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I think that the appended article by Christopher Hitchens is worth the effort of refuting because he and The Nation magazine still have some influence over sections of the left. My contribution to that refutation follows. Feel free to plagiarize from it if you think you can do a better job. No credit to me is necessary. - Aaron P.S. I put 'American' in quotes so as not to insult the rest of the peoples of the Western Hemisphere. I often just write it as 'AmeriKKKan', but I thought that might be too distracting to those trying to follow my argument. I have, however, used 'United Snakes' when not wanting to abbreviate to 'U.S.'. I hope lovers of long, scaly, limbless reptiles will not be too offended. >The Nation > >October 8, 2001 > >Against Rationalization >by Christopher Hitchens [SNIP] >In one form or another, the people who leveled the World Trade Center >are the same people who threw acid in the faces of unveiled women in >Kabul and Karachi, who maimed and eviscerated two of the translators >of The Satanic Verses and who machine-gunned architectural tourists >at Luxor. Hitchens has no more knowledge of who carried out the 911 attacks or what motivated them than the rest of us have. But his whole argument is based on the above presumption. Actually, it can't even be called a presumption since starting it with the phrase, "in one form or another", makes it so vague as to be almost meaningless. >I was apprehensive from the first moment about the sort of >masochistic e-mail traffic that might start circulating from the >Chomsky-Zinn-Finkelstein quarter, and I was not to be disappointed. >With all due thanks to these worthy comrades, I know already that the >people of Palestine and Iraq are victims of a depraved and callous >Western statecraft. And I think I can claim to have been among the >first to point out that Clinton's rocketing of Khartoum--supported by >most liberals--was a gross war crime, which would certainly have >entitled the Sudanese government to mount reprisals under >international law. With all due thanks to Mr. Hitchens for his understanding of these facts, I don't think any of us 'masochistics' are aiming our exposures of imperialism's crimes at people like him. >It is worse than idle to propose the very trade-offs that may have >been lodged somewhere in the closed-off minds of the mass murderers. Were their minds any more closed off than those of the millions of United Snakes patriots who call for bloody 'retaliation' against the peoples and nations who 'in one form or another' (to use Hitchens' phrase) were responsible for the 911 attacks? >The people of Gaza live under curfew and humiliation and >expropriation. This is notorious. Very well: Does anyone suppose that >an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would have forestalled the slaughter >in Manhattan? In the mechanical way Hitchens poses the question, probably not. >It would take a moral cretin to suggest anything of the sort; Millions of us 'moral cretins' speculate that, if the people who gave their own lives in carrying out the attacks were indeed from the Middle East, they may well have been motivated by rage at the U.S. backing for Israeli state terror and at the U.S.-led mass murder of about 1,500,000 mostly Arab, mostly Muslim people in Iraq. And that wouldn't be any less true if that rage led them to Muslim fundamentalism in the absence of a mass communist (or other secular anti-imperialist) movement. >[T]he bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, >and there's no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate >about "the West," to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals >don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do >like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific >inquiry, its separation of religion from the state. Is the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or the other supposed targets (the White House, the Capitol, or Camp David) a particular locus or symbol of emancipated women, scientific inquiry, or separation of religion from the state? Aren't they rather loci and symbols of 'American' imperial economic and military domination? >Any decent and concerned reader of this magazine [i.e., The Nation] >could have been on one of those planes, or in one of those buildings >--yes, even in the Pentagon. Yes, decent people were on those planes, and some of them might have had the poor judgement to be readers of The Nation, for which they certainly shouldn't have been killed. But the persons killed inside the Pentagon were no more innocent victims than were any Germans (other than spies or prisoners) killed inside a bombed Gestapo or Wehrmacht building. >...this is an enemy for life, as well as an enemy of life. Hitchens is writing about the Islamicists, and he is right. But, on a world scale, the United Snakes and its imperialist allies are overwhelmingly more of a threat to life than the Islamicists are likely ever to be. ------------------ End of refutation ------------------ --------------- Begin Hitchens' article: --------------- The Nation October 8, 2001 Against Rationalization by Christopher Hitchens It was in Peshawar, on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, as the Red Army was falling apart and falling back. I badly needed a guide to get me to the Khyber Pass, and I decided that what I required was the most farouche-looking guy with the best command of English and the toughest modern automobile. Such a combination was obtainable, for a price. My new friend rather wolfishly offered me a tour of the nearby British military cemetery (a well-filled site from the Victorian era) before we began. Then he slammed a cassette into the dashboard. I braced myself for the ululations of some mullah but received