Hitchens on Flag Burning

I really love Hitchens. A few nights ago I caught a re-broadcast on Book TV of him speaking at Annapolis about his book on Jefferson. His talk was very good, and it can be viewed online at CSPAN2's website if you haven't seen it. I also heard a clip of Hitchens debating blasphemy laws with Stephen Fry, which was great. And his talk at Randi's Amazing Meeting 3 was fantastic as well.

Hitchens is a brillient man, and I love that he won't be tied down to a particular political category. He's one of the few people that really can be called an independent. It's fun seeing the left flip out because Hitchens is no longer their darling socialist; and it's fun seeing the discomfort on the right because, despite his support of Bush in the War on Terror, they know he can turn against them in a flash as well.

I really can't stand Hitchens and his selfrighteousness and apolgetics for imperialism at the expense of someone else's blood, but of course I agree with what he says here.

I see Hitchens as more of a brazen opportunist - a socialist back in the early days when all the cool people were doing it, an imperialist and neocon apologist when people were burning Dixie Chicks albums and putting 'Support the Troops' stickers on their cars, and now, of course, a liberal when Republican approval has reached an all time low.

I frankly think this is exactly the kind of simplistic false dichotomy that I seem to do battle with endlessly. Hitchens either has to be on your side 100% or he must be either on the other side or just a shameless opportunist, as though one can't possibly disagree with one side on some things and agree with them on others. "Liberal" and "conservative" are not the only two options. The fact that he's for the war does not make him a conservative any more than Pat Buchanan's opposition to the war makes him not one. Calling him an "apologist for imperialism" does not address his arguments for the war, it merely engages in what I often call the argumentum ad labelum. There is no contradiction whatsoever between supporting the war in Iraq but being opposed to flag burning legislation and a staunch supporter of individual rights. The fact that his opinions cross political lines that you think mean something doesn't mean he's "changing sides" or that he's contradicting himself; it might just mean - in fact, I'll bet it does - that those lines are drawn in arbitrary places.

Hitchens definitely has a chaotic approach to politics, far more than my simple blend of liberalism and libertarianism. His talk at TAM3 was excellent; the one he gave this year was barely audible and seemed terribly scattered.

I've tried the last two years at TAM to get his attention long enough to ask how his expressed attitudes towards Islam differ from the classic colonialist "The ni____s begin at Calais"; on one day he'll make noises that differentiate between fanatic and moderate Islam, and the next fire off a soundbite that seems to lump all the heathens together. For one who can be as eloquent as he is in the flag-fetish piece, that imprecision seems suspicious.

I've gotten some flack for having Hitchens in my blogroll. Things like this are exactly why he's there. I want to illustrate that people can be operating from the same core principles yet end up different ends.

Was he sober when he wrote this piece?

Or maybe there's a window of clarity when his blood alcohol is within a certain range.

Ed, you may be the one with the false dichotomy. I clearly said that I don't like Hitchens but that I agree with what he said on flag burning. What does that statement have to do with a false dichotomy. Ãan't I dislike a guy and much of what he says for what I consider legitimate reasons? Can't I point that out? In my view, if a person takes enough positions on enough things that I disagree with, I can legitimately question the validity of anything he says, whether I agree with him or not. In fact, if I see a guy doing stupid things for a long time, and then he tells me to go ahead and do something I want to do, I have to seriously consider whether I might be making a mistake. I am sure that I am not making a mistake in vehemently oppposing the flag worship amendment (I have opposed that for a long time, and I contacted both my senators on this. Who else did?) but the principle remains the same.

Liberals generally object to the fact that Hitchens supports really dumb stuff like the war in Iraq. If he just wrote pieces like the one quoted above, I don't think you'd hear a peep from liberals. Certainly not from me. Certainly I don't know anyone who wants to see him go back to being a socialist.

Actually, Hitchens' outlook is rather consistent. He has drifted from socialism, but still fervently supports the welfare state. He opposes, above all, totalitarianism - and you certainly can't argue that Saddam's state was the idyllic realm of Michael Moore's fantasies. I'm not taking up the mantle of the pro-Iraq war position - I'm just arguing that, unless to be of the left is to oppose all war, Hitchens can certainly (1) support the effort in Iraq to leave a stable government with a modicum of democratic rule, (2) oppose the Right at home when it seeks to write its particular morality into law.

