Hitchens on War
Tamerlane’s forensic facial reconstruction by M.Gerasimov, 1941—image by shakko
I’m reading Arguably by Christopher Hitchens, an encyclopedic assemblage of his book reviews and essays the NY Times blurbed as “One of the 10 Best Books of the Year.” He covers quite some ground in 750 pages. Published in 2011, the introduction begins with the initial Arab Spring uprisings, wanders into a rage against blind faith martyrdom and ends with an almost aside on his own early death in his 60s by esophageal cancer.
To stand against Mohamed Atta, a supreme nihilist, “a cold and loveless zombie—a suicide murderer—who took as many innocents with him as he could manage,” Hitchens declares:
“Tides will ebb, waves will recede, the landscape will turn brown and dusty again, but nothing can expel from the Arab mind the example and esprit of Tahir [demonstrations in Cairo]. Once again it is demonstrated that people do not love their chains or their jailers, and that the aspirations for a civilized life—that ‘universal eligibility to be noble,’ as Saul Bellow’s Augie March so imperishably phrases it—is proper and common to all.”
from the Introduction to Arguably by Christopher Hitchens.
My son scorns Hitchens’s support of the Iraq war. Can’t say that I blame the boy. Whatever disgust one had for Saddam Hussein’s megalomania, gassing his country’s Kurds as payback for rebellion, and likewise draining the swamps to persecute the southern Iraqis who opposed him, it didn’t seem necessary to repeat the shock and awe from the earlier Kuwait war.
Once you start taking out tyrants, where does one stop? What qualifies for dismissal—how many people assassinated, and does dying of starvation qualify? However comforting it was for Americans to witness the kickass weaponry that trillions spent on the military paid for, it didn’t justify dragging the Iraqi people through that misery.
I can admit to a certain relief discovering the US can still kick ass, yet mourn the wasted lives resulting from ill-chosen decisions. The US sits on top because we’re big enough and can still kick ass. Not too enlightened, but given world history, it’s better being top dog, eh? Listening to the recent 4th of July celebrations—with fireworks by the ton—they suggest a propensity toward violence. We must like the noise.
Hitchens was accused of joining the Neo Cons, derisively defined as leftists having seen the light. He claimed the war was a moral necessity and was always cheerfully willing to go against the grain. Controversy was good for the soul according to him. While I sympathize with his disgust for the Stone Age Islamicists, cooler heads ought prevail in setting the nation’s agenda. If for no better reason than “revenge is a dish best served cold.”
As angry and riled as the US was after 9/11, invading Iraq to remove Hussein was not George Bush’s finest foreign policy decision, with Chaney like a small devil hunched on his shoulder urging him on.
Lewis Black, the local comedic thorn in Bush’s backside, had the perfect simile. Black acts out Bush standing with pretend shotgun in hand aiming at, “Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan,” then turning sideways to shout “Iraq!” A two-fer if ever there was one.
We once dragged our Republican neighbor, Rob, to see Lewis Black. D and I thought his wife didn’t much vote Republican, so we outnumbered him 3-to-1. Rob faked his enjoyment very well—and seemed to enjoy Black’s frequent use of those one syllable Anglo-Saxon exclamatives. Lewis Black reminds me of a less polished, more outrageous ranting Christopher Hitchens. With apologies to both for the comparison.
Hitchens had a doubled problem with Islamicists: terrorists to start, then with the fanatics’ misinterpretation of Islam. “Religion made me do it,” never flew with him.
To be clear, the Spanish royals persecuted the Moors straight out of Spain, and Pope Leo X of those days cheered them on. Killing heathens has been a longstanding Christian tradition, religion in the name of conquest being practiced since Cain beat his brother.
One got a whiff of the Englishman in some of Hitchens’s opinions—heart of the former British Empire still beating strong. He admitted 9/11 freed him from pacifism, cheering the war over what he saw as a mortal danger—as if Islamists might overtake his adopted country. He followed in his father’s tradition, the naval officer, in going after pirates and raiders. Seems his father participated in sinking the Scharnhorst battleship in WWII, whereas the son sunk many a struggling debater going against him.
“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” His general take on religions of all stripes and colors.
Pithy epigrams aside, what made Hitchens a formidable debater was a quick wit backed by a first-rate English public school education. However, his record at foreseeing the future wasn’t much better than fifty-fifty. He stands with Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle in wanting wishful thinking to be government policy. He was sure the US and allies would prevail in Iraq, as they would in Afghanistan. Sorry, Hitch.
After twenty years, how many lives, and how many squandered billions, with little to show for the war begun three presidents before him, President Biden’s decision to withdraw US troops and air support from Afghanistan is one of those lose-lose choices presidents get to weigh, if they’re to stay truthful to their oaths. Obama should have cut his losses, and Bush shouldn’t have lost sight of the original goal. Trump—who the hell knows what he thought between rounds of golf?
Did Afghanistan ever stand a chance for coming forward into the present era? It was always a long shot, though the Afghan children grown to adults in this same time don’t deserve what they’ve suffered.
One wonders if Hitchens would approve of our withdrawal. A good guess is no.