instead a dose of "So Far Away." From under the turban and behind the beard came the gruff observation, "I thought you might like Dire Straits." This was my induction into the now-familiar symbiosis of tribal piety and high-tech; a symbiosis consummated on September 11 with the conversion of the southern tip of the capital of the modern world into a charred and suppurating mass grave. Not that it necessarily has to be a symbol of modernism and innovation that is targeted for immolation. As recently as this year, the same ideology employed heavy artillery to destroy the Buddha statues at Bamiyan, and the co-thinkers of bin Laden in Egypt have been heard to express the view that the Pyramids and the Sphinx should be turned into shards as punishment for their profanely un-Islamic character. Since my moment in Peshawar I have met this faction again. In one form or another, the people who leveled the World Trade Center are the same people who threw acid in the faces of unveiled women in Kabul and Karachi, who maimed and eviscerated two of the translators of The Satanic Verses and who machine-gunned architectural tourists at Luxor. Even as we worry what they may intend for our society, we can see very plainly what they have in mind for their own: a bleak and sterile theocracy enforced by advanced techniques. Just a few months ago Bosnia surrendered to the international court at The Hague the only accused war criminals detained on Muslim-Croat federation territory. The butchers had almost all been unwanted "volunteers" from the Chechen, Afghan and Kashmiri fronts; it is as an unapologetic defender of the Muslims of Bosnia (whose cause was generally unstained by the sort of atrocity committed by Catholic and Orthodox Christians) that one can and must say that bin Ladenism poisons everything that it touches. I was apprehensive from the first moment about the sort of masochistic e-mail traffic that might start circulating from the Chomsky-Zinn-Finkelstein quarter, and I was not to be disappointed. With all due thanks to these worthy comrades, I know already that the people of Palestine and Iraq are victims of a depraved and callous Western statecraft. And I think I can claim to have been among the first to point out that Clinton's rocketing of Khartoum--supported by most liberals--was a gross war crime, which would certainly have entitled the Sudanese government to mount reprisals under international law. (Indeed, the sight of Clintonoids on TV, applauding the "bounce in the polls" achieved by their man that day, was even more repulsive than the sight of destitute refugee children making a wretched holiday over the nightmare on Chambers Street.) But there is no sense in which the events of September 11 can be held to constitute such a reprisal, either legally or morally. It is worse than idle to propose the very trade-offs that may have been lodged somewhere in the closed-off minds of the mass murderers. The people of Gaza live under curfew and humiliation and expropriation. This is notorious. Very well: Does anyone suppose that an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would have forestalled the slaughter in Manhattan? It would take a moral cretin to suggest anything of the sort; the cadres of the new jihad make it very apparent that their quarrel is with Judaism and secularism on principle, not with (or not just with) Zionism. They regard the Saudi regime not as the extreme authoritarian theocracy that it is, but as something too soft and lenient. The Taliban forces viciously persecute the Shiite minority in Afghanistan. The Muslim fanatics in Indonesia try to extirpate the infidel minorities there; civil society in Algeria is barely breathing after the fundamentalist assault. Now is as good a time as ever to revisit the history of the Crusades, or the sorry history of partition in Kashmir, or the woes of the Chechens and Kosovars. But the bombers of Manhattan represent fascism with an Islamic face, and there's no point in any euphemism about it. What they abominate about "the West," to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state. Loose talk about chickens coming home to roost is the moral equivalent of the hateful garbage emitted by Falwell and Robertson, and exhibits about the same intellectual content. Indiscriminate murder is not a judgment, even obliquely, on the victims or their way of life, or ours. Any decent and concerned reader of this magazine could have been on one of those planes, or in one of those buildings--yes, even in the Pentagon. The new talk is all of "human intelligence": the very faculty in which our ruling class is most deficient. A few months ago, the Bush Administration handed the Taliban a subsidy of $43 million in abject gratitude for the assistance of fundamentalism in the"war on drugs." Next up is the renewed "missile defense" fantasy recently endorsed by even more craven Democrats who seek to occupy the void "behind the President." There is sure to be further opportunity to emphasize the failings of our supposed leaders, whose costly mantra is "national security" and who could not protect us. And yes indeed, my guide in Peshawar was a shadow thrown by William Casey's CIA, which first connected the unstoppable Stinger missile to the infallible Koran. But that's only one way of stating the obvious, which is that this is an enemy for life, as well as an enemy of life. --------------- End of Hitchens' article --------------- ----------------- End of Aaron's post ----------------- ------------------------------------------------- This Discussion List is the follow-up for the old stopnato @listbot.com that has been shut down ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9spWA Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [email protected] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
