Rating: 
Summary: More drivel from the best
Review: "A Long Short War," is, like the remainder of Christopher Hitchens' work, unbearably smug, relentlessly rhetorical, and, on the whole, contrarianism for its own sake. After years on the "left," Hitchens began his sway to the right with the Clinton scandals, then became a total convert following 9/11. This book outlines his newfound (dare I say "born again"?--oops, I forgot that Hitchens hates all religion) hawkish mindset, and all the pretense that that would suggest. Without once addressing why Iraq merits anymore attention than Afghanistan, Syria, or roughly 40 other and more dangerous regimes worldwide, Hitchens engages in a series of dizzying rhetorical games. While he has certainly proven his talents as a Sophist, his abilities as a political commentator turn out to be nowhere near as well-developed. If you are familiar with any of Hitchen's other work, you will be unsurprised that one of his basic arguments here, as it is elsewhere, is that since Henry Kissinger and the rest of those despicable "conformists" think war is wrong, then it must be right. If you can bear it, read Hitchens' ungainly "Letters to a Young Contrarian" for more arguments along these lines (but don't expect to find something even apporaching Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet"). Anyhow, Hitchens spiel about the economic motivations of the Saudis betrays only a slight knowledge of the oil market. The Saudis don't enjoy a luxuriant "monopoly" on oil. Rather, they have endured several recent economic crises due to an over-supply of crude, which has caused prices to plummet. The invasion of Iraq thus could not jeopardize the Saudis' monopoly, since they never had one in the first place. His remarks about the military dehumanize war altogether, as an army, it turns out, is a "polished and expensive arsenal," and definitely not a cadre of college-aged men and women who die each and every day, and never by their accord, so that warmongers like Hitchens et al can put away "Islamo-fascism." Never mind that Saddam Hussein and the entire nation of Iraq had precisely zilch to do with 9/11. Thank Hitchens and Bush and their brethren for costing the U.S. 1,000+ lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, and nearly two years' worth of attention and effort that could have been spent on Osama bin Laden. I guess all those Arabs just run together in the minds of every commentator and poor soul swayed by President Bush's "axis of evil" madness--if you catch one, you've caught them all! Maybe after Hitchens (who is not even American) is satisfied with the "victories" rendered by the U.S. in Iraq, he can turn his attention to the true enemies of the free-world: Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, and Mother Teresa. An evil axis, indeed. Have fun with this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Short
Review: A very short book that is long on rhetoric. To be fair let me say that on the overall position this author takes on the war is different from mine. The reason I read the book is that I have heard the author speak over the years and found him to be very entertaining with well thought out (if not always to my liking) arguments. I expected a book with the same level of insight. Given that I disagreed with the authors position in support of the US going to war, I found it a bit difficult to judge the arguments with real objectivity. I actually kept getting a bit mad at some of the overstated (in my opinion) comments about what is best for the world and the population of Iraq. I also could not help myself and kept trying to put holes in his arguments and look for any statements that I knew to be in error. So the overall outcome of the book was that I was somewhat frustrated and somewhat happy with myself for being able to spot a few inconsistencies or arguments that were very one sided and somewhat short of facts. If you agree with the author then you will be very happy with the book. He does do a great job of explaining his position. He is a wonderful wordsmith if not just a bit bitter (about what I do not know). I guess my biggest complaint is that he rushed this one out the door without much new comment except for a brief introduction. I would have liked a bit more effort, at least to bulk the book up to be more then a thin 100 pages.
Rating: 
Summary: Along short war is a must read!
Review: Christofer Hitchens is extremely articulate, has an indepth knowledge of the area and of its history, guides the reader with superb logic and underlines his views with his personal wit.
Rating:
Summary: 3 Reasons
Review: Christopher Hitchens is generally regarded as one of the finest essayist of our time, a conclusion not hindered by this neat collection of lush essays laying out both the recent history of the Middle East and the reasons for our attack on Iraq. Thomas Friedman explained the situation as well in his Pulitzer prize winning book "Latitudes and Longitudes," and both of these learned men ended up ghost writing the text not produced by the clumsy Bush administration, however Mr. Friedman is a staffer at the New York Times and therefore his work is a tad bland, it doesn't contain the moulinet, the sardonic jabs and parrys that lunge from every page of this Brit Wit. Mr. Hitchens wrote for The Nation for twenty years before coming out on the side of Pres. Bush and his war on terrorism and especially the state sponsor of terrorism Saddam Hussein, a stance, a circumstance that seems to bring out his contempt for the unread left, what he refers to as the "ranting neo-Stalinist and blithering flower children" and has furthered a general identity crisis in the same. It was Mr. Hitchens who coined the term "Islamofascism" to give face to this ubiquitous enemy. His reasoning is contained herein. A mandatory read.
Rating:
Summary: The ultimate chickenhawk seeks to make a quick buck.
