Christopher Hitchens: The guilty bastard

Unhitched: The Trial of Christopher Hitchens
By Richard Seymour
New York: Verso Books, 2012
134 pages

Review by Doug Enaa Greene

January 19, 2013 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – First impressions do matter. Now it is said that first impressions can be unfair, not giving us a chance to understand a person’s complexity. In the case of Christopher Hitchens, my first impression of him was that of a witty tool for the George W. Bush administration’s wars. In 2005, I first saw Hitchens while randomly flipping through television channels and finding a debate between him and George Galloway on the Iraq War.

Whatever faults Galloway may possess, I found his vehement opposition to the war to echo my own feelings. Galloway’s opponent though, was a rather burly looking man with too much sweat dripping down his forehead. He’d no doubt had too much to drink before that debate, Hitchens was capable of turning a clever phrase and of gaining a chuckle from the audience. Yet I found Hitchens’ rhetoric to be hollow and utterly detestable. He was making a “leftist” case to defend the Bush’s administration’s imperialist and genocidal venture in Iraq as a war of liberation. So my first impression of Hitchens was that of the lowest form of slime. And the more I heard about him, read about him, well I discovered that he was even worse than I initially suspected. He had once been a socialist who had protested against the Vietnam War and supported other noble causes, but was now on the other side of the barricades as an unapologetic imperialist.

Rather than praising Hitchens, as happens all too often after his passing in 2011, it is time to place him on trial and render a verdict. Although the defendant is being tried in absentia, we the jury have a powerful prosecutor in the person of Richard Seymour. Seymour is an experienced prosecutor in this regard, having already scourged leftist apostates turned imperialists in his book, Liberal Defense of Murder, and who exposes the status quo from his website, Lenin’s Tomb. Having turned his sights on Hitchens, Seymour has written a well-argued, concise and powerful brief that can leave no doubt that Hitchens is guilty.

Seymour, thankfully, does not delve into Hitchens's sex life, but rather looks primarily at his political trajectory, writings and judges them on their merits. When it comes to his books, it turns out that Hitchens’s better known works from his left-leaning days, such as the Trial of Henry Kissinger and The Missionary Position, borrowed without giving credit, at times bordering on plagiarism. Seymour acknowledges that Hitchens had a certain skill as a writer in putting the ideas of others in often more digestible form. There is certainly something to be said for this, as the Trial of Henry Kissinger is a slam-dunk case that Kissinger belongs in jail. However, Hitchens’s writing style contained a certain polemicisation that misrepresented the claims of others. Once Hitchens became an imperial jester, he moved into the realm of open dishonesty with claims that were based on the flimsiest of assertions that can be read as justifying US war ventures (such as God is not is great).

Religion

In God is not great, Hitchens attacks the supernatural claims of religion and also blames religion for a multitude of political atrocities from Northern Ireland to Iraq. However, as Seymour states, in blaming religion for these conflicts is to reduce complex conflicts to simplistic answers. For instance, in blaming religion for fighting in Northern Ireland, Hitchens does not discuss the role of British colonialism in creating a sectarian state. In regards to Iraq, Hitchens believes that the whole insurgency is driven by religious fanaticism. Yet he forgets that many religious forces were integrated into the repressive apparatus of the US occupation. All the evidence, such as US intelligence reports, say that the Iraqi insurgency is not a purely religious reflux.

While Hitchens deplores religion, he deplores Islam more than others. He believes that Islam is incapable of undergoing a reformation like other religions, even though Islam has been as changeable as other religions throughout history. Since Hitchens believed that Islam is cannot be reformed, he believes that the West must do whatever possible to annihilate the Islamic threat. He believed that suicide bombers were motivated only by evil mullahs. Hitchens condemned any explanation that sought to link attacks on the United States to its foreign policy; rather he believed that Islam itself was a violent and evil religion. To fight this existential threat, Hitchens supported deportation, the curtailment of freedoms for Muslims, and war.

