tygerland.net

I am absolutely astonished by the lack of coherence in Christopher Hitchens’ response to Francis Fukuyama’s “After Neoconservatism” essay. Every fallacy is employed and every diversion made.

Hitchens simply misses the point that Iraq has been a huge failure. He alludes to the violence across the world (in the wake of the Mohammed cartoons) as justification for military action, rather than accepting the wars role as a constituent factor in the radicalisation of the Islamic World.

Mr. Hitchens also peddles the default question of do we – the war’s opponents - advocate a world with Saddam still in power? This is a deliberate Red Herring to avert the argument from the fact that the operation has been a huge, unmitigated tragedy. Simply attempting to take the moral high ground, does not excuse a lack of preparation and application. I would ask Mr. Hitchens, does he advocate the removal of all tyrannical regimes across the world, by force if necessary?

Ideological myopia is no excuse for unleashing an inferno of hatred and suffering. Yes Hitchens is right to argue that Islamic extremism and sectarianism pre-dates the invasion, but all we have achieved in this endeavour, is reinforcing the oft-abused argument that Western imperialism is the root cause of the all the ills in the Middle East.

Fukuyama was right about Iraq, in more ways than he choose to admit, when he said, “By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy.”