18
Feb
We’ll always have Hitch
Obviously, I hope he’s okay and it certainly sounds like he is. In any case, no one could have predicted that Chris Hitchens would get drunk and deface a political poster:
I don’t know if you find this as news worthy or not, but Christopher Hitchens is currently in Beirut sponsored by the same group that owns that crap NOW Lebanon. He got in a few nights ago and surprisingly went out drinking. On his way out of the bar he saw an SSNP poster and wrote on it “Fuck the SSNP”. There just happened to be some SSNP thugs near by—most likely asking people for their ID, and most likely to no avail—and saw him write on the poster and kicked his ass. He is still walking with a limp.
You have to admire the guy’s pluck, no?
John Cole
This increases my liking for him by unmeasurable quantities either way, but I read it was at lunch and he wasn’t hammered.
Stuck
Hitchens is a character for sure. Sometimes the difference between "Pluck" and Stupid is measured in Martini’s.
I have more than once, proved this true.
Lesley
Hitch is an alcoholic. That’s all.
eyeball
Hmm. We justed busted that artist Fairey here in Boston for graffiti. (He did that Obama ‘Hope’ poster …) Cuffed, mugged and a night in the pen. We called it "law and order."
lot of bad ice cubes in beirut saloons?
Warren Terra
I saw this at Attackerman in the afternoon, with a link to Abu Muqawama, and they certainly were alleging intoxication. I hope he wouldn’t be dumb enough to publicly deface the poster of an organization whose main function is reported to be street thuggery outside their own bar SOBER, is all I’m saying.
wilfred
I doubt he knew who the SSSP are and what they do in Lebanon. Of course he was a supporter of the zionist destruction of Lebanon, and every other aggression committed against Arabs and Muslims since 9/11, when he got religion and became a kind of John Cole of the right – in his case the pseudo-leftist who found his inner bully and reveled in the killing of brown-skinned wogs of a certain religous persuasion.
The SSSP, who I don’t care for btw, stood up to the israeli cluster bombs dropped on South Lebanon. Hitchens rationalized them. In Lebanon, he deserves to get his ass kicked. He can get his ass kissed in New York anytime.
Just Some Fuckhead
What wilfred said, except John Cole is already kinda the John Cole of the right.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
You have to admire the guy’s pluck, no?
...no. That was just stupid.
Balconespolitics
Has Hitchens officially entered the "the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about" zone?
Roger Harrison
No. He’s a douche-bag with an english accent. Hell, I’d kick his ass just to wipe the supercilious sneer off his face. He thinks he’s smart when he’s just glib, and profound when he’s just being contrary. I doubt it’ll teach him anything because his sense of who he is is larger than his common sense.
Mazacote Yorquest
I have to say I’m a little disappointed with "Fuck the SSNP" given his flair for words. I would have thought he would work in Oswald Mosley somehow.
Comrade Kevin
@wilfred:
plus:
You don’t know the slightest thing about Hitchens, do you? Of course he knows who they are.
Chuck Butcher
After reading JC for a couple years and having sufficient acquaintance with Hitchens’ work I think the comparison denigrates our host. I won’t try to make IQ comparisons but JC’s intellectual processes are superior and his communication skills equal or better. I might give Hitchens the edge at word smithing, maybe.
baba
Personally I have Zero admiration for drunks, hell even some serial killers love cats.
Perry Como
I may disagree with Hitchens on various issues, but the guy got his ass kicked for expressing his beliefs. I’d respect Cantor a little bit more if he did the same.
Scott
Nope, I don’t think I do.
different church-lady
His pluck or his stupidity, one or the other.
John Cole
Can’t sleep, so I am watching the dog show again, and I just don’t get what people saw in the French bulldog. There were lots of other dogs who seemed to be much better examples of their breed.
Garrigus Carraig
@John Cole:
It’s a little more embarrassing if he was sober, no? He has access to an international audience for his ideas, but he chooses adolescent graffiti as a mode of expression.