Review: Christopher Hitchens is one of a new and insidious breed of political pundit. Like his fellow chickenhawk and laptop liberator, Andrew Sullivan, Hitchens is a transplanted Englishman who came to the US to tell us what our foreign policy should be, what constitutes American patriotism, and where our soldiers should be sent to die. This book is a good example of his work. Hitchens became a right-wing courtier to such politcal titans as Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum during the Clinton impeachment era, and is now firmly ensconsed as a reliably right-wing commentator on a host of issues. Here he argues that Saddam was a threat that had to be eliminated--this despite that fact that, after over 700 US deaths, no WMD in sight, and the creation of our very own quagmire in the heart of the Middle East, we still have no good reason to be in Iraq. And Osama continues to plot. Perhaps Hitchens should stick to what he does best--getting drunk, cheating on his pregnant wife, and making an ass of himself at Washington soirees. Political analysis is, to say the least, not his strong point.
Rating:
Summary: The ultimate chickenhawk seeks to make a quick buck.
Review: Christopher Hitchens is one of a new and insidious breed of political pundit. Like his fellow chickenhawk and laptop liberator, Andrew Sullivan, Hitchens is a transplanted Englishman who came to the US to tell us what our foreign policy should be, what constitutes American patriotism, and where our soldiers should be sent to die. This book is a good example of his work. Hitchens became a right-wing courtier to such politcal titans as Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum during the Clinton impeachment era, and is now firmly ensconsed as a reliably right-wing commentator on a host of issues. Here he argues that Saddam was a threat that had to be eliminated--this despite that fact that, after over 700 US deaths, no WMD in sight, and the creation of our very own quagmire in the heart of the Middle East, we still have no good reason to be in Iraq. And Osama continues to plot. Perhaps Hitchens should stick to what he does best--getting drunk, cheating on his pregnant wife, and making an ass of himself at Washington soirees. Political analysis is, to say the least, not his strong point.
Rating:
Summary: compassion and insight in place of thoughtless rhetoric
Review: Christopher Hitchens lays out the case for the liberation of Iraq as a moral imperative, on behalf of its own citizens as much as for the rest of the world, who were similarly terrorized by Saddam Hussein. Most of the book takes the form of a series of articles penned by Mr. Hitchens throughout the run-up to the invasion through to its immediate aftermath. Particularly interesting are Hitchens's accounts of visiting Iraq both before and after the invasion, as much as a friend to its people as an investigative reporter. On every side he levels his frank and insightful assessment of the actors involved, which is not at all flattering in cases such as Jacques Chirac, Dominique de Villepin, Colin Powell, and Dubya himself - Hitchens is no cheerleader for the White House. But among Hitchens's charms is that he is not one of the great mass of partisan critics with a ready slander for anyone in his sights. Paul Wolfowitz and Gerhard Schroeder, each in his own way, both emerge from Hitchens's close inspection as fairly heroic figures. On the other hand, the most scathing indictments are reserved for those knee-jerk protesters and critics who equated the overthrow of our generation's Stalin with a war of aggression. Hitchens might be applauded for how reserved he reviews the telling account of the "human shields" who had a sudden change of heart after actually experiencing for just a few days the conditions in Iraq that its people have endured for decades. And there is Hitchens's great lament, as implied in the title: what a terrible decision it was not to carry out this completion of the Iraqi war in 1991, when instead we inexplicably quit an ideal opportunity to end the despotism. That delay led quickly to the abandonment and massive defeat of the internal Iraqi dissenters who had looked to us for support, reminiscent of our similar let-down of the anti-Castro Cubans thirty years earlier; and it led to the onset of far worse poverty and oppression of the entire Iraqi populace over the past twelve years than they had experienced under the pre-Kuwait Saddam. The outlandish costs now being sought for reconstruction are also due in large part to the steady twelve year collapse of the Iraqi economy and infrastructure. With controversy continuing on how finally to create an Iraq that is free and prosperous, it is invaluable to understand the mistakes made in the past. Amid so much of the same few simple-minded lines of rhetoric dominating public discourse, the piercing observations and original insights of Christopher Hitchens, wrapped in eloquent and eminently readable use of language, are a most welcome window on that understanding.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh, what a lovely war
Review: Christopher Hitchens' latest book is a collection of pieces he has written over the past year supporting the invasion of Iraq, most of which previously have appeared in Slate. It is not a good book, but it could have been worse. We do not have to read his argument made last summer that the left should support an attack on Iraq because Ariel Sharon opposes it. We do not read his indignant denial that the Bush administration might be manipulating the Iraq issue in order to improve the Republican position for the American mid-term elections. We do not read his castigation of anti-war protesters for ignoring the Rwandan genocide, when in fact in his own vicious polemic against Bill Clinton Rwanda didn't even rate a mention in the index. (Hitchens apparently felt that criticizing Clinton's failure to save hundreds of thousands of lives was less pressing than to use secret and anonymous testimony to