Christopher Hitchens on Iraq (1993)

[qasion]

I saw that fucker in an interview,,he looked so fucked up,,maybe now he knows that God is great.

[paradigmentropy]

@qasion Hitchens took the time to read the entire Bible. You took the time to read what? The title of his book? Just because you find solace in an unsubstantiated belief in a hypocritical messiah does not mean Hitchens will depart the Earth any earlier than he would have, had you been born to a Muslim family, an atheist family, or a Jewish family. How ironic is it that so many followers of religion take up the religion of their parents? Then you brainwash your own children! Pathetic.

[qasion]

@paradigmentropy I can wait till I hear he is expired then he would know,, God is great. Hitchens,,I promise you it won't be a pretty place down there,you fucker.

[IslamISsick1]

Islam is a cult created by a psychopath. It cannot be reformed. It must be eradicated. Islam must be eradicated not because the Quran says Earth is flat or the shooting stars are missiles that Allah fires at the Jinns who climb the heaven to eavesdrop on the conversation of the exalted assembly. These stupid tales could even amuse us. Islam must go because it teaches hate, it orders killing of non-Muslims, it denigrates women and it violates the human rights.

[fazbell]

@IslamISsick1

Amazingly pithy and condensed statement of fact. I'm sure that you've gotten yourself on some kind of Islamic "hit list" with that bit of truth. Even liberals such as NPR's Juan Williams are waking up to the fact that we are at war with ISLAM, not terrorism.

[BelfastAtheist]

@IslamISsick1

It's rather pathetic that you have an account called 'IslamISsick' and you haven't read the Qu'ran.

So much for intellectual honesty..

[SufferInJuly]

U.S. soldiers are occupying & waging war in the nations of Iraq, Afghanistan, Qatar, Pakistan & God knows where else. No declarations of war have been made as prescribed by the United States Constitution. ALL participants are guilty of treason. The "I-was-just-following-orders" defense didn't work at the Nuremberg show-trials of 1946-7 and it won't work now. U.S. commanders have routinely violated the Yamashita/Medina Standard in regards to hierarchical accountability in cases of war crimes.

[hellokrell]

Hey, Get well soon. I don't care if you are a believer or atheist.

Sincerely, Mr. David Hart, American Artist/Composer

[AnonymousWhitePerson]

The caller's profound stupidity is Hyperbolic.

[starguts]

I think it quite admirable how he always attempts to be absolutely sure that no feels as if he has dodged a question. A mark of true honesty, I say.

[ElectricSexPants]

Indeed.

[z0mgrugbyreturns]

It's nice to see old Hitchens videos. He seemed to have alot more spring in his step. More cheerful.

That's not to say I don't fucking love no-nonsense king of anti-theists, present Hitchens. But he seems alot happier in his older stuff.

Alot more smug. I like smug.

[bigjstokes]

booze.

[ExtremeBogom]

Come on, he's hitting 60 yrs old.

You don't expect him to be doing backflips do you?

[MartinJWillett]

Despite you using it three times there is no such word as alot for exactly the same reason why there is no such word as alittle. Articles do not run into nouns, e.g. thepresident and adog are clearly errors.

Allot is a verb meaning to parcel out. A lot is the opposite of a little.

Don't shoot the messenger, please.

[z0mgrugbyreturns]

Thanks. Strangely enough I get corrected on 'a lot' quite alot(I know!)

A bad habit. I'm working on it.

[MartinJWillett]

Get yourself a browser that checks your spelling as you type, such as Chrome, Opera or Firefox (or update to the latest version). Safari is even better (fast as fuck) but only if you are happy to spell in American.

I believe Microsoft make a browser too, but that might be hearsay.

[z0mgrugbyreturns]

I use Firefox, but never run spellchecker. I prefer typing off the head. Atleast then when I make mistakes I'm called up on them, which helps more in remembering... For the most part, anyway.

Not only that, but as you mention spellcheckers are largely American English. I'm not sure I could handle being told 'colour' is wrong without hitting the keyboard. ;)

[MartinJWillett]

Of those I mentioned only Safari is American English only, which is a pity because it is the fastest browser around today. I prefer Chrome as it can be set on British English to recognize that color and defense are misspellings (correctly) without telling me that recognize is incorrect also, which it is not. (It allows Oxford Spelling) Opera also does the same but Chrome handles Flash faster.

[z0mgrugbyreturns]

I don't like Chrome to be honest. And would rather not support the Google company. Heard far too many negative things about their relationship with government agencies, in regards to spying and tracking private information.

I think for the most part my spelling is okay, so I'll continue going it alone while embracing the odd correction.

Have a nice evening mate.

[stevao]

yeah they do. apparently its called 'explorer'. It generally doesn't like you exploring much outside msn's homepage. I might try and sue them for false advertising. :P

ps have just realised firefox, is neither on fire nor a member of the vulpes genus. damn.