Also? His being at lunch in no way, I would guess, decreases the likelihood he was hammered. [/cheapshot]
GSD
Graffitti is pretty juvenile stuff. Hitch would have shown some real pluck by tossing his shoes at Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
-GSD
Delia
You know, usually I agree that Hitchens can string the words together, no matter how big an ass he is, but "Fuck the SSNP" just lacks a certain brio.
Delia
@John Cole:
Clearly, it’s time for a dog show thread.
Stuck
Next great wingnut scoop. Politico finds instances where Obama actions have not been posted on the WH website. One especially heinous oversight below, that portends doom for America. I mean what kind of evil sneaks American Heart Month by the media, and watchful eyes of the loyal oppo/wingnuts
The ever vigilant Newsbusters are hot on the case though.
That Obama, he’s sooo like Bush.
dr. bloor
I don’t actually think it’s possible to construct a true sentence that has "Hitchens," "lunch" and "wasn’t hammered" in it.
Lancelot Link
If Hitchens were caught writing, for example, "Fuck the Steelers" on a poster in Pittsburgh, I think the ass-kicking would be similar.
Chuck Butcher
I used to drink, 20 yrs ago, I was good at it or more accurately I wasn’t good at not. I did some pretty risky and stupid things – my luck was that they were domestic rather than international. Obviously 20yrs sobriety means the consequences built up fairly high.
I’ve pretty much stopped that really stupid stuff since it seems so much less reasonable sober, but the chances I’d be found in a place like Lebanon without a freaking cannon under my arm are infitissimal. And yes, I carry when recreating in our NE OR mountains, otherwise hardly ever.
For those that know something about such things, .45 Colt 355gr @ 1350 fps if animals are the question. No, not factory and yes, only a couple handguns can handle it. Ruger Vaquero.
eyeball
—has anyone read joe the plumber’s book yet?—i keep seeing the pajamas ad and i was wondering whether there was comedy gold …
—i agree with cole: there hasn’t been a decent westminster winner since the clumber in ‘96.
—has obama gotten that dog yet? sheesh. what’s the holdup?
Mnemosyne
Add me to the list of people who are puzzled as to why Hitchens should automatically be assumed to be sober at lunch.
Hitch did go in some very strange directions post-Clinton and post-9/11—I had completely forgotten he co-wrote a book with Edward Said defending the Palestinians back in the late 1980s.
AnneLaurie
Give him some credit—Hitchens will proudly OWN being "adolescent… as a mode of expression." A guy who’s willing to take money for being photographed & writing about getting a full Brazillian has yet to outgrow his not-so-inner teenager.
More seriously, the definition of "functional alcoholic" means that the individual in question is never actually sober. They tend to be at their absolute worse when they’re a quart low, which might have been the situation if his Lebanese hosts didn’t realize that a steady trickle of alcohol was required to keep Hitchens from doing something self-destructively anti-social.
srv
Maybe Hitch and Joe can get a bar together. By their own accounts, we don’t deserve them.
Common Sense
@eyeball:
Oh, come on. Stump was awesome. A 70 year old who nearly died 5 years back wins Best In Show? Especially after the owner entered him on a lark 5 days beforehand? Great story and cute dog.
Michael G
I cannot tell if you are making a joke or not.
DougJ
Conversely, I’d respect Hitchens more if, instead of writing another anti-religion book, he put out an anti-religion video set to the tune of “Back In the Saddle”.
DougJ
@John Cole
(1) You think he’s not hammered at lunch?
(2) Does this sound like something someone would do when they weren’t drunk?
AnneLaurie
Back when I was paying attention to conformation dog shows (pre-internet), Westminster was regarded as a very expensive form of professional advertising but not as a good breed venue. Because it’s a benched show, there’s a very limited number of entries, with spots allocated to each breed via an arcane & complicated formula second only in opacity to the one used for college football bowl games. The only qualification for entry is that each dog must be an AKC champion… which only ‘guarantees’ that the animal doesn’t have any blatant disqualifications, and that its owners were persistent enough to keep paying entry fees until at least three judges decided there was nothing better in the ring on a given afternoon. And while the entries within each breed were technically "first come, first served", somehow the top professional handlers always managed to secure a slot for whichever dogs they happened to be campaigning that year. So the competition within each breed would consist of a sprinkling of Big Names, the flavor-of-the-year dogs being shown by the high-dollar handlers, plus some dogs from the vast no-name ranks of professional breeders who felt they had a potential contender, and a few what-the-hecks by hopeful newbies who’d managed to beat the postal lottery. Westminster’s one way to get a look at some breeds you’ll never see otherwise, and to get an idea of what’s popular in any given breed this year. But if you want to know what a well-bred French Bulldog or Sussex Spaniel really looks like, you’re better off going to the nearest regional or national specialty.
