonial wars we waged there in the 19th century. The UK and France overthrowing Gadafi and leaving chaos in its place. The Iraq war - an illegal war that led to the deaths of thousands and destabilised an entire region. Standing by while another 'ally', Barain, violently suppresses pro-democracy protestors. Etc. etc.
We can't assume this position of moral superiority when so much rank hypocrisy is practiced in our own names.
He was wrong about Iraq no doubt. One does not have to be right all the time. He was however right about princess Diana, mother Teresa, Bill Graham, The Satanic Verses and... The Danish cartoons.
I don't have a problem with the latter parts of you above statements @Ludovico. CH was a terrorist act, no doubt.
However, in the earlier parts of your above comments, you seem to be excusing Hitchens. This is the part I don't understand. He was wrong. He advocated for mass murder (via illegal war and bombing campaigns) on a whole people, ostensibly to topple one dictator. That is intellectually lazy and dishonest. There is no defense for that, particularly for a self-proclaimed intellectual who should have known better. He should be derided for that.
Anyone who thinks war and bombing can be fought in a precision way without thousands of deaths is not being honest. Funny thing is the same thing is happening now against ISIL - I'm pretty sure thousands of innocents are being killed and terrorized, but we are not being informed of that. The next generation of Jihadi sympathizers is being created as we speak.
That's true and I'm glad you brought it up. Whenever there is war, there are abuses and rape and torture. It comes with the territory and is disgusting but inevitable.
Hitchens should have known that these byproducts would have occured. I did, and I was quite young at the time, and not a seasoned smart veteran like him. That's why I am ashamed of him in this respect.
The US squandered all the good will it had after 911 and turned a position of moral strength into a moral quagmire. I am pretty sure history will judge Bush and Blair very harshly.
911 actually presented the west with an incredible oppportunity to move the world forward in a positive way, and the US and UK chose to walk straight into Bin Laden's trap instead.
Very true. I think their judgement was obviously clouded by fear, some of them (Bush in particular) were not very intelligent, and they had bad advisors. It is those advisors and intellectual commentators that I hold accountable. Those so called 'smart men' that gave Bush and Blair cover.
That is why people like Hitchens have a very large burden to bear in history. They in particular should have known better. They are the ones who are supposed to read the tea leaves and properly predict what the implications are down the road of one's actions. All the implications.
I disagree: Hitchens had responsibility over advocating war for the reasons he mentioned, not for the management of it or the actions of the troops on the ground. Had he tried to excuse Abu Graib, say, then yes he'd be responsible for what he'd have said then. He was wrong about the Iraq war, but not about positions he never defended, actions he never condoned. If a Resistance fighter in France during WWII had say raped a German secretary, or a British soldier raped a fascist civilian in Italy, that would have been shameful, but not the fault of de Gaulle, Churchill or say Sartre.
Yes - that's why I see Hitchens as the neo-cons' clever idiot. An intelligent man, seduced by his own vanity and the high level of media exposure and adoration he got in the US, to such an extent that he stopped actually thinking. His intellectual processes regressed into a sort of ranting, secular, pro-war fundamentalism. His trajectory is not actually unusual in the history of the political left - the journey from independent firebrand, to lacky of the establishment is a well trodden path.
I have to actually 'fess up here and say that I was totally ambivalent about the Iraq War. While I did not believe for one moment that Iraq represented a threat or had anything to do with 911, I did want to believe that getting rid of Saddam might enable first Iraq, and then hopefully other Arab states, to become more free and develop into modern, functioning democracies. I had plenty of friends who told me this was very wishful thinking and that the actual outcome would be chaos. I also sort of assumed that the UK and US had a plan for what was going to happen after the war.
I was of course hopelessly naive. I feel I bear therefore some of the collective responsibility for the appalling catastrophe that we have wreaked on the Middle East. I helped elect that lunatic, Blair. I find it particularly tragic as I'd actually been on holiday to Syria just a few years earlier - a fascinating and beautiful country, that seemed at least stable and reasonably well developed. I wouldn't blame anyone in Iraq or Syria who hated our guts to be honest. As I said before, the miracle is that more people don't hate us - that many people still believe the west is a potential source for good is quite remarkable.
Regarding Hitchens, again you're absolutely right. He was 'seduced' and I can see the same thing today with Bernard Henri Levy. He is getting such a hard-on about being invited on Charlie Rose etc.
RE: your previous advocacy for the Iraq war - everyone can make a mistake. At least you've owned up to it and realize that the US and UK normally have absolutely no plan when they do these things. For Iraq, they listened to neo-cons like Wolfowitz, PNAC (Project for a New American Century) and self-aggrandizers like Ahmed Chalabi when they made that horrendous play. Folks like Hitchens unwittingly played along and made fools of themselves.
They made the same idiotic mistake in Libya (although Obama in particular smartly played it down) and that one is going to bite for many years down the road.
----
@Ludovico, in my view the problem with Hitchens was, as an intellectual, he should have considered all implications of what he advocated and presented a more balanced, intelligent view. He did not, which is why some of us lost respect for him.