Of Hitchens’ debating opponents, who has done the best job, either in rhetoric and style or rationality and simply making more rational claims? Who have done the worst?
(Because if answered, this question will surely lead to argument, wasn’t sure if this was best put in “Great Debates” or “IMHO”, sry if wrong board.)
With whom did he debate on the subject?
Which people on that Google links page are you specifically referring to?
Everybody, everybody Hitchens has debated on Iraq.
Sorry if that wasn’t clear from my initial post…
Formal debates, or just arguments and/or discussions and/or interviews he’s had/shared with opponents?
I’m thinking of formal debates or discussions which lasted more than half an hour, but if somebody thinks there was a particularly good short exchange, I’d be interested in that too.
I think few, if any, of us are familiar with those peoples and those exchanges. It might help your OP if you did some research first instead of expecting us to do it.
I’ve never watched any debate involving Hitchens and I don’t see what the purpose of doing so would be. Leading up to the war, Hitchens carried water for the Bush Administration by insisting that Iraq did have WMDs, did support Al Queda, was a major menace to the security of the USA, etc… and also that an American invasion would be a good thing for the people of Iraq. Years into the war, when the truth about these things was widely known, most leading pundits acknowledged the facts. Even those who had been strongly pro-war at the start generally acknowledged it to be a bad idea in retrospect. Hitchens was almost alone in not doing so. He instead doubled down on insisting that the war had been a good idea from the start.
In this respect, he was merely sticking to what he wrote after the 9/11 attacks: that he felt exhilaration at the prospect of endless war against Muslims.
I so distrust the use of the word zeitgeist, with all its vague implications of Teutonic meta-theory. But on Veterans Day I had to work full time on myself in order to combat the feeling of an epochal shift, in which my own poor molecules were being realigned in some bizarre Hegelian synthesis. I should perhaps confess that on September 11 last, once I had experienced all the usual mammalian gamut of emotions, from rage to nausea, I also discovered that another sensation was contending for mastery. On examination, and to my own surprise and pleasure, it turned out be exhilaration. Here was the most frightful enemy–theocratic barbarism–in plain view. All my other foes, from the Christian Coalition to the Milosevic Left, were busy getting it wrong or giving it cover. Other and better people were gloomy at the prospect of confrontation. But I realized that if the battle went on until the last day of my life, I would never get bored in prosecuting it to the utmost.
The real question to me is: given the idiotic things Hitchens believed regarding the Iraq War and terrorism, why would anyone take him seriously on any topic?
Tony Blair?
I’ll let another ten years go by before a “final” conclusion on the Iraq war can be reached, but at this point, the strongest counter to Hitchens’ position on Iraq is what actually happened. Regardless of the rhetorical flourishes he or his counterpart may have used in any debate, the war in Iraq simply wasn’t worth it because:
On the plus side, Saddam Hussein is dead.
I’ve watched many, many of the debates (although there’s a ton, maybe over a hundred, so I can’t claim to have watched all). I’m asking people who have watched the debates for their opinions, to get an alternative take, “peer review” if you will. With due respect, you asked me who Hitchens has debated on the subject…It’s you who has expected me to do your research for you.
I’m sorry that you’re confused, but again with due respect, I’d ask that you refrain from commenting, since you can’t possibly have a reasonable answer to my question being unfamiliar “with those people and those exchanges.”
Which of Hitchens beliefs regarding Iraq and terrorism do you think were idiotic? (ETA - directed at ITR champion)
Iraq certainly did have (and used) biological weapons and did have a nuclear weapons program. None of that is in doubt. Thinking that they might have them and use them again around the time of 9-11 is not idiotic. It may have been wrong, it may have been used as a scare story to take us in to war but it only worked as a scare story because it was credible.
As for the link to terrorism. Iraq was a sponsor on a regular basis, again this isn’t in doubt. Not the worst offender and not the major western threat (probably Iran) but believing that they could be linked to 9-11? not idiotic at all. Wrong…not idiotic.
My own view is that Iraq was going to bite us (again) at some point in the future. I’m angry that we were lied to on the justification for war, and despairing at the incompetency of the execution but I’m also glad that I never got to find out what a desperate and dying Saddam Hussain (or his psychopathic sons) had in store for us. It was never going to end prettily and it may be better all round that it at least ended quickly. Doesn’t make the war right but none of us know how the alternate scenarios played out.
And finally, do you think that a person holding idiotic beliefs on any subject deserves not to be taken seriously on any subject at all?
It is a rhetorical question because anyone who knows anything about Christopher Hitchens must knows that he speaks with wisdom on many issues. If you discount all his output just because he was wrong on one subject then you are missing out and I wish you good luck in finding someone with infallible judgement.