wilfred
@Comrade Kevin:
I know plenty, certainly enough to know he’s a pathetic, drunken asshole who deserves the same amount of respect of any other pathetic dunken asshole, which is to say none.
He was once a ‘leftist’, but more of the radical chic variety than the genuine kind. His inner scumbag was and is revealed in his pleasurable musings on dead Arabs and Muslims, and since the defining criterion of a leftist, in a global sense, is his or her position on the oppression of the weak, stateless and poor he’s found his real home with the oppressors he once reviled. He ended up on the reactionary right, where he belonged.
Incidentally, you illiterate twat – the expression ‘get religion’ is a metaphor for his awakening to what he really was – a fascist wrapped in leftist rhetoric – not a reference to real religous conversion.
As’ad is a Marxist, and shares Hitchens’ fetish about Mother Theresa. However, As’ad is also well aware that Hitchens once was a supporter of Palestinian rights. After 9/11 he joined the right in celebrating zionist murder of Lebanese children.
FWIW, kudos for citing As’ad’s blog.
TenguPhule
Meanwhile Hamas continues to break the truce by still firing rockets at Israel.
It’s hard to dredge up any sympathy for idiots who keep asking to get the shit kicked out of them AMIRITE?
wilfred
Even children? This is the israeli in his self-righteous glory. Finally a worm to grind into the dust, and you call it righteousness.
Resistance will not die, you’re going to have kill lots more children and their mothers. Bibi supporter?
Chuck Butcher
You could take a whole lot of either side and drop them in a pit full of rabid skunks and I’d root for the skunks. Suicidal theocratic assholes are leading both populations into disaster and a lot of people are having their lives screwed to a fare-thee-well by them. Oh yeah, I have sympathy, but I sure don’t place it with leadership. As for the boosters of one side or the other from the outside, well, it’s a really impolite expression.
TenguPhule
Yes, think of the children living in fear of Hamas rockets suddenly dropping in their playgrounds.
The fear of children who can’t even trust the safety of their beds because Hamas likes to shoot them in them.
Yeah, think of the children.
TenguPhule
Why do you hate skunks so much that you’d punish them that way?
wilfred
Yeah, I do. Typical zionist obfuscations. Oh, btw, what about this latest indication of israel’s committment to peace?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember Americans, that’s your tax dollars at work.
I like the bit about how Obama’s mideast envoy is opposed to settlement expansion. What? Obama isn’t?
wilfred
Oh, and Likud’s man in the White House seems to have forgotten a few things, too.
Well, well, well.
TenguPhule
You get to complain about that after the rockets stop firing.
Until then, you are merely the cries of a fool who thought picking on the people who outgun him a couple hundred times over was a good idea.
wilfred
@Chuck Butcher:
Again, we, Americans, pay the tab for one group of theocratic assholes. That’s the entire fucking point. Read this article and tell me you feel exactly the same:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/60853.html
wilfred
I’m an American, you stupid zionist shit. I get to complain how my tax dollars are spent no matter who fires rockets into the land that was stolen from them. And the day you have to stand on your feet and answer for an endless series of war crimes the world will be a better place. Stop wanking about American crimes and covering up your own.
Stand up for israel all you want. But it’s not America. But we pay for you what you do, literally and figuratively – and enough is enough. And I think you are about to find that out.
