Christopher Hitchens?

Seriously, let’s cut to the substance here. Hitchens has been wrong about nearly everything WOT-related these past few years, event by event. Whether it’s the alcohol or plain old hubris, I certainly can’t say. He’s a brilliant writer and rhetoritician, and I admire him for that. I read him for the fireworks he produces, piece after piece.

His politics, however, are becoming increasingly foolish. He believes things that aren’t true and convinces others of them.

But hey, when all logic fails, resort to ad hominem attacks. Hey, who does that remind me of?

Let’s say someone says Kobe Bryant has such a sex addiction that it has seriously hurt his playing. A website shows some amazing stats that completely disprove the initial allegation. Many sports fans offer the SAME stats. By your logic, they MUST have stolen it from that website. You’re very smart. LOL

Some weeks later I saw Hitch on ABC’s “This Week”, where he concluded his remarks by saying,

“…I shall go on keeping score about [the Iraq war] until the last phony pacifist has been strangled with the entrails of the last suicide-murderer.”…

Hitchens looked pretty darn shaky to me and his color was not that good; it seemed that he could have used that “maintenance drink” right then. And when Hitch made the remark about strangling “the last suicide murderer” with the entrails of “the last phony pacifist”, his host, George Stephanopoulos, looked at him the way one would look at a crazy uncle, made no comment, and turned to ask someone else a question.

Ah, but you do!

Stealing from Andrew Sullivan’s blog.

[Bzzt!]

Debilitating drinking problem? Well, Christopher writes for Slate, Vanity Fair, Atlantic, London Times, etc., he usually has at least one book a year published, is the only journalist i know of to travel to iran, iraq, and north korea, makes frequent television appearances, teaches at the New School in New York, gives frequent speeches and debates, etc.

I wish i had such a debilitating problem. And as far Cole not being one to be messed with. You’re correct. I wouldn’t mess with a guy who cries about getting lawyers involved anytime someone says something about him that he doesn’t agree with.

I also question the self esteem of a man who links a site that basically says, “that guy is cool.”

“Honey, do you see this? They say i “pwned”. Well, no, i’m not quite sure what it means. But don’t you see? The kids think i’m hip!” *giddy dancing ensues*

Here’s what Cole says about that phrase:

He quoted Khomeini that “the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time.” It is in fact probably a reference to some phrase in a medieval Persian poem. It is not about tanks.

What does “vanish from the page of time” actually mean then? Cole tries to insinuate that it would mean something to “withdrawing from Jerusalem,” just like withdrawing from Gaza. But he provides zero evidence for this translation. And at least one Iranian has pointed out that the phrase does, in fact, mean something akin to “must be destroyed.”

Why are we supposed to find it comforting that Ahmadinejad wants Israel to be destroyed, as opposed to “wiping it off the map”?

Especially when that phrase occurs in the context of a speech that, as Hitchens points out at length, is chock-full of statements that clearly indicate a desire for Israel’s destruction.

You know what is so pathetic? Cole doesn’t even TRY to answer the main point of Hitchens’ article — i.e., that there are many other indications that Ahmadinejad wishes for Israel’s annihilation. All Cole can do is whine about his email, reprint inflammatory pictures, accuse Hitchens of being drunk, etc. Anything but an actual answer to Hitchens’ point. All Cole can do is nitpick about whether the phrase should be translated literally, or whether it’s OK to use an English-equivalent idiom.

Okay, here are two phrases in English, each with a different meaning.

1) “This too shall pass.”

2) “We are going to kill people.”

Note that ‘pass’ is often used in English in the sense of someone dying — e.g., ‘to pass away.’

Therefore who can say that they’re not equivalent — that ‘this too shall pass’ doesn’t refer to the killing of a person? Answer: Someone who speaks English.

Now, of the two contenders in this argument over translations from Persian, one of them speaks Persian and the other doesn’t. I, personally, would think it wise to go with the one who actually speaks Persian instead of the guy who merely collects bits of Persian translations from US press accounts, trusting that they mean what he thinks they mean.

Throwing more suspect Hitchens translations into the mix (and labeling them ‘facts’) can certainly produce what seems to be an argument. I would say, however, that it isn’t an argument, but merely a bunch of stuff thrown together.

Like Hitchens’s piece.

Fact 1: In his prior email, Cole offered a translation of a single sentence: “The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).”

Fact 2: Cole claims that this merely means that Israel should stop occupying any part of Jerusalem, just as Sharon stopped occupying Gaza. As Hitchens points out, this apology is pathetic: Is it really better for Iran to want Israel to “vanish from the pages of time”? That phrase clearly points to Israel’s total destruction.

Fact 3: Hitchens ALSO pointed to several OTHER remarks that are completely consistent with wanting to destroy and eliminate Israel: “Our dear Imam targeted the heart of the world oppressor in his struggle, meaning the occupying regime. . . . For over fifty years the world oppressor tried to give legitimacy to the occupying regime, and it has taken measures in this direction to stabilize it. . . .If we get through this brief period successfully, the path of eliminating the occupying regime will be easy and down-hill.”

Fact 4: Hitchens claimed that “Professor Cole has completely missed or omitted the first reference in last October’s speech, skipped to the second one, and flatly misunderstood the third. (The fourth one, about ‘eliminating the occupying regime,’ I would say speaks for itself.)”

Fact 5: Cole offers ABSOLUTELY NO REBUTTAL to Hitchens’ claims here. He doesn’t offer another translation for phrases like “eliminating the occupying regime.” He doesn’t even try.

Conclusion: Anyone who says that Cole refuted Hitchens doesn’t even comprehend that there’s more to the debate than nitpicking over the single phrase “wiped off the map.”

Thanks for the link to Cole; I wouldn’t want to have missed that. A warning about the photos would have been nice, though.

I’m tempted to ask what’s the story on the 4-year-old kid sitting with the man behind barbed-wire…but I’m pretty sure the answer would leave me more heartsick than I already am.

’nuff said…

Ok, I just gotta say one thing. I write. I write for fun. I write to relax. Oh, yeah, I write for a living. And there are times when my work has been eloquent, powerful and true. But that, up there, the shit in italics? Dammint, when you can build sentences like that, where the power and the passion live side by side and don’t get in each other’s way? You have broken thru–to the place where at least eighteen of us appreciate the work. Thanks…

mikey

We are not going to let you have a war against Iran. So sit down and shut up, American Enterprise Institute, and Hudson Institute, and Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and American Heritage Institute, and this institute and that institute, and cable “news”, and government “spokesmen”, and all the pundit-ferrets you pay millions to make business for the American military-industrial complex and Big Oil. We don’t give a rat’s ass what Ahmadinejad thinks about European history or what pissant speech the little shit gives.