…which might well have happened anyway by now had nature taken its course. He was born in 1935 in a country where less than 3% of the male population lives beyond 65.
SH wasn’t the average Iraqi male. Not hard to make an argument that he was in a somewhat privileged class and was likely to beat the odds of living past 65, while gassing more Kurds, etc.
And anyway, everybody dies. Some people just need to have the process accelerated for them.
Note: I’m not making the case for the war in Iraq. A bad idea remains a bad idea despite some incidental positive outcomes.
True, but life expectancies don’t diverge that greatly among the rich and the poor after infancy, and Iraq had a relatively good national healthcare system until somewhat recently.
He was actually born in 1937, to nitpick my own post.
Hitchens did have a much broader intellect than most of the simpletons whose writing fills mainstream newspapers and magazines these days. He could pull up extensive knowledge about history as well as philosophy, arts, and other topics. As far as the breadth of his knowledge goes, I can’t complain.
However, knowing extensive loads of facts didn’t make him a great thinker. He didn’t have the intellectual honesty to critique his own thinking, evaluate evidence, and make good judgements. Instead he’s seize on one idea and then decide that all of the evidence supported him, that nothing could possibly contradict him, and that anyone who disagreed with him must be scum. His writings about Iraq before and during the war as full of childish name calling, labeling those who disagreed stupid, crazy, supporters of terrorism and Saddam, and so worth. A typical example is that he wrote a column entitled Ha ha ha to the Pacifists in which he bragged about victory in Afghanistan (11 years later we’re still at war) that includes this statement about peace activists: “I get the impression that they go to bed saying: what have I done for Saddam Hussein or good old Slobodan or the Taliban today?”
He also twisted facts to meet his personal prejudices. His supporting the overthrow of Saddam makes little sense on the face of it, since Hitchens sees religion as the cause of all problem, particularly in the Muslim world. Saddam was a secular ruler, and anyone could see that once he was removed, Islamic extremist groups would arise in Iraq and grab as much power as they could. (This is exactly what happened, of course.) Hitchens simply decided that Saddam was actually a radical Muslim, grasping at thin evidence to justify it. Years later, when Shi’ite and Sunni militias controlled much of the country, he apparently felt no remorse and wouldn’t even talk about the suffering of the Iraqi people. (Cite)
Iraq and Afghanistan are not the only issues where he missed the boat big time. As late as the 80’s, when the full extent of Soviet horrors was well known, he continued pulling for communism. In The Nation he wrote: “It is quite likely that historians will record this unhappy period not as an age of Reagan at all, but as a footnote to the age of Mikhail Gorbachev.” Oops.
So when I read drooling praise such as:
Those of us viewing the world with a rational eye also have another, underutilized tool at our disposal: rapier logic like that of Christopher Hitchens
I have to wonder exactly how a man who wield this rapier logic came to so many wrong conclusions in such obvious ways, and stuck with them long after the world had overwhelmingly figured it out. I’d expect rapier logic to lead a person to correct conclusions before, rather than stranding the person in error so often. You are right, of course, in saying that a man can be wrong about one issue and right about others, but fans of Hitchens tend to hold him up as a paragon of intellect.
Iraq used chemical, not biological, weapons, and its nuclear weapons program was long moribund in 2003. Thinking they might have used nuclear weapons in 2003 was, in fact, extremely idiotic, since there was zero chance they possessed any.
It certainly would have been amazingly idiotic. In early 2003 the facts surrounding the 9/11 attacks were easily known to any literate person who cared to spend a few minutes researching them. Iraq was simply not involved in them.
I recall clearly at the time that the WMD designation applied equally to both nuclear and chemical weapons. Nuclear being less likely, chemical far more probable. It only appears idiotic in hindsight because we now know what we know. In 2003 it was far from certain and Saddam’s refusal to comply with weapons inspections was intended to make the west believe he had something to hide.
We were given assurance that intelligence supported the possession of WMDs (not specifically nuclear) and believing that may in hindsight seem naive but idiotic? nope.
No, in 2003 given the public domain intelligence of the time it was far from clear that Iraq had nothing to do with it. the debate was still ongoing. Remember that it was so uncertain, USA and UK were able to build a case for war on the back of it that did indeed have widespread credibility.
They are wrong to do so as that is too strong a label for anyone.
He was smart and quite possibly the most elegant speaker of his time but human for all that. He made mistakes and I disagree with him as often as I agree but overall his contribution to most debates were beneficial. Not just for cogent arguments he did put forward but also for spearing the vacuous positions held by others. Regardless of whether he was right or wrong he wouldn’t let the loose thinking of others pass and that tended to raise the level of debate.