The mere reference to As’ad’s blog is a good start for people who want to hear a fraction of truth instead of the usual zionist bleatings.
va
We "know" that a conservative is a liberal who got mugged, so now we’ll finally be able to tell what political orientation one acquires when one has swung from 1960s neo-Trotskyite to 2000s neocon and then gets the shit kicked out of one in some drunken dustup. I can’t wait to see what religion Hitch gets now! Maybe he’ll come out a monarchist?
eyeball
Fair enough, AL, but the clumber could hold 3 tennis balls in its mouth at once. and it’s still amazing that they don’t poop on the rug.
Hitchens is lucky he didn’t wind up in some Syrian version of Midnight Express. Very lucky.
Joe
Please tell me Wilfred’s post is especially effective satire.
wilfred
@Joe:
Satire of what, precisely? Somone who challenges the exclusive israeli narrative on events in the Middle East? An American who objects to 3 billion dollars in American taxpayer money being used to subsidize war crimes against Palestinan women and children? An American who actually challenges the conflation of American national interests with israel’s?
Or is it satire of people who rush to condemn American war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and subsequent occupations but are silent when israel committs those same crimes with the aid of American dollars?
That would be really clever, no?
4tehlulz
@Joe: No, as "effective satire" would have a bit of humor. Wilfred is just an internet tough guy who wants Israel to disappear, but in a way that would magically leave his conscious intact and without having to do any actual work.
cosanostradamus
.
Yeah.
Let’s go to a Muslim country, get drunk, and insult some locals in a war zone.
Genius. Why isn’t he dead?
Speaking of geniuses, your Governor opposes jobs for your State. If one of these is your Governor. I found his email. Maybe he’ll listen to reason. But he is a Republican, so…
.
wilfred
@4tehlulz:
Now that’s projection. Of course the only state/people in danger of disappearing are Palestinians – kill ratio in the war on Gaza was 1800+ Palestinians to 13 israelis. Over 5000 in the 24 months leading up to the israeli invasion to 8 israelis. Talk about magical – this despite all those arms that Iran was funneling to Hamas.
Oh, and the American Left response to the israeli declaration to steal even more Palestinian land? Did I miss any notice on this site from all the devoted liberals sensitive to any effort to undermine Obama?
I didn’t think so.
Montysano
Perhaps I’ll sew up a vest made of pork chops and then go for a stroll through grizzly country. Plucky, eh?
wilfred
Oh, dear.
You couldn’t make this stuff up. So now American taxpayers have made a kingmaker out of an advocate for loyalty oaths and ethnic cleansing. Somebody take Obama’s pulse.
headpan
This . post . makes . my . day
Thank You
(here’s hoping somebody nearby had a camera phone)
zoe kentucky from pittsburgh
As a Jew—who isn’t a modern zionist—it still raises my hackles when anyone talks angrily about "zionists" and "Israelis" in such broad-brushed, negative ways. They’re not dirty words. By all means, criticize the Israeli GOVERNMENT all day long. To do otherwise is to risk coming off as an anti-semite who just doesn’t like Israelis or Jews or zionists because of who they are. Language matters. Don’t let the actions of the Israeli government allow you to slip into the bad habit of blaming all Jews or zionists for their government’s actions. To do so would be like blaming all Americans for Bush’s policies in Iraq.
headpan
By the way, people around here need to stop slandering all the good drunks by comparing them to Hitchens. I take personal offense.
wilfred
Or all Palestinians for Hamas? You are really denouncing the collective punishment meted out by israel on all Palestinians, correct? All those blockades and power cuts and roadblocks, etc?
I despise israel for what it does, not for who lives there. If they were rastafarians I’d despise them just as much. Besides one has to make some distinctions. I doubt if any of the israeli Arabs who make up 20% of the population of the country are strong supporters of the israeli government’s policies on the West Bank.
Bit early to try the anti-semite dodge, btw.
John Cole
I wouldn’t wish what is happening to the Palestinians on anyone, but if Wilfred can not for one second figure out that there actually is a relationship between Hamas indiscriminately lobbing rockets into Israel and the disproportionate response AND the electoral successes of the hard right in Israel, there is nothing I can say.
