I love Hitchens but he didn’t come off too well. His right hand also seemed to have a pretty good grip on his left.
I liked Hitchens better before he turned into a drunken war booster and Bush apologist.
I loved Stewart’s response when Hitchens tried to corner him for mocking Bush’s “resolute” anti-terrorism postiring in his press conferences. JS really seemed pissed at that moment and he shut Hitchens up.
Yeah JS did seem to get pretty worked up there for a minute. I thought to myself, “Man, that Stewart fellow is mighty-smart. That’s hot*.”
*What? I’m a 19 year old girl who loves politics!
This was one of those rare TDSs where the interview portion was much better than the “fun” part. (That “17-year-old kid’s effort at political satire in a first attempt at using FruityLoops and Premiere” bit was particularly dire.)
I felt genuinely sorry for Hitchens, though. The poor sap.
I like the shows with reasonable, intelligent, well-spoken guests who have different viewpoints, and I was looking forward to this one. I wish the interview could have been longer, and I wish Jon hadn’t interrupted Hitchens so much.
I know how Stewart feels about Iraq, and I agree with him, but darn it, the guy had some interesting points to make and he didn’t get to flesh them out.
He was obviously upset, not hanging around for the close-up off-camera chat. What was it he said when he left? “It’s been real.” He was insulted when Jon asked the audience to applaud him, and I don’t blame him.
This was the first time I’d heard about the four reasons to justify a nation losing its sovereignty. Am I just ill-informed? Did you guys know about that? Why hasn’t Bush used it in his arguments for going to Iraq?
Its’ been said before and I’ll say it again: the fact that some of the best, most informative debates happen on Comedy Central as opposed to one of the bg three networks or a news channel is effed up. Both Stewart and Hitchens were making some darn good points.
Usually I either don’t watch the interview or I only halfway listen to it, but I’m glad I left the TV on the Daily Show for last night. I also wish that the interview had been longer and that Hitchens had been allowed to talk more.
I had never heard the four reasons to justify a nation losing its sovereignty, and I think that I am reasonably well informed.
I would really like to read Hitchen’s book now, even though the semester is about to start and I’ll have very little time for leisure reading. Has anyone read it yet?
What points did Hitchens make? All I heard was the same mindless war-mongering as I hear from every other Bush ball washer.
Because none of them are actual legal justifications for an attack on sovereignty. Hitchens was talkng out of his ass. There is exactly one legal justification for an attack on the sovereignty of another country- self-defense. That’s it. everything else Hitchens said was only so much hot air.
Dio, that’s just it. He started to make some points but wasn’t given time to justify or explain them.
Do you know what he was talking about with the four justifications? Was it a resolution passed by Congress or something? Or something the UN did?
I think that one of his points was essentially that the US being a signatory to the UN Convention on Genocide obliges the US (and the other signatories) to take necessary measures to prevent genocide (and punish the perpetrators). The most noticeable effect of this treaty historically is the bending over backwards to avoid using the word “genocide” when describing Rwanda, Darfur, etc so as to avoid forcing us to make a decision w.r.t. shitting or getting off the pot. Whether Saddam’s actions through the mid nineties required us to prioritize Iraq over other, ongoing humanitarian catastrophes (in Sudan, for example) is debatable.
I am not sure where the NNPT thing comes from - I don’t believe it explicitly calls for a can of whoopass on lapsed signatories. No doubt because such a term would have discouraged participation.
The Zarqawi thing is just Hitchens being disingenuous.
And I thought that Iraq’s attacks on its neighbors had been taken care of by Iran and the first gulf war coalition, respectively.
No, nothing to do with the UN or Congress. The invasion was staged in direct defiance of the UN and the US Congress does not have any international authority for regime change (any more than Iraq could cite its own authority in invading Kuwait).
Here is an excerpt from another interview where Hitchens blathers on about his “four reasons.”
To summarize, Hitchens four reasons are:
- Iraq has attacked other countries in decades past. Irrelevant as an argument for self-defense by the US.
- Saddam allegedly gassed some Kurds, and Hitchens is trying to stretch that into “genocide.”
- WMDs (again, in decades past, not present).
- “Harboring terrorists.” Not a justification for regime change, even if true, and not an argument for self-defense since Iraq was not harboring anyone who had attacked the US.
In other words, Hitchens is parroting the exact same talking points as the White House. He was presenting nothing new or startling and his “four reasons” were the reasons cited by Bush.
I might need to watch the show when it’s repeated. So the four reasons are Hitchens’ reasons? Not something that was voted or agreed on by Congress (or some body) way back in 1998?
BTW, before a Mod shows up like two weeks ago in a TDS thread, we’re just talking about what happened on the show and what Hitchens said – we’re not debating the war. 
I rarely find myself disagreeing with you Diogenes, but why isn’t Saddam’s behaviour toward the Kurds an act of genocide? 
Nothing by Congress or the UN. Just Hitchens blowing gas.
It was an act of mass murder but it wasn’t a systematic attempt to eradicate the Kurds. It also happened 17 years ago. It was not an ongoing campaign which required intervention to stop.
The UN Convention on Genocide does not authorize anyone to launch autonomous attack on sovereignty anyway.
I wish the audience would shut the hell up and let the guest talk.
Stewart often tries to ask the crowd to refrain from applauding him. He knows it gives him an artificial advantage which he doesn’t need and doesn’t want, but it’s a comedy show…what are you going to do?
Well, to be fair, i believe he has always been a drunk.