The flip side of #Hitchens - was he really a leftist?

Is he fantasizing about Iraqis being killed for WMD?

As a counterweight to all the encomiums of praise from (primarily Gnu) Atheists, it is perhaps well worth asking just how much of a leftist he was in the first place, as far as political stances, and how long ago he started, then finished, abandoning the degree of leftism he had, the World Socialist website take on his death is a blast of fresh air:

Hitchens was the sort of private school “leftist” that British society regularly turns out, essentially snobs and careerists, who ditch their former “comrades” as soon as the wind shifts or more tempting opportunities present themselves. His autobiography is an exercise in shameless name-dropping and self-promotion. ...

In the late 1990s, by which time Hitchens had largely given up his leftist pretensions, the Washington Post bluntly portrayed the circles he belonged to in the US capital as “an elite subset of Washington society—the crowd of journalists, intellectuals, authors and policymakers, mostly in their thirties and forties, who regularly dine together and dine out on each other.”  

Too bad there's no Hitchens left any more, to turn in his grave after it being pointed out that he was filleted by an "establishment" newspaper.

Realistically, I should have titled the post the "dark side" of Hitchens, not the "flip side." If you'll click the link above, or read Glenn Greenwald, linked below, this man was just as bloodthirsty over the Iraq War as George W. Bush or Donald Rumsfeld. And, he had long ago stopped being a leftist, if he ever was one totally in the first place.

World Socialist also says that the story of his various "fallings out" with left groups, such as the Nation, was as much myth as reality, and offers this among examples:

D.D. Guttenplan in the Nation, for example, writes: “The last time I saw Christopher was in the summer of 2009, when he materialized at the edge of the audience after I’d done a reading at Politics and Prose in Washington. There had been a kind of froideur [coldness] between us over various matters, some personal and some political, and I was deeply touched that he’d come. After we exchanged kisses, he asked if I was free for dinner and I explained that I was going out with my cousin and her daughter … Agreeing—or disagreeing—with all of Christopher’s positions over the years was impossible. But he was always very easy to love.”

The WS obit may be uneven here and there in its claims, and here, neglects to say that many people found him personally likeable, even loveable, whatever political disagreements were involved. And, don't we all name-drop at times? And, I'm not a Trotskyist, so I don't feel qualified to parse its comments in that area.

But, it has its good points, and others. As a real journalist of, say, the Middle East with some sort of truly left-of-center claims, I'd take Robert Fisk over Hitchens any time, from British journalists. (It should be noted that Fisk, among others, has won an Orwell Prize. The prizes are non-partisan, but reflect depth of political thought. Hitch's own brother, Peter, won one, too, as did Patrick Cockburn of the famous left-liberal family. Well, except for Alex, who's now writing for paleocons, which in itself may well say something about British left-liberalism!)

So, laud Hitchens, and rightfully, as a Gnu Atheist, or just as an atheist. Laud him as a dropper of bon mots, like Oscar Wilde. Laud him for his English style. Laud him for his essayist skills.

But, don't laud him for his deeper journalism. Or deeper political thought. And, don't even laud him without accepting that he had a dark side, not just a flip side, and that, because he's a public figure, if you go beyond laud to hagiography, people will fire back.

And, let's add to that, this. Was he really an Orwellian type civil libertarian, either?

An even better “counterweight” to Hitchens encomiums than the World Socialist one — Glenn Greenwald nails it, including the issue on etiquette of public figure vs. private figure deaths. Go read it, including this thought:

 And particularly over the last decade, he expressed views — not ancillary to his writing but central to them — that were nothing short of repellent.

Basically, Greenwald does at least a good a “takedown” of Hitch, if not better, than Hitch did of Gore Vidal, on his politics.

While we may laud him as a Gnu Atheist, or just as an atheist, we cannot do so without noting that, to put it bluntly, he was a warmonger who valued Muslim lives in general little more than Sam Harris, and did little more to distinguish between Muslim fundamentalists and average Muslims, in many cases, among other things. Yes, he was a warmonger. And, like Harris, not much different that way than Christian or Jewish neocons. (Somebody alert P.Z. Myers that there are conservative Gnu Atheists.)

Sorry, but, an atheist who was like Hitch was the last 10-15 years of his life, while he had dignity in dying, while living was not the best example of humanism, or close to it.

As for “getting facts straight,” which humanist/paleoatheist R. Joseph Hoffmann claims? Balderdash. He never admitted that he and the BushCo War with Iraq regime he supported got massive amounts of facts wrong. In fact, he refused to admit this to the end of his life, often engaging in scurrilous name-calling when challenged.

He was a great literary stylist. A good literary intellectual, even.

But, in many ways, perhaps petty and shallow. Even if we allow for his upbringing, and his drinking, that's still no excuse for the way he became with the "War on Terror." As Greenwald also notes, his literary skill doesn't give him a pass, either.

There’s one other aspect to the adulation of Hitchens that’s quite revealing. There seems to be this sense that his excellent facility with prose excuses his sins.

Maybe the Hitchens of 20 years ago would have rebuked the Hitchens of 10 years ago. But, I actually doubt that.

