RW ONLINE: Deconstructing the \"Christopher Hitchens Principle\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nDeconstructing the \"Christopher Hitchens Principle\"\r\n<\/p>
by Bob Avakian<\/p>\r\n
Revolutionary Worker #1185, February 2, 2003<\/i>, posted at rwor.org<\/p>\r\n
It is important to take on the \"Christopher Hitchens Principle.\"* \r\n<\/b>This is a \r\nrationalization as ridiculous as it is reactionary, but it goes something \r\nlike this: Anywhere the U.S. has \"made a mess of things,\" by installing or at \r\nleast backing tyrannical dictators, it is not only the right but the \r\nresponsibility of the U.S. government to go in--to invade and occupy when \r\nnecessary- -to \"set things right\"! And of course, the list of such places is \r\nvery long indeed.<\/p>\r\n
So, according to this \"logic,\" all the U.S. has to do, to \"earn the right\" \r\n(and indeed have the responsibility) to invade, occupy, etc. is to fuck up \r\n<\/i>a country--or help fuck it up--in the first place! It's really a neat game \r\nto play--except it's not a game, it brings death and destruction through war, \r\nand continuing agony in its aftermath, on a massive scale.<\/p>\r\n
You back (and in some cases actually install) a Noriega, or a Hussein, for \r\nexample, and then, if and when you determine that such a person\/regime is no \r\nlonger useful to you, or poses some kind of obstacle to you--or even just that \r\ngoing after and \"getting\" such a person\/regime serves a useful purpose for \r\nyou--you point to the horrible things such a person\/regime has done (all of \r\nwhich you backed, or at least weren't bothered by before) and then you use that \r\nas a key part of the \"justification\" for why you have to pull a coup, and\/or \r\nbomb, invade, occupy, to put an end to such a horrible person\/regime.<\/p>\r\n
And, again, so long as any regime is <\/i>useful to you, you deny, \r\ndownplay, or simply ignore the horrors it perpetrates, including \"against its \r\nown people.\" So, for example, Hussein is a monstrous tyrant for what he did to \r\nthe Kurds in Iraq, but \"right next door,\" the regime in Turkey--which has \r\ncarried out massacres and destruction in the Kurdish areas of that country, on a \r\nmuch more massive and long-term basis--is one of the \"good guys\" helping to \r\nfight the \"evildoers.\" And the real evil that <\/i>regime has done is rarely, \r\nif ever, mentioned, and certainly not presented in its true light and full \r\ndimension, by the U.S. imperialists and their media and mouthpieces. And that is \r\nnot even to mention Israel--which, along with the many crimes and atrocities it \r\nhas perpetrated against the Palestinian people, for more than five decades, \r\ncontinues to brazenly violate UN resolutions. But, of course, Israel is never \r\nthreatened with military attack by U.S. imperialism; on the contrary, U.S. \r\nimperialism has provided, and continues to provide, the crucial backing, aid and \r\narms to Israel in carrying all this out.<\/p>\r\n
Not only is the \"Hitchens\" rationalization ludicrous and outrageous, there is \r\na consistency to what the U.S. imperialists do (a consistent evil--to use their \r\nterminology more appropriately): where the U.S. government invades and occupies, \r\nit does not \"set things right\" and make things better, for the masses of \r\npeople <\/i>. It may perhaps alter <\/i>some of the particular forms and \r\n\"arrangements\" through which the masses in this or that country are plundered \r\nand brutalized, but in no way does it bring \"liberation,\" or contribute to the \r\naim of actual liberation, but instead it fortifies and intensifies domination \r\nand exploitation serving the aims of U.S. imperialism.<\/p>\r\n
________________<\/p>\r\n
Notes:<\/p>\r\n
* Christopher Hitchens is \r\na British journalist who trades on his left credentials to argue for pro- \r\nimperialist politics. In the wake of 9\/11, he has emerged as a defender of the \r\nU.S. government \"war on terrorism,\" using his journalistic platform to launch \r\nunprincipled attacks on radical forces in the anti-war movement.<\/p>\r\n
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