4tehlulz
@wilfred: Well, I guess you have me there; after all, if anyone here is an expert on projecting his own dark desires on his opponents, it’s you.
Shygetz
One could almost accept wilfred as a simple pro-peace advocate who think Israel needs to back off to get the peace process started, until he flat-out excuses indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israeli civilian targets with:
"Resistance" usually implies shooting soldiers. This is terrorism—attacks against civilian populations to achieve a political goal. Can you say "Israel does it too"? Sure, but that doesn’t suddenly make it okay for Hamas. And yet because the Palestinians constantly get their asses handed to them when Israel gets fed up with the terrorism, one side are brave resistance fighters and the other are rampaging Zionists. But somehow wilfred wonders why people here, who probably mostly agree with him that no-questions-asked funding of Israel is a bad idea, also consider him to be an anti-Semitic asshole. Here’s a clue…when you excuse one group’s terrorist actions as "zionist obfuscations", people are going to think you are an anti-Semitic asshole, and they’re going to tend to ignore any good points you might have.
As far as Hitchens goes, he’s a revolutionary plain and simple. And when he finally figured out that, contrary to both logic and popular belief, that the next revolutions were going to be supported by "conservatives", he switched. Hitchens wants to save the world, and as far as I can tell has never had a pragmatic bone in his body. He’s neither pro-left nor pro-right, he’s pro-shoot the bad guy du jour and damn the consequences.
wilfred
@John Cole:
And the stealing of more Palestinian land, in direct disregard of Obama’s own stated position that the settlements are an obstacle to the peace process, which he described as his major foreign policy concern?
As for cause and effect relationships, the idea that rockets landing in israel is the reason for the victory of extremists, begs the question of why the efforts of Livni, Barak and Kadima, which resulted in that same Palestinian suffering you don;t wish on anyone, was not sufficient bloodthirstiness for the israeli voting public. Will Bibi finish the job with a further bloodletting – enlighten me, John.
Netanyahu won because of his position on Iran, whose supposed nuclear weapon program he asserts is a bigger threat to the world than the current economic meltdown – see his comments in Davos, January 29. Talk about special pleading. As recently as today, the israeli papers report Livni saying that the Iran ‘threat’ is overblown.
Learn what’s going on before you patronize people.
Stuck
Ever fill a balloon up with hot air, then let it go. Once again, wilfred re-lives the cycle of his patented flatulent flameout.
wilfred
@Shygetz:
Bullshit. if it weren’t for the periodic arguments I make on behalf of the Palestinians and subsequent criticisms I make of blind US support of israel neither you nor anyone else would ever raise the subject.
You’re more than content to flaunt your ‘liberal’ credentials by denouncing US aggressions against Iraqis as long as no one ever mentions a word about israeli war crimes against Palestinians. Glenn Greenwald, Juan Cole, Danny Shechter and a host of other people all point out both this and the speciousness of the ‘anti- semite’ nonsense you resort to when called out on it.
Unbelievable. Like I said, you can’t make this stuff up.
valdivia
Ahh the joys of Hitch! A few years ago I attended a conference where Hitch was one of the participants (think idyllic New England small town with many many academics roaming around for the weekend). He was never, and I mean never, without a drink at hand. The early morning (8 am) session was especially lively given he started drinking at breakfast and continues throughout the panel. So I am assuming he was pretty sauced by the time he did this in Lebanon if it was during lunch.
Shygetz
Netanyahu ran on a hard-line against Hamas, a hard-line against Lebanon, and a hard-line against Iran. Don’t know which scientific poll you used to base your assertion that Hamas attacks had nothing to do with Netanyahu’s election, given that he talked about Hamas a lot, but I’m sure you didn’t pull that out of your asshole. You wouldn’t do that, right? Of course not…you always argue about Israeli issues in good faith.
Shygetz
@wilfred:
ORLY?
Hmmm…is that a comment in response to your righteous rebukes? No. But then again, it took me all of five seconds to find that post…your comments at the bottom of unrelated threads really brings the issue to the forefront!