Greenwald, in an update, even tackles that, indirectly. Quoting Hitch, Greenwald notes that what's good for the dead goose is good for the dead gander:

The day after Jerry Falwell died, Hitchens went on CNN and scorned what he called “the empty life of this ugly little charlatan,” saying: ”I think it’s a pity there isn’t a hell for him to go to.” As I said, those demanding that Hitchens not be criticized in death are invoking a warped etiquette standard on his behalf that is not only irrational, but is one he himself vigorously rejected.

So, there it is.

No, none of us have perfect lives. But, Hitchens, over the Iraq War, was just like the neocon politicians that Gnu Atheists generally love to mock.

Mousavi needs to get more organized on ‘intifada’

As protests over the Iran election results continue in Tehran (and perhaps elsewhere in Iran, but that’s where the Twittering, as well as the limited media coverage, is happening), the ever-insightful, indefatigable Robert Fisk says opposition leader Mir Mousavi needs to get more organized in controlling what Fisk – who would know from his reporting background – calls an “intifada.”

Basically saying that “Kumbaya time” has failed, Fisk said Mousavi needs to do more:

You don't overthrow Islamic revolutions with car headlights. And definitely not with candles. Peaceful protest might have served Gandhi well, but the Supreme Leader's Iran is not going to worry about a few thousand demonstrators on the streets, even if they do cry "Allahu Akbar” from their rooftops every night.

Mousavi, to win, needs to organise his protest in a more coherent way, not make it up on the hoof. But does Khamenei”have a longer-term plan than mere survival?

Well, know, Khamenei probably doesn’t. And, neither does Mousavi.

Unplanned revolts and revolutions are usually the bloodiest, history shows, precisely because there aren’t organized leaders to ride herd.

So, the Iranian bleeding, for what isn’t that much of a reform by secular western liberalism standards continues, continues to brutally slouch toward Isfahan.

Are Tehran Twitterers also myth-spreaders?

Well, Robert Fisk, in his latest dispatch engages in shooting down inside-Iran rumors,
First, he shoots down, or at least challenges, Rumor No. 1: That a student was killed at the start of this week, shot in a protest:

(A)n Iranian woman muttered to me in an office lift that the first fatality of the street violence was a young student. Was she sure, I asked? “Yes,” she said. “I have seen the photograph of his body. It is terrible.” I never saw her again. Nor the photograph. Nor had anyone seen the body. It was a fantasy. Earnest reporters check this out – in fact, I have been spending at least a third of my working days in Tehran this past week not reporting what might prove to be true but disproving what is clearly untrue.

Next? The ongoing claims that Iranian cops are really Hizbullah. Fisk, who has lived in Beirut since 1976, and covered the Middle East pretty much continually since that time, ought to know, and he does.

They don't even look like Arabs, let alone Lebanese. The reality is that many of these street thugs have been brought in from Baluch areas and Zobal province, close to the Afghan border. Even more are Iranian Azeris. Their accents sound as strange to Tehranis as would a Belfast accent to a Cornishman hearing it for the first time.

Next, he shoots down the myth that Basij militia thugs had taken over presidential candidate Mir Mousavi’s HQ. Yes, uniformed men were there, he says: Mousavi’s own security company.

Next, he challenges the fantasies of the likes of Juan Cole, and others who claim that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had lost all support from poor urban dwellers:

When I visited the slums of south Tehran on Friday, for example, I found that the number of Ahmadinejad supporters grew as Mousavi's support dribbled away.

In other words, Ahmadinejad has had the support of the poor all along. Juan Cole can keep on deluding himself about that, but at some point, I think he recognizes that he’s going beyond self-delusion.

It’s easy to see how, in the herd mentality of a place like protesting Tehran, especially under-30 protesting Tehran, how Twittering could become a driver for rapidly expanding urban legends.
Are Tehran Twitterers also myth-spreaders?

Punditry on Iran from serious to vapid – read Fisk!

Jeffrey Goldberg at Atlantic has a good overview of how the situation in Iran has bent or broken some traditional American political categories on foreign affairs stances. I don’t totally agree with his take on realism, but it’s still a good piece.

One of the people he gives a bit of a flogging is fellow Atlantic contributor Andrew Sullivan. And, Sully delivers, right on cue. Like his post of Thursday claming “this is the central event of modern history right now.”

Ahh, such prophetic foresight! And, with it, the breathless idea that:
A. Mousavi really is that different;
B. That the election was, for sure, rigged, and rigged badly.

Sully also makes unwarranted assumptions vis-à-vis other world events. For example, Pakistani citizens taking matters into their own hands against the Pakistani Taliban earlier this week. Sully, are you sure that’s less important? Or North Korea’s plans to launch yet another missile? Or, something that may happen next week that we don’t even know about?

If you really want vapid, though, Joe Klein says head for the dynamic neocon duo of Krauthammer and Wolfowitz.

And, if you really want serious, your must-go starting point is Robert Fisk of the Independent who, unlike Sully, University of Michigan professor Juan Cole of liberal darlingdom, Wolfowitz, or Krauthammer, is an actual reporter, not a columnist, and has spent more than 30 years living in and reporting from the region.,

He’s a realist with generally somewhat liberalist sympathies and knows what the hell he’s talking about. His latest dispatch engages in shooting down inside-Iran rumors, such as claims that Iranian cops are really Hizbullah.

