This Slate link was forwarded to me by a friend who voted for Bush in 2000, but whose centrist nature eventually caused her to conclude that this administration was out of control. She voted for Kerry in '04.
Today a freeper friend of hers sent her the link to "Conspiracy Theories: If you liked The Da Vinci Code, you'll love the Downing Street memo" by Christopher Hitchens.
The only other text of the email was from the freeper, to my centrist friend: "I think you know this but in case you don't, Hitchens is a liberal."
I would like to have ignored it, but I didn't want my friend to be swayed back to the dark side, so I read and then refuted the hit piece. It was surprisingly easy.
The link to the Hitchens hit piece:
http://www.slate.com/id/2121212My email reply:
1) True, Hitchens was once a liberal. Now he's a conservative ... as if his political beliefs have any bearing on whether Bush & Co. committed the crimes they're being accused of. Actually, by the "Hitchens is liberal" standard, my personal opinion on the Downing Street Minutes holds added weight because I am a conservative ... oh, I mean I used to be, years ago.
"One book,
The Missionary Position, condemned Mother Teresa as a self-serving egotist; another,
No One Left To Lie To, was a fierce denunciation of Bill Clinton."
"At one time Hitchens was considered a staunch member of the Anglo-American left. In recent years however, especially in the wake of September 11, 2001, his reputation has shifted, and is now regarded as a somewhat more conservative and hawkish."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens2) I don't know how much of his extraneous bullshit is ego, how much is an attempt to muddy the waters, and how much is just typing to feel himself type, but he's clearly not trying to get to the heart of the matter (Da Vinci Code, the WTC implosion, grounded planes on 911, the Iranian hostage "October Surprise" scandal ... none of this seeks to determine why Bush told the media, Congress and the American people that we were invading Iraq on the basis of WMDs).
This is just mental masturbation for the few conservatives remaining who aren't yet ready to admit they need to find a better conservative leader.
3) Hitchens seems to want to downplay the Downing Street Minutes as much as possible:
"On a visit to Washington in the prelude to the Iraq war, some senior British officials formed the strong and correct impression that the Bush administration was bent upon an intervention."
"Some senior British officials" sounds a little vague. In fact, that wording comes across as far less ominous than
Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6. MI6 is Great Britain's CIA. So what Hitchens is saying is that the singular head of British intelligence correctly (Hitchens' own assessment) formed the opinion that Bush was determined to invade Iraq. Hitchens leaves out the part where Bush was, at the same time, telling all of us that the decision had not yet been made.
4) "Their junior note-taker committed the literary and political solecism of saying that intelligence findings and 'facts' were being 'fixed' around this policy."
These are the official government minutes of an official government intelligence briefing, and as such, have not been disputed by anyone in attendance. The time to dispute the wording of the minutes would have been before the participants, including MI6 head Richard Dearlove, approved them.
5) "Never mind for now that the English employ the word 'fix' in a slightly different way—a better term might have been 'organized.'"
Yes, never mind, because the only people trying to make this distinction are American conservatives who want to discredit the proof of Bush's deception. I have not heard a single person from Great Britain pretend to try to pass this one off.
Besides, it's irrelevant. The minutes say fixed, but here is the quote with "organized" in place of "fixed".
Remember, the junior note-taker was summarizing the words of Dearlove, who was reporting on his meetings with U.S. intelligence.
"There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being
organized around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
Fixed, organized, whatever. Is bush willing to admit that the intelligence was being
organized to fit the policy of invasion? No, he's still denying it. So why the little fixed-organized trick?
6) "Who is there who does not know that the Bush administration decided after September 2001 to change the balance of power in the region and to enforce the Iraq Liberation Act, passed unanimously by the Senate in 1998, which made it overt American policy to change the government of Iraq?"
Many did not and still don't know that, because instead of going to Congress, the media and the American people with "we need to invade Iraq on the basis of the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act", Bush accused Iraq of hiding stockpiles of WMDs, and sought to scare us with rhetoric about mushroom clouds.
He did this because he wouldn't have gained enough support for the invasion by telling the truth. He gained support for the invasion by lying. It was a criminal act, resulting in the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqi civilians and over 1,700 U.S. soldiers.
7) In summary, Hitchens is about the tenth Bush-defender this month to admit that we all knew Bush was lying to us, and then claim that knowing it justifies the lie. It's the best defense they have, and it gives me a very warm feeling inside.
Thanks!
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