FULL DEBATE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgtEctRumow
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13th Sept, 2004 Motion: "A pre-emptive foreign policy is a recipe for disaster"
Chair: Francine Stock.
For: Senator Gary Hart & Sir Simon Jenkins
Against: Christopher Hitchens & David Aaronovitch.
** Gary Hart: Despite the theoretical nature of the motion, the point at issue is America's invasion of Iraq. He says that with an immediate and unavoidable threat, a nation does not require international acceptance to defend itself, but in the case of Iraq that threat was not present.
** Simon Jenkins: Not against the concept of intervention or pre-emption, but has two basic concerns. Firstly, that we cannot have a state of affairs where any country can go to war; and secondly, that we should not extend this concept to groups that constitute a threat within other states.
** Christopher Hitchens: It is often assumed the concept of pre-emption runs counter to the nexus of international law. However, he points to many treaties which suggest otherwise, such as the Genocide Convention -- which mandates signatory powers (upon receiving information) to begin pre-emptive action. In his view a foreign policy that doesn't have a pre-emptive character is doomed to disaster
** David Aaronovitch: A largely reactive foreign policy is certainly a recipe for disaster, and believes that the test of a pre-emptive foreign policy is the conflict in Afghanistan. He argues that if you vote in favour of this motion you are actually in support of a pre-emptive foreign policy, but you just want it to be more intelligent. Aaronovitch concludes by asserting the importance of intelligent and principled pre-emptive policy.
First Vote: 314 For, 195 Against, 183 Don't know
Final Vote: 265 For, 400 Against, 45 Don't know
The motion is defeated by 135 votes
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/12/In-Memoriam-Christopher-Hitche... Vanity Fair In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949--2011, by Juli Weiner, Dec 15th 2011. Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. "My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends," he wrote in the June 2011 issue. He died in their presence, too, at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. May his 62 years of living, well, so livingly console the many of us who will miss him dearly
Christopher Eric Hitchens (born 13 April 1949) is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the Hoover Institution in September 2008. He is a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits and in 2005 was voted the world's fifth top public intellectual in a Prospect/Foreign Policy poll. He's known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson and for his excoriating critiques of, among others, Mother Teresa, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Henry Kissinger. His confrontational style of debate has made him both a lauded and controversial figure. As a political observer, polemicist and self-defined radical, he rose to prominence as a fixture of the left-wing publications in his native Britain and in the United States. His departure from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left following Ayatollah Khomeini's issue of a fatwa- calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie. The 11 September 2001 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face." His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insists he is not "a conservative of any kind"
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Christopher Hitchens: Genocideby nightjarflying1,309 views
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