If shooting dead horses or setting fire to straw men is your thing, then you'll love Christopher Hitchens latest screed in today's Slate. The column takes on supposed
apologists for terrorism as practiced by Indonesia's Jemaah Islamiyah.
Where are these apologists in the US exactly? Certainly not in the virtual pages of Slate. Nor are the apologists actually quoted anywhere by Hitchens--making one wonder if any exist at all. Perhaps he's thinking of the former Iraqi information minister or a spokesperson for Jemaah Islamiyah itself?
Of course, Hitchens isn't really talking about real apologists --the sort of conservatives who would make excuses for Hitler while waggling their fingers at CIO organizers in the 1930s (much like Hitchens today). No, Hitchens real target is anyone who dares to criticize current US foreign policy.
(More below, starting with C. Hitchens, in his own words!:)
Here's Hitchens trying--lamely-- to connect the two unconnected dots:
[S]hudder if you ever said, or thought, that the bombs in London in July, or the bombs in Baghdad every day, or the bombs in Bali last Friday, are caused by any "policy" but that of the bombers themselves.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2127343/
Hmmm...in other words, what? If you see any connection between US policy over the past 1, 5, 10, 50 or 100 years and what's actually occurring in Baghdad and elsewhere--you're now an apologist for terrorism? Now that's a sad excuse for honest op-ed writing.
No longer able to take on rational opponents of current US policy given the failed realities in Iraq, Hitchens has apparently resorted to debating tired British leftists and to inventing his opponents as apologists for terror--attributing to them views so far outside the political mainstream in the US that many people wouldn't know they existed -- were it not for Hitchens.
Yes, another barrage of bile from America's foremost dead horse hunter.