Informed Skepticism is best
Hitchens vs. Hitchens
The above is a very long debate between Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens which outlines a few of the issues of both the Iraq war and the notion of god. Tension drips with every exchange and, while Peter says nothing new in the debate against the war, Christopher makes some very interesting points, though, like Doe, I cannot help but to be skeptical of both the pro war front that claims that the ends justify the means. Taking a political despot from power is reason enough for being there. The anti war campaign would leave such a man in power, allowing him to continue killing Kurds. I suppose you could tally the amount of civilians killed by us against the number of Kurds and civilians Hussein is believed to have killed during a five year average to see at what margin we are justified to be there, but that would be a pretty lame excuse.
At any rate, the US is in Iraq, there is no question there. We have taken Hussein from power, for better or for worse, and, if the Iraqis ever appreciated us being there, we are unquestioningly staying beyond our welcome, though leaving may or may not incite more violence.
George Bush would have us believe that he knows more about what is going on than we do, and many war advocates cite this as reasons not to doubt the need for our presence in the region. Whether or not this is true, it is clear that he will not be the one that continues to make decisions, thankfully. A man so dogmatic and unwavering regardless of the will of the people is tiresome to the rest of us.
So what should this lead us to believe about the Iraq war? The need to continue to be skeptical. For most of us, all we receive is propaganda from both fronts, some of it is absurd and some of it is plausible. We can really only hope that the next administration is transparent, informing us of the reasons for decisions through dialogue. And while the primaries are nearly over, we still have choices we need to make to decide what form of leadership we want for the next four years.
The above is a very long debate between Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens which outlines a few of the issues of both the Iraq war and the notion of god. Tension drips with every exchange and, while Peter says nothing new in the debate against the war, Christopher makes some very interesting points, though, like Doe, I cannot help but to be skeptical of both the pro war front that claims that the ends justify the means. Taking a political despot from power is reason enough for being there. The anti war campaign would leave such a man in power, allowing him to continue killing Kurds. I suppose you could tally the amount of civilians killed by us against the number of Kurds and civilians Hussein is believed to have killed during a five year average to see at what margin we are justified to be there, but that would be a pretty lame excuse.
At any rate, the US is in Iraq, there is no question there. We have taken Hussein from power, for better or for worse, and, if the Iraqis ever appreciated us being there, we are unquestioningly staying beyond our welcome, though leaving may or may not incite more violence.
George Bush would have us believe that he knows more about what is going on than we do, and many war advocates cite this as reasons not to doubt the need for our presence in the region. Whether or not this is true, it is clear that he will not be the one that continues to make decisions, thankfully. A man so dogmatic and unwavering regardless of the will of the people is tiresome to the rest of us.
So what should this lead us to believe about the Iraq war? The need to continue to be skeptical. For most of us, all we receive is propaganda from both fronts, some of it is absurd and some of it is plausible. We can really only hope that the next administration is transparent, informing us of the reasons for decisions through dialogue. And while the primaries are nearly over, we still have choices we need to make to decide what form of leadership we want for the next four years.
Labels: Hitchens, Iraq War, Skepticism
posted by Nate at
4:26 PM
1 Comments:
I watched that debate a little while ago and just loved it. The tension in the air sure was thick, it would have been fun to see it in person.
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