Ed, Hitchens has been a rabid warmongerer for this administration. An administration which clearly regards freedom (for anybody but themselves) as an evil. That isn't good for the first amendment. Hitchens' token support for the first amendment doesn't outweigh that.

I think Chuck hits it exactly right. Whether Hitchens is right or wrong about the war (and I tend to think he's wrong), I think it's rather silly to call him an "imperialist" or a "warmonger". Those are just emotive phrases intended to dismiss someone out of hand, rather like "liberal" has become (or any of dozens of similar buzzwords and catchphrases that are designed to short circuit thought rather than encourage it). I find it even more silly to reject him as an "opportunist" when there's nothing inconsistent about his positions. I find Barry's argument particularly weak. He writes:

Hitchens has been a rabid warmongerer for this administration. An administration which clearly regards freedom (for anybody but themselves) as an evil. That isn't good for the first amendment. Hitchens' token support for the first amendment doesn't outweigh that.

This is highly illogical. Support for the war and support for the first amendment are entirely separate issues. Hitchens has been a vocal supporter of the war - largely because he fervently believes it will increase freedom for the Iraqis - but also a vocal opponent of administration's policies in regard to civil liberties. There is nothing the least bit inconsistent about those positions (again, even if he's absolutely wrong about the war). There is nothing "token" about his support for the first amendment. A political administration is a huge hodgepodge of different policies, some of which might be good and some of which might be bad. One can certainly support them on issue A while rejecting them on issue B without having their support on A undermine their credibility on B (unless, of course, their position contradicts on those issues, and here it simply does not).

I believe the Bush administration's actions (especially in Iraq) are clearly imperialistic, since this administration advocates and practices "extending the power and dominion of a nation especially by direct territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas." Hitchens supports this behavior. That makes him an imperialist. It is not an emotive phrase intended to dismiss someone out of hand; it is a description of his beliefs as expressed in his writings and his speech. The term is distasteful for a reason, but that does not make it any less accurate.

Mark-

I think that definition is entirely too broad. By that definition, we were being "imperialistic" to destroy Hitler's reign in Germany or Tojo's reign in Japan. After all, we extended our power over them and gained quite direct control of both nations, set the conditions for our withdrawal, even wrote new constitutions that would determine their whole future society. Was that a bad thing? I can't imagine a coherent argument for why it was.

Now, one can make at least coherent arguments for why this particular war is a war of imperialism, but that still doesn't mean that Hitchens supports imperialism because he clearly has a very different view of the purpose of the war. For him, this is clearly a war of liberation. Whether he's right or wrong, he is supporting what he views as liberation, not imperialism. It's just too casual a dismissal, without actually bothering to engage the arguments he makes. My opposition to the war is practical, not principled. 20 years ago, I was writing letters on behalf of political prisoners in Iraq and urging our government to stop supporting Hussein and work to get rid of his brutal dictatorship rather than prop it up. I think if the war had been done right in the first place, it might well have achieved that and established a relatively stable, peaceful nation there (it's not certain, of course, as there are many roadblocks to it, but it's certainly possible). That doesn't mean I trust this administration's goals at all; I don't think they give a damn about liberation. But in order to evaluate the arguments being offered by someone like Hitchens, you have to deal with his position, not the positions of those who may agree with him for other reasons. He may be wrong, he may be naive, he may be blinded by his friendships with the Kurdish leadership; those are all reasonable arguments one could make against his position. But that doesn't make him a political opportunist, nor does it make him an advocate of imperialism.

Ed, the comparison to WW II is specious. Iraq never posed a credible threat to the US, while the Axis posed very clear threats to the US, not to mention the fact that the Axis powers had already attacked and invaded historically important US allies. The US kicked Iraq out of Kuwait; perhaps the US had given signals (inadvertant or otherwise) that it was OK for Iraq to invade Kuwait, but our part in that war was at least not as the aggressor. The second Gulf War is another issue altogether. We are unquestionably the aggressor in this case, however evil the Saddam regime might have been. We deposed the existing government of Iraq to try to set up a government that we liked, and that makes us imperialists. That fits Merriam-Webster's definition of imperialism, which is the one I used. I'm not sure we will ever know all of the true reasons that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq, but freedom for the Iraqis never seemed to occur to anyone until it was clear to everyone that there were no nuclear weapons in Iraq.