Calling for the curtailment of freedom for Muslims was one of the many instances of Hitchens’ utter hypocrisy. While he condemned Iranian mullahs for putting a death sentence on Salman Rushdie’s head as denying freedom of expression, he celebrated the most draconian aspects of the Bush years such the Patriot Act with its infringement on personal freedoms.

Seeds of reaction

Seymour is not the type to say that there is a crystal-cut demarcation in Hitchens’s writing and politics after 9/11, where the good is abruptly replaced by the bad (although this is not to deny that Hitchens turned hard to the right). Rather, there had been seeds of his later reactionary turn that could be detected much earlier which fully blossomed after 9/11.

What can we say about those seeds? Well, Hitchens was born in the aftermath of World War II into a naval family pledged to serve the dying British empire. His Jewish mother had a desire for her son to find his way into the ruling class and take his rightful place. Seymour does not believe that Hitchens emerged fully formed as a slug from birth. But in his early years he possessed a conscience while he still desired social advancement.

Hitchens lived a double life at times. While at an elite school, he enjoyed the company of the rich and famous but also spent time selling revolutionary papers as a militant of the International Socialists (IS). In the turbulent 1960s, with revolution seemingly on the corner, Hitchens made one of the few decent choices in his life by joining the IS. He attended rallies, spent time in jail and supported all the right causes. However, the outcome of the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal left him with little faith in a revolutionary option and he left the IS (although to the end, he had nostalgia for this period of his life). Hitchens quickly found his niche as a journalist with a leftist edge.

It has often been remarked that Hitchens was a contrarian who could defend the Iraq War and support wiping Iran off the map, while also praising Leon Trotsky. There is nothing especially unique about this. Hitchens was the type of apostate who could say that “he didn’t leave the party, but the party left him”. He may have had a way with words, but as Seymour rightfully points out there is a long tradition of this style of apostacism from the New York Intellectuals to the French New Philosophers who dress up their support for imperialism with words borrowed from the left. Hitchens may have been immensely quotable in this regard, but he was hardly unique.

In the United States, Hitchens continued his climb up the social ladder as a journalist while condemning the foreign and domestic policies of the administration of US president Ronald Reagan. All this is to Hitchens’s credit. Yet Hitchens reserved special vitriol for Bill Clinton. For one, Clinton had slighted him and this was unforgivable. Yet he was a forcible opponent of Clinton’s sell-out on health care, welfare reform and his affair with Monica Lewinsky (the affair resulted in a book, No One Left to Lie To). Yet as Seymour points out, a great deal of this criticism was  personalised rather than directed at the institutions of US capitalism.
Seymour explains that Hitchens lowered his standards of what was morally acceptable after 2001. Hitchens found his place as a red-blooded American, throwing caution to the wind. He openly embraced reactionary causes defending torture, the military apparatus and the worst forms of bigotry against Muslims.

Delivering 'freedom'

It wasn’t just the desire to succeed that motivated Hitchens. He had some actual ideas behind it. Hitchens believed that the United States was on the right side of history, progress and enlightenment. In his mind, whereas other revolutions and forces of progress had failed (such as the British empire and socialism), the American Revolution was still standing and bristling with military power. Although he vacillated for a while, after 2001 Hitchens would believe that the military power of the United States could be used for the noble end of delivering freedom. Although, Hitchens in answering this question forgot the old quip of Lenin (that he must have learned while a Marxist): freedom for whom to do what?

Hitchens had always had a rather indulgent view towards colonialism, lamenting the decline of British power. He defended poets and writers who mourned for the days of “the sun that never sets” with its concentration camps, famines and massacres. After the fall of the empire and World War II, Hitchens saw Britain suffering from malaise that grew more acute with the “winter of discontent” in the late 1970s. Believing that the Labour Party couldn’t offer a way out for Britain, Hitchens saw Thatcher’s aggressive British nationalism (he was cheering for Britain during the Falklands War against Argentina) as a force for revitalisation. In the 1980s and 1990s, Hitchens still had enough of a leftist instinct left in him to support the Palestinian cause (including working with acclaimed scholar Edward Said) and opposing the first Iraq War. Yet he was still on the look-out for another paragon of progress whom he could get behind. The longer he stayed in the United States, the more it fit the bill.

