I want to sleep with common people

We are all Seismic ShockWatch the movie.

The Hitch

I linked last week to Michael Totten's interview with Christopher Hitchens. But I somehow missed this excellent post by Kellie about what is wrong with some of the Hitch's formulations on Iran, drawing on Machiavelli. The key fault line, here, is regime change from above or regime change from below. Closely related, here's Carl on Hitchens and neoconservatism.

Liberal interventionism?
Ben Cohen points out the gap between Gerald Kaufman's robust interventionism when it comes to nice and simple war crimes committed by Israel, and his John Majoresque anti-intervention stance on "complicated" Bosnia. And this is the best thing you could possibly read of all the thousands of words written about Tony Blair's appearance at the Chilcott Inquiry (although you should read this too).

Vietnam
Another subject close to the Hitch's heart, the Vietnam war, as discussed at the end of this comment thread: at Poumista, Michael Ezra shares some Vietnam folk protest songs.

Totalitarianism
Another excellent post, which made me think differently, from Peter Ryley, riffing on Dovid Katz on the Tory alliance with the Euro-right and the Baltic campaign for Soviet-Nazi equivalence. At stake here is the meaning of totalitarianism, and the meaning of history. And Mazower's Dark Continent (as recently recommended at this blog by Graeme) is a reference point. On a related topic, something I have more to say about at some future date, Dan at Third Estate on Heidegger and fascism and Mick H on the same topic.

Who cares about the white working class?
Carl Packman, on another issue I have a post written in my head about. Further reading in the post and comments here. I'd like to read Michael Collins on white disaffection in England's deep South but it's subscription only.

Haiti footnotes
Ben C on Hugo Chavez and Haiti's debt. Noga on the Munchhausen Syndrome of some American liberals.

Also
Carl again, at the Third Estate, on France and the burqa. Julie Burchill on UCU antisemitism. Two from Sceptic Isle, one on the "VIP treatment" immigrants get and one, highly recommended, on the failure of the left.

Comment trail
Did Martin Luther King ever actually say that anti-Zionism is antisemitism? I left the same comment at Tony Greenstein's, CifWatch's and TNC's MLK posts.

Tories
This week's David Cameron: first, Olly's Old Etonions, and, second, Rory Bremner runing one of my favourite songs for me.

Comments

kellie said…
Thanks for the link, Bob.

There was more that I could have said, but it's a blog post! Particularly on the differences between Iran and Iraq, where there wasn't the possibility of any organised internal opposition emerging, except along sectarian divides. The Afghanistan case was also different, in that the internal opposition was military, and happy to ally with the US.

I got the sense that Hitchens was replaying arguments on Iraq, on which I agreed with him, but not taking into account the differences in the case of Iran.
Anonymous said…
thanks for the link Bob
bob said…
Thanks Entdinglichung for that fascinating and depressing snippet. What an upside-down world we live in. Rajapaksa's repression of the media in the election period was similar to the Honduran coup government's repression there, but while the left of the world made a big deal of the latter, no comments on Sri Lanka. (A brief glance at Socialist Unity, Liberal Conspiracy, MRZine and CounterPunch, for example: no mention of the Sri Lanka elections. Among the honourable exceptions are those bits of the Trot movement with Sri Lankan branches (CWI and FI).) And that Fatah is giving support to this authoritarian thug doesn't give any pause for thought to the anti-Zionist "anti-imperialists"...

P.s. Essential readings from Terry Glavin.
bob said…
Oops, THIS
is Terry's post I meant to link to

Popular Posts