Next, he challenges the fantasies of the likes of Cole:

When I visited the slums of south Tehran on Friday, for example, I found that the number of Ahmadinejad supporters grew as Mousavi's support dribbled away.

In other words, Ahmadinejad has had the support of the poor all along. Juan Cole can keep on deluding himself about that, but at some point, I think he recognizes that he’s going beyond self-delusion. (Cole is approaching the point of PC liberalism, foreign policy division, in my book. Sully is just approaching his normal fatuous stupidity which his support for Obama disguised for six months.)

That said, Cole does have a good guest poster, former Reuters Tehran bureau chief Jeffrey Lyons, offering an overview of the likely mindset of many senior Shi’ite clerics at this time.

For Westerners believing Mousavi’s truth claims

An alleged confidential letter from the Iranian minister of interior, Sadeq Mahsuli, to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claims Mir Mousavi nearly quadrupled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vote total in the June 12 Iranian presidential election, and that Ahmadinejad came in third behind Mehdi Karroubi. Karroubi, like Mousavi, claims to be a reformer, yet also claims to support Supreme Leader Al Khamenei, showing just how meaningless Western-type labels are in Iran. (Are you listening, Juan Cole and Sully?)

Speaking of meaningless, in the story, Robert Fisk wonders, naturally, if if’s a forgery. If so, he says it’s the biggest one in Iranian history since Bud McFarlane and Ollie North went to Iran in 1986 on stolen Irish passports with forged information.

Fisk – Ahmadinejad won, but not by that much

Robert Fisk, esteemed historian and journalist, reporting from Tehran, says Mahmoud Ahmaninejad probably beat Mir Mousavi by about 53-37 percent, with the rest for the other two presidential candidates.

He also says he’s freely traveling around Tehran and nobody’s stopped him.

Take that, Sully and Juan Cole. Let's be real. Fisk his reported on the ground from Iran and other danger zones in the Middle East for decades. Although he hasn't said what the Guardian has about Western liberal pundits and wishful thinking, Fisk is a realist. Combine that with his nose to the ground, and I am sure he's more likely to be right than Sully or Cole.

So, if Fisk, and Leverett, and others, are right, that leads us back to cui bono, to use the old Latin.

And, again, I come back to the same name: Ayatollah (and former president) Akbar Rafsanjani.

Robert Fisk has a GREAT take on the Iraq 5-year anniversary

British journalist, historian, and all-around chronicler of the Middle East Robert Fisk offers his take on “The only lesson we ever learn is that we never learn”.
Much of it attacks the Blair administration for becoming more American-like in having its politics driven by press conferences and TV deadlines. But the heart of the essay, and its title, is touchstoned by a Pat Buchanan quote:

“With our MacArthur Regency in Baghdad, Pax Americana will reach apogee. But then the tide recedes, for the one endeavour at which Islamic people excel is expelling imperial powers by terror or guerrilla war.

“They drove the Brits out of Palestine and Aden, the French out of Algeria, the Russians out of Afghanistan, the Americans out of Somalia and Beirut, the Israelis out of Lebanon. We have started up the road to empire and over the next hill we will meet those who went before. The only lesson we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.”

Fisk then tackles the Blairs, Bushes and others who postured as Churchills, despite not knowing, or listening to, history. He derisively says we should call the former British PM “Anthony Blair — as we should always have called this small town lawyer.”

Then, Fisk offers new looks at the grim statistics of casualties:

The total of US dead in Iraq (3,978) is well over the number of American casualties suffered in the initial D-Day landings at Normandy (3,384 killed and missing) on 6 June, 1944, or more than three times the total British casualties at Arnhem the same year (1,200). …

Iraqi casualties allow an even closer comparison to the Second World War. Even if we accept the lowest of fatality statistics for civilian dead – they range from 350,000 up to a million – these long ago dwarfed the number of British civilian dead in the flying-bomb blitz on London in 1944-45 (6,000) and now far outnumber the total figure for civilians killed in bombing raids across the United Kingdom – 60,595 dead, 86,182 seriously wounded – from 1940 to 1945.

Indeed, the Iraqi civilian death toll since our invasion is now greater than the total number of British military fatalities in the Second World War, which came to an astounding 265,000 dead (some histories give this figure as 300,000) and 277,000 wounded. Minimum estimates for Iraqi dead mean that the civilians of Mesopotamia have suffered six or seven Dresdens or – more terrible still – two Hiroshimas.

And, non-casualty statistics on why we continue to draw Osama bin Laden’s ire;

If there are, as I now calculate, 22 times as many Western troops in the Muslim world as there were at the time of the 11th and 12th century Crusades, we must ask what we are doing. Are we there for oil? For democracy? For Israel? For fear of weapons of mass destruction? Or for fear of Islam?

The problem is, as Fisk has stated, all too few people have asked these questions. And, all too many of those in power have only asked them in a rhetorical sense, having already supplied their own answers.