Hitchens had already had a fascination and admiration with the USA from a very young age. After the destruction of Twin Towers, this admiration became jingoism as he saw the United States and its military as a liberating force in the world, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq, whatever the cost. In this new role, Hitchens had finally achieved the success his mother had dreamed about for him. He was now a celebrity writing bestselling books and lauded by the powers that be. Indeed, the success of Hitchens brings to mind an a Bible passage that no doubt would have irked him to no end: Mark 8:36, “For what shall it profit a manif he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

Following the example of George Orwell (whom he always admired and could not stand to see criticised), Hitchens became a propagandist for war as a crusade for freedom. Yet the United States was not fighting a just war a la Orwell’s fighting against fascism in Spain, rather it was engaged in torture and murder on a scale that would make Franco blush. When Hitchens saw that the USA’s war in Iraq did not live up to the professed rhetoric, he just brushed it off and stood behind the Stars and Stripes. To the end, he never apologised.

Hitchens was celebrated for originality, eloquentwit and independence of thought. He claimed to be a contrarian, but was one of the foremost propagandists for the Bush administration and its wars. Indeed, Hitchen’s apostasy dovetailed neatly with his immense ego and the ruling ideology. We could only imagine what his mother would say.

So what are we to make of Hitchens? Seymour offers this as a closing argument:

He found, as he might have suspected, that being on the right side of history in this sense was to gain more influence and pecuniary advantage than ever before. He succumbed to almost every craven, supine, and bigoted impulse he possessed and, while despatching the false gods of other believers, adopted a devotional attitude towards his adopted land. He became “a living and ignominious satire on himself” (p. 110).

Having sat through the prosecution’s case, one can merely mutter of Christopher Hitchens, “the guilty bastard”.

[Doug Enaa Greene is a revolutionary socialist, historian and journalist living in the greater Boston area. He is an editor of the Boston Occupier (http://bostonoccupier.com/) and can be reached at greene.douglas[at]ymail.com.]

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I have never heard of Doug Enaa Greene and I suspect few other have either. Nevertheless, when I find some bottom feeder throwing mud at a far more important, successful and influential writer as Christopher Hitchens it is sometimes necessary to respond.

Lets begin. First, Greene claims that "he (Hitchens) celebrated the most draconian aspects of the Bush years such the Patriot Act with its infringement on personal freedoms". This statement alone causes me to seriously doubt whether Greene has ever actually read anything by Hitchens. Hitchens actually joined a lawsuit against the United States Government challenging the constitutionality of the Patriot Act and frequently criticized it in public.

Secondly, Greene claims that Hitchens 'claimed to be a contrarian'. He specifically and categorically rejected this label and discouraged others from labeling him with it. (See opening preface of his 'letters to a young contrarian' and elsewhere).

Finally, and perhaps most pathetically, Green claims that Hitchens "openly embraced reactionary causes defending torture", when in fact Hitchens repeatedly and emphatically decried 'enhanced interrogation techniques' and even subjected himself to water-boarding (See Vanity Fair videos)in an attempt to educate himself and others as to its unjustifiable use.

All of these exposed lies are easily verifiable via a web-search.

For the sake of decency lets hope this hack wasn't given legal tender in exchange for a written piece that has not experience the most minimal of fact checking and editing. Shame on you (Greene). RIP Christopher Hitchens.

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Posted on behalf on Mike11:

Because Christopher Hitchens doesn't have the luxury of defending himself against these charges (unlike his own book on Henry Kissinger towards which this book nods) I feel compelled to address these for him. I find it funny that now, after his death, so many of those on both the left and right are attacking his character, collectively painting a portrait of a drunken boor who hated women, freedom, and thoughtful people.

