Christopher Hitchens: Why Bosnia Matters (March 1994)

Here Christopher Hitchens lectures on the failure of the international community to deal with the Bosnian crisis. It should be noted that this speech was given on Mar 4 1994, while the Bosnian war was still going on, and more than a year before the Srebrenica massacre.

Hitchens' position on the matter is clear: the international community (e.g. UN, NATO, and US forces) should use military force to intervene in the region and prevent genocide. Eventually there was an intervention, but not until aproximately 200,000 were killed. It's interesting to note that this seems to be the first real departure between Hitchens and the Left. Chomsky et al argued that the intervention was an imperial act and that Serbia was a victim of western aggression.
One of Hitchens' greatest speeches.

I have set this speech to vaguely relevant images.
keywords:
United Nations
Bosnia
Serbia
Kosovo
Hitchens
Chomsky
war crimes
genocide
politics

Category:

Education

Tags:

• christopher hitchens
• fascism
• totalitarianism
• racism

[andyissemicool]

Thanks for posting this whole thing. Great speech.

[dejaqwho]

@streetteamnfc

How long have you followed Hitchens...at best he can be described as an independent.

[streetteamnfc]

@dejaqwho and he did a very bad job describing the situation

[streetteamnfc]

@dejaqwho he is someone who repeatedly advocated imperialistic wars

[dejaqwho]

Hitchens is the most educated English-speaking scholar/journalist to describe Yugoslavia and Bosnia.

[mp3talon]

thx

[streetteamnfc]

FUCK OFF HITCHENS YOU NEOCON WHORE

[Goz89]

I recommend doing a search for "Noam Chomsky: Prospects for Democracy Part 15 - Yugoslav Wars (1994)". He begins to talk about Yugoslavia near the end of the preceding video (#14).

Chomsky in fact argued (just 6 days after this video) that more troops were needed to reduce violence. To be clear he did reject claims that the Europeans and Americans were motivated by justice, rather it was a desire to stem the refugee crisis after their mishandling of Yugoslavia's disintegration.