[MazdakTV]

Firefox is alot better than the other ones you mentioned...

[MartinJWillett]

Alot is not a word.

[MazdakTV]

My bad... but my original point still stands.

[Pulsator]

oh get over yourself, martin.

lynn truss is not a role model my friend.

you're not defending the english language; you're not settting standards.

you're scoring rather cheap points and looking like a complete arse in doing so.

don't shoot the messanger, please.

mr returns, you express yourself i anyway you see fir. it's a youtube comment box, not a thesis. if martin can understand what you're trying to say then that should be enough. anything else is vulgar priggishness.

[MartinJWillett]

Right. I get it. Dyslexics of the world untie.

You're wrong. The language is the most precious thing we have. Nobody actually thinks that teenage monosyllabic grunts make for good communication for all they may claim they do. Most people would prefer an Obama or a Stephen Fry to a George W Bush or Sly Stallone any day of the week and you know it. The same goes for text-based communication.

Nobody would be watching this video if Hitchens couldn't write decent sentences. Illiteracy is rudeness.

[Pulsator]

who mentioned mono-sylabbic grunts?

you understood perfectly well what was being said, yet decided to emulate lynn truss. it'sa youtube comments box, i'm sure people don't re-read what they type. nor, in most cases, do they need to.

and dyslexia and illiteracy are two entirely differet things, as any educated person would know.

[Pulsator]

oh here is your fry on grammar pedants:

"Sadly, desperately sadly, the only people who seem to be bothered with language today, bother with it in quite the wrong way. They write letters to broadcasters and newspapers in which they are rude and haughty about other peoples' usage and in which they show off their superior knowledge of how language should be.

I hate that and I particularly hate that so many of these pedants assume that I'm on their side. "

[Pulsator]

fry, continuing:

"There's all kinds of pedants around with more time to read and imitate Lynn Truss and John Humphries than to write poems, love letters, novels and stories it seems. They whip out their Sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs. Shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and misspellings. "

[Pulsator]

and finishing:

"They think they're guardians of language; they're no more guardians of language than the kennel club is the guardians of dog-kind. "

don't shoot the messenger, please...

[Pulsator]

nice channel, by the way. would recommend it to anyone.

keep fighting the good fight. you add a lot to the important debates online, and i may join your forum.

but preening grammatical hubris adds sod all to any debate other than one-upsmanship, innit.

comrades, checks out martin's channel. it's not all pernickity ephemera.

[MartinJWillett]

There's nothing pernickety (not pernickity) about getting things right and there's certainly nothing valiant, noble and honourable about defending error as if fucking up was the highest and most excellent use of human freedom. If somebody corrects you note the correction, thanking them is optional, attacking them for being right or for caring about the language is simply boorish intellectual reverse-snobbery of the most obnoxious kind.

People who note errors which are not errors are fair game.

[Pulsator]

i'm not defending error; i'm chastising priggish holier than thou correction of the most base kind. lynn truss has a lot to answer for.

you were thanked for the correction yet continued to offer simpering advice on browsers that correct such trivialities as words-you-understood-perfectly­-well-in-a-youtube-comments-bo­x: truly a high ad excellent expression of human freedom.

even stephen fry - a true lover of language - thinks your kind to be insufferably boring arseholes.

[MartinJWillett]

How can anybody correct a mistake without being accused of playing oneupmanship if people will insist on seeing correction as a personal attack? It is not an attack to point out an error, it is pointing out an error. Alot is the biggest shibboleth in the modern world, use it and you are marked down as an ill-educated ignoramus, if nobody ever corrects you on it they want you to be seen as a fucktard condemned by your own writing to be seen as second rate your whole life long.

[Pulsator]

and in correcting people on such trivia - in a youtube comment box, no less - you wish to be seen as boring, pedatic arse?

"Alot is the biggest shibboleth in the modern world"

read that little hyperbolic missive back to yourself. it's exactly the pedantic bastardry that fry brilliantly lampoons. i suppose it's what you count as first rate writing, martin

correcting people on factual errors, fallacious reasoning, spurious logic: that adds to a debate, silly diatribes on spelling do not.

[Pulsator]

and you'll note i never accused your correction as being a personal attack -grasping, fussy and hubristic, yes. but a personal attack, no.

that shows a paucity of comphrension on your part. one of the biggest shibboleths in the modern world is people with a spell checker and thesaurus being able to correct grammar without grasping the essence of what was being said.

the definition of style over substance

now i don't think that applies to you, but it shows how easy it is to gutter snipe

[MartinJWillett]

Writing in all lower case is an affectation. Why do you think it is cool to be wrong? In what way is being wrong, ungrammatical, spelling badly and not taking care over your written communication a virtue or a sign of creativity? It is not. It is being rude to those who have to read your writing, it is belittling them, as if these people do not deserve your time or any attention to detail at all. It is like going out in the street in your beer-stained vest or farting in a lift.