Hitchens might or might not be a true humanitarian, but his beliefs still require that others shed their blood, while all he offers is pontification.

I personally believe that it is a betrayal of the President's oath of office and duty to the people and Constitition to commit American lives to any purpose other than defending the US. I think the US government can work in many ways to help spread liberty and peace in the world, but military action is not the right way for an American President to achieve those goals.

Mark wrote:

Ed, the comparison to WW II is specious.

But it was encompassed by the definition of imperialism you offered, and that was my point. Certainly we can argue about whether going into Iraq was justified, and on what grounds, but it's not "imperialism" merely because it meant taking over territory.

We are unquestionably the aggressor in this case, however evil the Saddam regime might have been. We deposed the existing government of Iraq to try to set up a government that we liked, and that makes us imperialists. That fits Merriam-Webster's definition of imperialism, which is the one I used.

I don't think this is a reasonable or serious definition, nor does it reflect the real world. If we went in to the Sudan and took out the genocidal rulers there, that would also be imperialism by this definition. It would also be the morally correct thing to do. Military action is not inherently right or wrong, nor do I think it should necessarily be limited to defending the nation. Stopping the genocide in Darfur would not help defend the nation, but it would be morally right (whether we should do it, by the way, is a separate question that requires consideration of more than just the moral aspects of the question). But you're making a pure moral argument, and a very broad one, that any time we take any military action that is not strictly for self-defense, that amounts to imperialism - and that I simply do not accept. Were we being imperialist to go into Bosnia and help end the genocide there and stabilize that region? It certainly wasn't in self-defense. I just think that you're painting with far too broad a brush. There are serious debates about when we should and shouldn't take military action, and the position that we should never act except in self-defense is a serious position. But it cannot be made strictly on moral grounds.

'm not sure we will ever know all of the true reasons that the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq, but freedom for the Iraqis never seemed to occur to anyone until it was clear to everyone that there were no nuclear weapons in Iraq.

But Bush's reasons don't necessarily reflect Hitchens' reasons. It's hardly surprising to find out that two people can support the same policy for entirely different reasons.

Hitchens might or might not be a true humanitarian, but his beliefs still require that others shed their blood, while all he offers is pontification.

Again, far too broad. The same could be said of anyone who supports any military response in Darfur (not just an American response; a UN response would also require that "others shed their blood"). Calling someone's arguments "pontification" is, again, just a way of dismissing them rather than answering them.

Ed, I think we might disagree on some fundamental points, and I think we might agree on some as well. I doubt either will convince the other. However, one last comment. My argument has nothing to do with morality. I don't consider imperialism moral or immoral. I don't necessarily consider it right or wrong, or ethical or unethical. I do feel very strongly that the government of the United States is wrong in Constitutional terms to commit the lives of American citizens for any purpose other than defending the United States. That is one of the major purposes of having central governments. Spreading freedom and ending bloodshed outside this country, however praiseworthy in humanitarian terms, is not one of the purposes for which we instituted a central government.

Mark:

But that is a moral argument, and it's still a separate question from whether a given intervention amounts to "imperialism". Surely, if we went into Darfur to end the genocide, it would be folly to call that an imperialistic move. I just don't think it's a serious argument to sat that any military action not in self-defense amounts to imperialism. We can certainly argue all day long about when the military should be used, but I just don't think it's reasonable to say that someone who supports a military intervention for humanitarian reasons, or for the purpose of freeing an enslaved nation, is an imperialist. If one could show that their claims of humanitarian concern are merely a cover for an imperialistic motive, one might be able to make that argument; but Hitchens has been vehemently on the side of freeing the Kurds for two decades now, so I don't think one can seriously make that argument here. He may be wrong; he's not an imperialist.