Hilarious Reddit thread. September 3, 2007
Posted by Lindsay in Humor, Media, Soldiers, War.2 comments
The third war. August 28, 2007
Posted by Lindsay in Criticism, Hyperreality, Media, Soldiers, War.add a comment
Christopher Hitchens is admirable for his refusal to cater to extremes of moral relativism by tolerating archaic, reprehensible practices, even if he never does quite manage to avoid sounding bombastic and narrow-minded when he does it. In general, I agree with him that religion is one of the most harmful systems to ever permeate civilization, even though I probably respect its positive attributes for people who feel they need it in their lives a little more than he does. But he is perhaps the only remaining member of the intelligentsia who manages to defend the Iraq War while maintaining his dignity. He usually argues compellingly, but ultimately, his interpretations of the evidence he finds are misconceptions.
In his latest valiant attempt, he says that based on the multitude of fronts we are fighting, the Iraq War is actually three wars, and that the United States is winning two of them. “There are currently at least three wars, along with several subconflicts, being fought on Iraqi soil. The first, tragically, is the battle for mastery between Sunni and Shiite. The second is the campaign to isolate and defeat al-Qaida in Mesopotamia. The third is the struggle of Iraq’s Kurdish minority to defend and consolidate its regional government in the north,” says Hitch.
It’s an intriguing concept, but not quite new, because the third war — the one we’re losing, according to Hitch — is actually the “battle” with the Maliki government, and its failure to step up to take over the reins of controlling its own country. Hitch rightly condemns the Maliki government for relying too heavily on the presence of coalition troops and not working seriously enough for fair distribution of political influence in local and national government among the Kurdish, Shia, Sunni demographics, saying: “Maliki himself has recently attacked the coalition forces for carrying out raids in Shiite districts of Baghdad. Perhaps [Maliki] ought to be told that he is not being lent our armed forces for the purpose of installing Shiite power.”
