Most of the commentary arising from the death of Christopher Hitchens has been highly laudatory regarding his life and work and that trend accords with my own view. Here though, I want to briefly consider two critical pieces, one from the The Economist and another from The Cedar Lounge Revolution, a widely read leftist blog from Ireland.
The Economist’s anonymous writer tells of how his break came with Hitchens came over the latter’s support for the Iraq war and notes that the words “casualties”, “torture”, and “dollars” don’t appear in one of The Dude’s latter justifications of his view.
You’d find it hard to come across a publication at a greater ideological remove from the The Economist than the The Cedar Lounge Revolution, a blog that’s resolutely old left on domestic issues and Third Worldist on all matters that occur beyond Ireland’s borders. For the CLR’s writer, Hitchens and those who agreed with him on Iraq and the war on terror
… were always wrong of course, but 5-6 years ago there was, at least, an argument. Now it’s clear, even to them, just how wrong they are….
Now of course there were good reasons to oppose the invasion of Iraq, I did so myself at the time, but I think it’s noteworthy that two such ideologically diverse sources should regard it as such a clear dividing line between the righteous (themselves) and the damned, those who think that the Iraq War, in spite of everything, has a couple of things to be said for it:
- Iraq’s Kurds are free and safe as never before in their history. They have their own country in all but the legal technicalities. They’re certainly better off than their brethren who enjoy the dubious benefits of Turkish democracy.
- The people of Iraq are now governed by representatives they chose themselves. Iraqi politics is a bit of a mess of course but there’s been no lurch to a new dictatorship and the Iraqi government proved resolute enough to resist (foolish) American pressure to leave a residual garrison. In this latter regard the Iraqis have shown themselves to enjoy greater freedom of action than was permitted to the defeated Axis powers after WWII. So much for the American empire arguments.
- Iraq controls its own natural resources. Time has proved the oil argument to be complete bullshit.
- The Shiites of Iraq can now worship freely in accordance with the demands of their faith and have a role in their nation’s life in accordance with their numbers.
- The chances of Iraq seeking to invade any of its neighbors or develop WMDs seem slight.
These don’t seem like slight gains to me. Of course they don’t excuse what can’t be excused about the war, but who believes that there can be war without horror? No one except pacifists, among whose ranks neither The Economist nor The Cedar Lounge Revolution would count themselves. Furthermore, while both The Economist’s man and the CLR’s writer would say that they didn’t support Saddam’s regime they seem quite unconcerned about the fate of the Iraqi people had it endured.
It just seems that there’s a certain class of commentator who can’t stand the notion that the use of Western military power could have brought at least some good with it and that class cuts across traditional political divisions.
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