One for the Hitchens’ fans

Sometimes you just have to laugh:

“An Arab country with the second largest proven oil reserves, a fierce revolutionary ideology, a large and recently-blooded army, and a leadership composed almost entirely of men in their thirties is obviously a force to be reckoned with. Iraq, which has this dynamic combination and much else besides, has not until recently been very much regarded as a power. But with the new discussions in Opec, the ending of the Kurdistan war and the new round of fighting in Lebanon, its political voice is being heard more and more. The Baghdad regime is the first oil-producing government to opt for 100-per-cent nationalisation, a process completed with the acquisition of foreign assets in Basrah last December. It was the first to call for the use of oil as a political weapon against Israel and her backers. It gives strong economic and political support to the ”˜Rejection Front’ Palestinians who oppose Arafat’s conciliation and are currently trying to outface the Syrians in Beirut. And it has a leader — Saddam Hussain — who has sprung from being an underground revolutionary gunman to perhaps the first visionary Arab statesman since Nasser

It gets worse.

“Dining with an old man on a houseboat moored in the Tigris. I discovered that he inadvertently embodied the history of modern Iraq. He had been imprisoned in 1941 for opposing the British, again in 1959 for hostility to Kassem’s pro-Russian line and finally in 1969 by the present regime. The last of these had, he said, been easily the worst. He was personally interrogated by Nadim Kzar, then head of the secret police and since executed for his crimes. There had been torture and brutality of a far worse sort than his previous incarcerations. And yet he declared that he thought the present government the best Iraqi Administration he had seen. Why? ”˜Because it has made us strong and respected.’ There seems no getting round this point. From the festeringly poor and politically dependent nation of a generation ago, Iraq has become a power in every sense — military, economic and ideological.

The writer even praised Saddam’s relationship with the Kurds!

“Iraq constitutionally recognises that she is a partly Kurdish state, which is more than Iran or Turkey do”

He even finishes with a prediction

“Saddam Hussain will rise more clearly to the top. Make a note of the name”

The name we should all be making a note of is the person who not only wrote this haigiography, but who has, to our knowledge, never apologised for, nor withdrawn these weasel words.

What is worse is that this writer is now a respected “opinion former” who regularly appears in print and on the television where not once is he challenged on his foul and disgusting, fascist worshiping past. Let’s all make sure that wherever we hear his name we inform people of just what a social leper such a person should be.

Oh sorry, his name?

Why it’s Christopher Hitchens!

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