May 5, 2006
WHAT PASSES FOR DEBATE ON THE LEFT:
Hitchens the Warmongering Hacker (Juan Cole, May 5, 2006, AlterNet)
Christopher Hitchens owes me a big apology. [...]All the warmongers in Washington, including Hitchens, if he falls into that camp, should get this through their heads. Americans are not fighting any more wars in the Middle East against toothless third-rate powers. So sit down and shut up.
One, two, three, four! We don't want your stinking war!
We are not going to see any more U.S. troops come home in body bags at Dover for the sake of some Cheney affiliate grabbing the petroleum in Iran's Ahvaz fields.
We are not going to have another 15,000 wounded vets flood onto our streets with spine damage and brain damage.
We are not going to put Yazd behind barbed wire to liberate it, as a millenarian Christian general did to Habbaniyah in Iraq.
We are not going to imprison and torture thousands of Iranians at Evin Penitentiary in Tehran, as worthy successors to the bloodthirsty Shah and Khomeini.
We are not going to kill 200,000 Iranians with aerial bombardments of Tabriz, Isfahan, Qom, Kerman, Shiraz and Mashahd.
We are not going to let dozens of U.S. corporations loot the American people and the Iranian people alike with no-bid "contracts," embezzlement, corruption, and graft.
We are not going to let you have a war against Iran.
So sit down and shut up, American Enterprise Institute, and Hudson Institute, and Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and American Heritage Institute, and this institute and that institute, and cable "news," and government "spokesmen" and all the pundit-ferrets you pay millions to make business for the American military-industrial complex and Big Oil.
To call such folks infantilized is to do a disservice to youngsters who, after all, can't control their body functions. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 5, 2006 7:54 AM
Sounds like a Yalie to me.
Posted by: Jeff at May 5, 2006 8:18 AMI suppose he would be flattered if we called him the 'academic' Cindy Sheehan.
Posted by: jim hamlen at May 5, 2006 8:25 AMYou can listen to Hitchens response to this at radioblogger.
Posted by: Shelton at May 5, 2006 9:38 AMCole's slipping; he's coasting on his reputation; he's phoning it in. Not one mention in the whole rant about the "Israel lobby." Not one! Somebody call Quality Control, pronto!
Posted by: Mike Morley at May 5, 2006 9:59 AM'One, two, three, four! We don't want your stinking war!'
so, whadda say to that Hitchens?
LOL
Posted by: JonofAtlanta at May 5, 2006 10:55 AMWho is this "we" he refers to?
I think he means the ant-war left, not the American people in general. If George Bush or John McCain or Rudy G. decide to attack Iran, that will be it. The "we" he talks about will have the same immpact as they had on Iraq policy.
He is right about one thing, a war betwen the US and/or Israel and Iran will have only one rapid outcome.
Posted by: Bob at May 5, 2006 11:00 AMI like the part where he calls on "all university students" to start holding anti-war rallies. Ninety-nine percent of them will, of course, respond by doing nothing and ignoring him. What must it feel like to want to be a rabble-rouser, but not have any rabble to rouse?
Posted by: Brandon at May 5, 2006 11:49 AM"You sir have the boorish manners of a Yalie." -- Montgomery Burns.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at May 5, 2006 12:21 PMBzzt - That was said by one of the writers of Itchy and Scratchy when Roger Meyers, Jr. threw a name plaque at him. Monty Burns was a Yalie himself.
Bryan got there before I could. Since many of the Simpsons writers went to Harvard, they naturally chose to have the ultra-evil Mr. Burns attend Yale (although, according to the Wikipedia article about Mr. Burns, he was partially based on Martin Feldstein and Michael Sandel).
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 5, 2006 3:01 PMBryan:
Of course, Meyers threw the name plaque at him after he delivered that line. Meyers originally threw a wad of paper into his mouth when he requested a rendition of "Fair Harvard." Heh heh.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at May 5, 2006 3:05 PMGeez, these people need new material. And a friend of mine who was in college during the Vietnam War said the only time there were anti-war demonstrations on campus was when a test was scheduled.
Posted by: sharon at May 5, 2006 3:08 PM