(Het tip to KLP)
<font size=4>Christopher Hitchens explains why left is not right<font size=3>
dailycampus.com.
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[KLP Note: Includes why Hitchens left the leftist publication The Nation]
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By Craig Whitney
Published: Tuesday, February 3, 2004
Article Tools: Page 1 of 2
The following is an interview with Christopher Hitchens following his appearance at a symposium on the war in Iraq at New School University in New York City, concerning his support of the war and the rift it has caused between himself and the left.
Hitchens is the author of several books, including <font color=blue>"The Trial of Henry Kissinger," "Letters To a Young Contrarian" and "Why Orwell Matters."<font color=black> His writings appear in Vanity Fair, Atlantic Monthly, Slate and the Washington Post.
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In 2002, following a highly publicized guerre de plume with author Noam Chomsky over American culpability for the Sept. 11 attacks, Hitchens left the weekly liberal magazine The Nation, where his bi-weekly column the <font color=blue>"Minority Report"<font color=black> had appeared since 1982.
This and Hitchens' subsequent support for the Iraq war have made him a virtual pariah among the left for whom only a few years before, he was a leading spokesman.
In recent months, Hitchens has defended his views on Iraq in a series of debates with New Yorker staff writer Mark Danner, himself an opponent of the war, of which Friday's was the latest.
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Whitney: <font color=blue>I wanted to ask you about your so-called apostasy from the left and, as a part of that, your motivations for supporting the war in Iraq. Do you have any qualms about allying yourself with Bush as a result of that? <font color=black>
Hitchens: <font color=blue><font size=4>The president, or some of his advisers, are right on the main point, which is "if you try and change our regime, we'll change yours. We can do it and you can't, and your people will be better off and ours wouldn't have been." This is a no-brainer to me. I believed that before Bush did, as a matter-of-fact. Bush ran against Gore, against nation-building and for isolationism, for point-of-fact. I welcome Mr. Bush's adherence, really.
But for the left, so-called, if they had been listened to in their majority, Bosnia would be part of greater Serbia, Kosovo would be a wilderness with ethnic cleansing, the Taliban would still be in charge of Afghanistan, Iraq would still be the private property of Saddam Hussein's family.
This is a record not to be proud of. It's a very conservative record; it's a reactionary record. And they would take that as fine, by the way, as long as it was a status quo that denied credit to George Bush. |