And again, once you stop excusing terrorism by Hamas as "zionist obfuscationism" (which Greenwald and Juan Cole both refrain from doing), maybe people will stop thinking your anti-Semitic. Until then, wear your badge with pride! You’ve earned it.
So I agree and acknowledge that Israel is culpable for war crimes, but point out that this doesn’t excuse terrorism and war crimes from Hamas, and you call such an opinion "unbelievable". And yet somehow that doesn’t make you anti-Semitic. Why? Shut up, that’s why!
The Moar You Know
@Stuck: Exactly, to wit:
Story: kitty pics
Wilfred: nice guy
Story: Stealers
Wilfred: nice guy
Story: Battlestar Galactica
Wilfred: nice guy
Story: Is within 2000 miles of the Middle East
Wlfred:RAGERAGEKILLTEHJOOZRAGERAGEKILLTEHJOOZRAGERAGEKILLTEHJOOZ
And in spite of his protestations above about how he’d hate Rastafarians even if they were doing the same things, he really does hate Jews.
Ram111
Any one else notice that wilfred never capitalizes the "i" in "israel"?
Oh. Never mind…
DougJ
Because he and his Wolverine friends fought off the bad guys. Did you miss that part?
The Moar You Know
Hey, I broke horizonal formatting!
wilfred
@Ram111:
Ever notice I don’t capitalize the w in wilfred? Meaning?
No, what you wrote was a textbook lapsus calami, a perfect expression of the hypocrisy I consistently point out but that you and others are ashamed to admit.
More projection.
cosanostradamus
@DougJ:
.
Yeah, well, I’ll try to catch the summer blockbuster they make out of this. It’ll be winter by the time it hits the dollar theater. If there still are dollars, by then.
Beirut: The Paris of Hell.
.
Napoleon
@Mazacote Yorquest:
. . .or maybe even Max.
liberal
@Shygetz:
As Americans, the relevant moral point is that Israel’s war crimes are committed with the financial and diplomatic backing of the US, unlike Hamas’.
libarbarian
Impersonate Michelle Malkin much, Wilfred?
Gary D
Ace of Spades, who is a genuine idiot btw, does have more details on this. Amazing that Ace tries to downplay Hitch getting his ass whipped.
Not at lunch, Hitch knows who the Nazi party in Syria is. Hitch not more drunk than usual.
libarbarian
wilfred isn’t an antisemite.
He’s just another child of privilege playing "helper of the poor and oppressed" which means he can’t handle subtlety or nuance and sees every contest between whites and brown people as Imperialist conquest which much be protested in the most shrill way possible- and damn the actual truth of the matter.
Blue Raven
As far as the "get religion" line goes, we are also talking about the same guy who advocates evangelizing atheism. It may not be a religion, but encouraging conversion of the masses is textbook religiosity. One more way of saying "loudmouthed asshole."
Dr. Squid
I’m guessing that if someone had a poster of Snitchens and wrote, "I am a neocon douchebag" on it in front of him, he wouldn’t be as charitable as he thought his assailants should be towards him.
It would probably end in the same result, with Hitchens in a bruised heap after taking a drunken swing at the guy.
Dr. Squid
@libarbarian:
I feel stupider for having read that crack. Please follow along next time.
gil mann
Yes, because taking minor steps to break religion’s stranglehold on the public square/consciousness is just like door-to-door prosyletizing.
Criticizing Hitch’s atheism is like criticizing Bush’s physique. It’s the only thing in his armor that’s not a chink.
guy
How quickly we forget:
From the Onion: Christopher Hitchens Forcibly Removed From Trailer Park After Drunken Confrontation With Common-Law Wife
SPARTA, TN–Noted author, social critic, and political gadfly Christopher Hitchens was once again the focus of controversy Monday, when he was forcibly removed from Happy Trails trailer park following a drunken confrontation with Noreen Bodell, 39, his common-law wife of 14 years.
Responding to a domestic-disturbance call, police arrived at the couple’s double-wide trailer at approximately 2:15 p.m. to find Hitchens and Bodell throwing dishes at each other. When the officers attempted to remove Hitchens from the premises, the leftist intellectual became physically and verbally abusive toward the officers, calling them "shitkickers," "bitches," and "effete liberal apologists for the atrocities of late-stage capitalism."