[Pulsator]

for you, maybe, martin. but are you really making judgements on people's personalities based on how assed they are using standard english in a youtube comments box?

i type in lower case as i like the way it looks, a house style, if you will. i type fast and don't bother to re-read. if you can understand me, that is enough.

you set up an awful lot of straw men, and have a fondness for non-sequiturs. a real lack of reasoning prowess. a much bigger indicator of intellect than grammar usuage.

[Pulsator]

again, don't think i'm making any judgements on your intellect. i'm merely using a reductio ad absurdum to show how pathetic making pronouncements on intellect really looks. especially when you're judging on a 500 word comment box, on youtube of all places.

may see you on your forum in the near future. lower cased all the way.

[MartinJWillett]

You are telling me that I am not worth your time, in fact you are boasting about it.

Comments in all lower case on the Forum are deleted. We have standards and I maintain them. If you think your words and ideas are worth our time you have to demonstrate that you think we are worth yours.

[Pulsator]

so be it. your house, your rules.

that's the point. i adapt to the place that i'm speaking in. i'm not likely to use the word panegyric in the pub when discussing the lastest mark kermode film review with my mates, but i might in a piece for uni.

i write for my benefit. if you can understand me, that's enough for me on youtube. if you choose to be offended by mere casing style, tough. cry me a river, in fact.

anyways, have a nice evening martin.

speak with you soon.

[Pulsator]

summat you may enjoy, martin,

the bbc ran a story about the astronaut whose wife recently gave birth. in was the legend: "an astronaut was literally walking on air today, as he found out he was a father".

i literally died laughing, well almost, obviously.

you can write in if you want. correcting a journalist funded by our hard earned is much fairer game than a youtube user.

[WakeUpMightyEarth]

@MartinJWillett Gold!

[illwrath]

Rest assured that Hitchens is far more informed about Iraq than anyone that posts on youtube.

Probably even the Iraqis that do.

[arcticmint]

Michael Ware knows more. He lived in Baghdad for five years as a journalist.

[fr0ber]

@arcticmint I am no architect, yet not to brag - but I have lived in a house for quite a while now and I must say I'm a pretty experienced architect by your logic. :)

[arcticmint]

@fr0ber Check out Michael Ware and then tell me he does not know more.

[fr0ber]

@arcticmint Haha I have no idea who that is man, I was just commenting on your 'explanation'/'reason' for him knowing more :)

[arcticmint]

@illwrath That is nonsense Hitchens is no expert in Middle Eastern Affairs. To achieve that status you have to speak Arabic, Farsi, ect. And have a doctorates in Arabic Studies or something. Hitchens is one of those useless people who have encyclopedia knowledge on the Middle East and is arrogant. He has not spent his life reading over Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi primary sources as real scholars do. He is a loud, arrogant television scholar who has eloquence lacking substance.

[Chemicalkinetics]

@arcticmint You are confusing experts of culture and history vs experts of battle tactic vs experts of foreign policy.... etc. These are all very different things. You can be one without being the other. Hitchens never claims to be a Middle Eastern historical and linguistic expert. Henry Kissinger and James Baker are experts in foreign relationship with China, but neither speak Chinese. Petraeus is an expert of counter insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he does not speak Arabic.

[SockbatReplica]

Wow.. A lot of ppl accuse him of taking his stances on Iraq because of 911 but here we see that is clearly not the case.. It's interesting because he wasn't for invading Iraq for the same reason a lot of the conservatives were since he clearly has criticized the US for being business partners with Saddam.. Also too I don't think most of the pro-war conservatives gave a damn for the Kurds, I mean Hitchens on the otherhand now wears the Kurdistan flag on his lapel.

[FelixSapien]

he didn't change his mind because of 911 but because he heard a lot of iraqis telling him of all the atrocities that saddam and his sons commited against countless victims

[FelixSapien]

he was previousy against occupying iraq in order to liberate it from the saddam regime because he knew the price both we and the iraqi people would have to pay.

however he later changed his mind when he realized the full extent of the monstrosity of saddam's rule after hearing numerous first hand horror stories from saddam's victims

[SockbatReplica]

I didn't say he changed his mind because of 911.. I said many people make that accusation but it is clearly a false one as we can see here because he is clearly in favor of taking out Saddam back in 1993

[FelixSapien]

yeah but during the first gulf war he was not in favore of finishing off Saddam (but later said it was a mistake not to). he was in favore of kicking saddam out of kuwait but was against going into iraq to get saddam.

that was because he was not yet aware of just how evil and sadistic saddam really was.

he only realized that after speaking to many of saddam's victims who told him the truth about what was happening inside iraq. after that he started to belive saddam must be removed at all cost

[SockbatReplica]

OK.. I understand now.. I just thought you thought I was one of the people who accused Hitchens of taking his stance on Iraq because of 911.