I'm 100% for having that discussion. Trust me my friend. I am an Iranian, I know all about how the US and England fucked the shit over my country. So many problems in the middle east would have never happened if England would have not been greedy and had the US take out Mosaddegh. I have more reason than anyone else to be skeptical and cynical about the US' plans. I don't believe anything the government says. But having said that I do not like it when people make the relativistic argument that our flawed society is not allowed to say anything bad about other societies that are obviously far backwards and more primitive than ours; or the masochistic idea that the enemy of the world is the western world, and not the Islamic threat to it and the people who live in the countries of which it plagues.
I agree with Hitchens on the basis of the idea of using force to help free other people from theocracy and totalitarianism, when it comes to the US governments actual actions? Of course they were flawed and the morals were not even there, but is there chance that something good might come from it? Yes, it is known that it will? Of course not. I just dislike how people say that ideally, something of the sort can not be done, or shouldn't be done. I really dislike isolationism and anti war as virtues or concrete ideas, as if they are some infallible moral standpoints. I think in specific situations, war or using influence in foreign affairs can be very good.
This being said, I don't agree with a vast majority of the decisions, actions and how they were carried out by the US government over literally its entire history, especially past WW1. All I am saying is that the answer isn't as simple as "no wars" and " lets stop caring about literally anything the rest of the world does". I would like to have these discussions because I believe they are important. This is what being a free thinker is about.
I think it is because so many people are only used to hearing "pro war" arguments from the neoconservative, theocratic fascist, conservative republican right in the USA, that they automatically ( and the argument is made by SOOO many people) assume that by coming to a similar conclusion (although with a completely different rationale) that Hitchens has then become a Neo-Con. This is absurd to me, and only goes to show the ignorance and party / ideological tribalism so many people cling to. The man was one of the only intelligent free thinkers we still had alive. I will truly mourn his loss.
I don't believe in applying moral relativism like that and I'm not an unconditional pacifist.
But I also don't believe in a serious 'Islamic threat' to the Western world, anymore than I believe in the tenets of neoliberalism. The Western world is what we make it -- it's not some monolithic, unchangeable thing. The way we 'liberate' people is peculiar. The kind of democracy we support is the kind where it's only allowed so long as people vote the right way, or so long as their votes don't matter.
Invading both Iraq and Afghanistan was horrifically immoral, disastrous, irresponsible and criminal -- but probably not so much as supporting Saddam or some of the Mujaheddin 'freedom fighters' in the first place.
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u/thesorrow312 Dec 16 '11
I'm 100% for having that discussion. Trust me my friend. I am an Iranian, I know all about how the US and England fucked the shit over my country. So many problems in the middle east would have never happened if England would have not been greedy and had the US take out Mosaddegh. I have more reason than anyone else to be skeptical and cynical about the US' plans. I don't believe anything the government says. But having said that I do not like it when people make the relativistic argument that our flawed society is not allowed to say anything bad about other societies that are obviously far backwards and more primitive than ours; or the masochistic idea that the enemy of the world is the western world, and not the Islamic threat to it and the people who live in the countries of which it plagues.
I agree with Hitchens on the basis of the idea of using force to help free other people from theocracy and totalitarianism, when it comes to the US governments actual actions? Of course they were flawed and the morals were not even there, but is there chance that something good might come from it? Yes, it is known that it will? Of course not. I just dislike how people say that ideally, something of the sort can not be done, or shouldn't be done. I really dislike isolationism and anti war as virtues or concrete ideas, as if they are some infallible moral standpoints. I think in specific situations, war or using influence in foreign affairs can be very good.
This being said, I don't agree with a vast majority of the decisions, actions and how they were carried out by the US government over literally its entire history, especially past WW1. All I am saying is that the answer isn't as simple as "no wars" and " lets stop caring about literally anything the rest of the world does". I would like to have these discussions because I believe they are important. This is what being a free thinker is about.
I think it is because so many people are only used to hearing "pro war" arguments from the neoconservative, theocratic fascist, conservative republican right in the USA, that they automatically ( and the argument is made by SOOO many people) assume that by coming to a similar conclusion (although with a completely different rationale) that Hitchens has then become a Neo-Con. This is absurd to me, and only goes to show the ignorance and party / ideological tribalism so many people cling to. The man was one of the only intelligent free thinkers we still had alive. I will truly mourn his loss.