denounce him as a rapist.) And finally, we do not get to read Hitchens' attack on Nelson Mandela's opposition to the war, where Hitchens sniffed that Mandela had not really demonstrated "moral courage." As opposed to the high degree of moral courage it takes to write for a journal like "Vanity Fair." But the evasiveness, slipperiness and moral posturing demonstrated in those examples are unfortunately present in the book. When it suits his purposes, Hitchens claims that Iraq and Al-Qaida or may be working together or are morally complicit with each other. When it suits his purposes, Hitchens claims we needn't worry about any Al-Qaida reaction because it was mortally wounded in Afghanistan. Although he doesn't use the term, he really does seem to believe there is an Axis of evil, not only between Iraq and North Korea, but between Serbia and Al-Qaida(?!). He criticizes those who argue that the Arab-Israel conflict should be dealt with first on the ground that this gives Hussein every chance to disrupt it, as if the converse gave no opportunities for Sharon to delay. With deliberate obtuseness he argues that those who criticizes the poor military record of professional hawks like Rumsfeld and Cheney are arguing that no-one should criticize the military. What is objectionable, of course, is the falseness of those who demand sacrifices of others but never make any themselves, and enthusiastically played Russian Roulette with other people's lives. You would also not know from this book that Hitchens opposed the use of force against Hussein in 1991. Back then he was willing to give negotiations and sanctions more time. If he was wrong then, and if he was really the model of fearless intellectual honesty he claims to be, perhaps an apology might be in order to Michael Walzer and Martin Peretz. Hitchens also argues that Resolution 1441 essentially gave the United States, or more accutately the Bush administration, the absolute right to decide when Iraq was in violation and the complete right to overthrow Hussein. He praises Bush for going for a second resolution, even though he didn't really need to, (though he makes no mention of the fact that he was only able to convince 3 out of 14 fellow security council members). Let us assume that Hitchens' intrepretation of Resolution 1441 is the right one. If so, it means that both he and Bush are using a blank cheque/Gulf of Tonkin resolution to get what they want. Likewise, there was a time when Hitchens would not have supported Britain or Poland going to war against the majority of their own populations. But in this case, the people there, and indeed most of the rest of the planet, clearly didn't know what they were talking about. Hitchens speaks of the war in Iraq as one of liberation. If Muslim fundamentalists oppose it, we should welcome their scorn. But if this is a war of liberation where are the Muslim or Arab supporters? Iraqi emigres support the war, so do the Kurds and so does Fouad Ajami. But from Casablanca to Karachi, from Bosnia to Nigeria, where are the others? And if the neo-conservatives cannot bring democracy to the only country in the area they really care about, Israel, why should we believe they will do any better with Iraq? When it suits him Hitchens has a long, if fuzzy memory. Twice Hitchens misdates the Iraqi invasion of Iran, six weeks before the American presidential election of 1980, to 1979 so as to get around Jimmy Carter's criticisms. But there is no mention of how Cheney and Rumsfeld helped to partition Cyprus, or of Wolfowitz's deliberately tendentious work as a member of "Team B" on the Soviet threat. But even though the Republicans were wrong on the Maronite Falange, the USS Vincennes, the Pakistani alliance, the assassin of Bernadotte and the butcher of Kafr Kassem, it would be unpatriotic to be critical now. Regardless of whether one supports the war or not, Hitchens is clearly less skeptical and less informative than his fellow Slate colleagues, or even The New Republic, on such issues as the Al-Qaida link, WMD, the representativeness of Chalabi, or what a post-war Iraq would actually be like. But then amnesia over this book could only help Hitchens' reputation.
Rating:
Summary: The savage wars of peace
Review: Great stuff, Hitchens has finally seen the light.
Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"
Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
Rating:
Summary: Predictable Spewage From Another Talking Head
Review: Hitchens first became somewhat of a celebrity during the Salman Rushdie fatwa. He was all over the place talking about how fanatical the Muslims were for doing such a thing. I never really understood the fatwa myself, until I tried to read Satanic Verses. I didn't find it sacreligious or anything, just incredibly pompous and overwritten and bo-ring, you know, the way Christopher Hitchens' articles in Vanity Fair are. It was just plain awful. And then the Fatwa kind of made sense to me. And then Hitchens wrote a scathing indictment of Mother Teresa, in which he alleged that she mainly funded her operations though heroin smuggling, prostitution and child pornography. And then he treated us to his opinions on the Clintons, who he claims are the most evil, violent, corrupt creatures to ever walk the earth. And now he treats us to this reverential tribute to George W Bush and his great and just war against the millions of terrorists in Iraq. He actually implies here that George W Bush may well be Christ reborn. That's how objective he is. Then of course, Hitchens spent a month or so as one of the "embedded journalists" (aka White House Cheerleaders)in Iraq, during which he developed his impassioned love and admiration for Bush and the war. As Dinesh D'Souza might observe, here is another example of what makes America great - another great story of an immigrant making good in America -- an angry, opinionated self-proclaimed journalist, yakking and writing his thoughts on everything without proof of anything, and making quite a name for himself.
|