Rory Stewart is saddened—by what he sees coming—as do a number of people not necessarily war hawks wanting to continue blowing up shit. To watch the Taliban drive Afghani women back into slavery and the entire county back to the Stone Age is hard on the soul. When the US and allies went into Afghanistan, chasing Osama Bin Laden seemed necessary. Later, when Colin Powell testified to the world, addressing the UN that Hussein’s Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, if true perhaps necessary to deal with, still it seemed we were taking an eye off helping Afghanistan move away from that country’s addiction to tribal warfare.
George Bush ran for president declaring the US should not be about nation-building—then let his administration, Chaney, Wolfowitz, Perle, et. al. attempt exactly that in both countries. If we ever had a shot at succeeding in Afghanistan, it was lost with the invasion of Iraq.
Stewart’s own story of hiking across Afghanistan in clear terms described the Sisyphean task we faced in replacing that country’s internecine wars with something resembling a nation. The Prince of the Marshes tells of a similar task, of his work as part of the post-invasion coalition striving to stabilize southern Iraq, only to see it fall apart again when the troops were withdrawn. One might point to him as one more example of myopic conceit—the white man among the natives, though I give him credit for the attempt, particularly since he himself doesn’t miss seeing the ultimate failure.
Hitchens quotes James Madison who was confronting the Barbary States, “It is a settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.” Is it not fair to think Afghans might reach a similar determination after this latest foreign invasion?
World History 101
Persian Empire (550-330 BCE) [1]
Alexander the Great (336–323 BCE)
Maurya (India) Empire (320-185 BCE)
Kushan (Afghanistan-India-Pakistan) Empire (135 BCE -375 CE)
Chinese Empire (221 BCE-1912 CE)
Gupta (India) Empire (320-550 CE)
Roman Empire (27 BCE-476 CE)
Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire (395-1453 CE)
Pratihara (India) Empire (650-1036 CE)
Mongol Empire (1206–1368 CE)
Ottoman Empire (1299-1922 CE)
Safavid Empire (1501-1736 CE)
Mughal Empire (1526-1857 CE)
British Empire (1583-1997 CE)
Russian Empire (1721-1917 CE)
[1] BCE = Before Current Age. CE = Current Age
What you see in this incomplete succession of empires is the overlapping, conquering and ultimately failed powers which left scarred effects on this part of the world. They represent, in list form, the poor, sad story of the Middle East and Afghanistan.
It’s not the fault of their current day inheritants, and yet it is their burden—and failure when they themselves bring it down on their families, clans and tribes.
Risk as Metaphor
I don’t know how many hours I killed as a teen rolling dice and playing Risk. For those under 30 and the other three who never played, the goal of the game is world conquest, and yes, a bunch of long haired hippies played—we made jokes about it, since even hippies saw irony.
In Risk, you gained extra armies once you controlled one of the ‘continents.’ The larger the continent, the larger the payoff. Right from the start, some players went after Europe, or China, even the US, but my strategy was to start from the smaller continents–Australia, South America or Africa. A lot of players ignored Australia. But the early rounds were about surviving with insufficient strength, and those extra few armies saved my butt repeatedly. Plus, who’d want Australia’s two measly extra armies?
Africa was a better continent than Australia, but you needed to defend against Asia and Europe—as well as South America. Bad dice rolls and you were toast.
Defending South America from North America and Africa was easier. But you couldn’t advance solely out of Australia—it was too easily blocked and what you had to conquer from there was all of Asia. So I’d always try for South America and Australia both, then hold on while the other players fought over the big continents, right and left, right and left, blow to the body, blow to the head, and so on.
Once South America and Australia were captured, I focused on Africa, or if the dice rolled my way, North America or Europe. It was all about keeping a base to resupply the armies getting destroyed on the front lines. Like what we were hearing about Vietnam. At Clemson I played with Byron and Harry and anyone else who wanted in. Yes, there was Vietnam for real in the background, but none of us had been ‘volunteered’—yet.
They classify Risk as one of the ‘war games’ played by aspiring military and foreign service folks. Huh.
New Rome
In the real world, the US is protected from traditional invaders lacking navies, and even then—witness the Brits trapped at Yorktown—things didn’t go so well with them. Later WW II brought home this geography lesson to the Nazis and the imperial Japanese.
Though I would argue we are protected by more than the oceans in that we have had so few internal enemies wishing the United States ill. The last try—the most dangerous—was from our own good southern brothers and sisters. What was proved in that internecine struggle was the county’s biggest weakness—up until now. This is no game of Risk.
We are blessed by not being besieged by the roiling conquests the tribes of Afghanistan have endured. The blood that’s been spilt over those stones is enough to make you cry. Rory and innumerable others who’ve been to those mountainous places, some fighting, some just crying in silent remembrance, all wish they might see a better day. I wish for real peace—even a burqa-draped one—in Afghanistan.
It’s been said a few times before—we need to keep to our own side of the pond, which in this case I’d stretch to include all the world’s aspirants at living in peace instead of digging graves on top of the ones already dug. How many more like Tamerlane do we need?
Emir Timur (Tamerlane) feasts in the gardens of Samarkand—by Sharuf ad-din Ali Yesdy