...
Hitchens’ run-ins with the law have not been restricted to Sparta city limits. In May 2002, he was arrested for drunkenly singing 1930s union songs while driving a stolen riding lawnmower through the streets of Boston, where he was attending an international women’s-rights conference. Hitchens accused police of "atavistic, morally reprehensible Stalinist scare tactics" before being bailed out by conference organizers the following morning.
Mnemosyne
Well, the fact that Israel controls the borders of Gaza and the West Bank has more than a little to do with that view. When you’re keeping people penned up and cutting off their food and electricity, it’s a little hypocritical to complain when they get pissed off and start striking out at you. It’s like putting a dog in a cage, poking at it with a stick, and then beating the crap out of it when it snaps at you. You might be in the "right," but you still look like the world’s biggest asshole.
I started off pretty sympathetic towards Israel, but once they put Sharon in power after he deliberately provoked another intifada, it was all downhill and going faster all the time.
libarbarian
Dr. Squid
The truth tends to make people feel stupid. You’re not alone.
libarbarian
And when you keep attacking someone over and over and over again, it’s a little fucking hypocritical to whine when they take steps to restrict your ability to keep fucking with them in the future.
This is a fight with two parties.
libarbarian
Kind of like how women in skimpy outfits "provoke" rapists?
Methinks you have trouble telling the difference between "provoking" someone and just giving them an excuse to do something they have already wanted to do.
trizzlor
This thread should be preserved so that any future debate regarding Israel can just end with a link back here. The arguments are so tired I’m surprised you guys are still awake enough to be making them:
willfred is right in that terror is the only weapon Hamas has – if they started playing by the rules, wearing uniforms, and targeting military installations they would simply be destroyed; that’s why it’s called asymmetric.
the rest of you are also right in that no reasonable person could argue for proportionate response when their family is living under bombs and the opposition’s primary objective is do destroy your way of life at any cost.
All the arguments about provocation are simply chicken & egg debates that will invariably go back to before the British were even involved. In that context, putting Israel in the position of the metaphorical rape victim doesn’t make any sense – I’m sure someone can dig up any of the inordinate civilian massacres where one side or the other was committing genocide by any ethical standard. Once you have that kind of blood on your hands, arguing the victim becomes moot.
What truly bothers me, though, is that Hitchens defaced a poster by the Syrian Nazi Party, and people are complaining about the language he used in doing it, or cheering the attackers. It’s the fucking Nazis, from Syria … anything more than a "Fuck You" would have been a waste of time.
Chuck Butcher
wilfred,
It will be a very snowy day in hell when I take a side in this mess.
Let me be as clear as I can, if you pick a side in this shit you’re wrong. You cannot help but be wrong because neither side has reason or morality on its side – neither fucking one. What you have is a history of wrongs done by both sides and "military" reactions. The couple of stumbling steps towards peace have been undone by bloody handed assholes.
Yes, you can pick any moment in time and blame the other, so fucking what. The reason this continues is because the outside world encourages it – for both sides. Has the US fucked up big time? Well sure it has and so has every other power player.
I made one last post on my blog about this over a month ago and got the same bullshit that’s going on here – so I won’t put anymore effort in such a thing. I’ve put this much effort into this to make it clear to a site that I enjoy that I won’t be pulled along into taking sides.
You may have noticed that I’m not shy about taking a position.
Mike G
Hitchens – nasty, British, and short.
libarbarian
I don’t think of Israel as a rape victim and perhaps my analogy wasn’t the best.
The point was about using the term "provoke" so loosely. A rapist doesn’t need a short skirt to provoke him – its an excuse. Similarly, Sharons visit was a pretext for an uprising that was coming anyways.
Other than that, I agree with you.
corporal waldo
You have to admire the guy’s pluck, no?
Let put put it this way …NO.
He shilled for the chimp, he shilled for torture, he shilled for the slaughter of children. If they put him in hospital I would have been pleased with the result. Fuck Hitchens.