"For instance, in blaming religion for fighting in Northern Ireland, Hitchens does not discuss the role of British colonialism in creating a sectarian state based on Protestant privilige [sic]. "

This must betray a certain irony. Was the Protestant privilege not the basis for the colonialism? Thus, it would seem that religion is the main culprit in Ireland after all.

"In Iraq, Hitchens states the whole insurgency was driven by religious fanaticism. Yet he forgets that many religious forces were integrated into the repressive apparatus of the US occupation."

Completely untrue. For evidence, you can read his critique of the United States military's Christian expansionism "In Defense of Foxhole Atheists", in which he roundly criticizes the military's attempts to Christianize foreign Muslim society. You would think that if he preferred Christianity to Islam, Hitch would see this as a welcome development. For another essay criticizing the Bush-era military tactics you accuse him of mindlessly backing, see "Believe Me, It's Torture" in reference to the practice of waterboarding. Jingoism, as you say? "Whatever the cost"? A mouthpiece for Bush this man was not.

Both essays can be found in Arguably, available at fine bookstores everywhere.

"...he believed that Islam itself was a violent and evil religion. To fight this existential threat, Hitchens supported deportation, the curtailment of freedoms for Muslims, and war."

If you got this from the essay I think you got it from, Hitchens was here quoting his friend Martin Amis. Here's part of Hitchens' critique of the Amis view from the same essay:

"...many Muslims actually have come to Europe for the advertised purposes—seeking asylum and to build a better life. A young Afghan man, murdered in the assault on the London subway system in July 2005, had fled to England from the Taliban, which had murdered most of his family. Muslim women often demand the protection of the authorities against forced marriage and other cruelties. These are all points of difference, and also of possible resistance to Euro-sharia."

Hitchens was clear in opposing "fascism with an Islamic face". He critiqued Islam, but held it in the same light as all religions. Yet as you can see in his debate with Tony Blair, available on YouTube, he didn't support any effort to force religion out of the world. Rather, he said, if you practiced privately and didn't want your religion to be publicly recognized or subsidized, you were fine by him.

Finally, "Hitchens believed that the United States was on the right side of history, progress and enlightenment."

Yes, he did. But this was based on a Constitution that uniquely separated church from state, protected the freedoms of speech and of the press, etc. He believed it his mission to keep such rights upheld, which was why he so roundly criticized U.S. politicians when they infringed them. As for the war, Hitchens did say that the war was fully imperial (see the debate with his brother Peter). But he pointed out, at the same time, that non-intervention was imperial as well, and that it was for imperial reasons that the U.S. government let Saddam Hussein take power in the first place. He notes that Henry Kissinger, who you seem to agree was a criminal, was staunchly opposed to the invasion for imperial purposes. His rationale was that if both options are imperial and people will die as a result of both actions, the better option is the one that removes the fascist dictatorship.

Now you may not agree with him, as I'm sure you don't. But I think I've shown enough here to prove that the charges here brought against him are either dubious, exaggerated or outright wrong. As a public intellectual who spoke his mind, Hitchens was bound to stir up some vitriol. But a 'slug'? There were very few arguments he made without citing a fact, a finding, or an historical episode. If you're trying to argue with him posthumously, you can at least counter with some intellectual honesty of your own.

The defense rests its case.

"This must betray a certain irony. Was the Protestant privilege not the basis for the colonialism? Thus, it would seem that religion is the main culprit in Ireland after all."

As someone from Belfast let me be the first to say Oh fuck off you patronising cunt.

The conflict in Northern Ireland was born out of British Imperial polices of put two ethnic groups, the Native Irish and Ulster Scots settles, at each others throat.

In the Reconquest of Ireland James Connolly explores the need of the Capitalists Class and their White Hall allies to set two sides against each other in Belfast and Derry.

Or to put it in a way that smash through your fawning for a moral degenerate like Hitchen's (and lets be honest you only give him an easy ride because he wrote a very angry if poorly argued book on atheism), never heard of one person being shot or kneecapped over the fallibility of the pope or the miracle of transubstantiation but I've seen men shot down like dogs because of their national and ethnic identity.