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It's almost not a debate, it is mostly Hitchens educating Reagan Jr. on Iraq and the middle east. A cautionary tale on following some talking point script with someone way more informed than you. Comments  who voted for this video bcglorf
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Hitchens Debates Iraq With Reagan Jr. Related Videos
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Shit. I meant to downvote this pompous blowhard.
But that's all part of his charm. I'm only annoyed when somebody is pompous and can't back it up. Hitchens dominates the whole debate not just by being pompous but by throwing the evidence of his first hand personal experience in Reagan's face. All Reagan manages is to stutter on about how that isn't like what he read in a report.
RR: Zarqawi is not an envoy of Saddam Hussein, either.
CH: Excuse me. When I went to interview Abu Nidal, then the most wanted terrorist in the world, in Baghdad, he was operating out of an Iraqi government office. He was an arm of the Iraqi State, while being the most wanted man in the world.
That is, no matter how you cut it, Hitchens destroying Reagan's entire argument with first hand evidence of Iraqi government support for the most wanted man in the world.
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/09/05/hitchens/index.html
Hitchen's lost his charm a long time ago.
A good article addressing Hitchen's claims around this time. Much of which has been recycled in this 'debate.'
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2005/09/05/hitchens/index.html
Hitchen's lost his charm a long time ago.
A 'good' article? Having read through it I didn't see anything that Hitchens' hadn't already addressed. Example:
Hitchens next lists as an achievement of the Iraq war the "capitulation" of Moammar Gadhafi's Libya over its weapons of mass destruction programs. But Hitchens offers no proof whatsoever that Libya's overture had anything at all to do with the Iraq war. Rather, it is quite clear that Libya is a case where the European and U.S. economic sanctions placed on the country to punish it for its terrorist activities actually worked as designed. (European sanctions had already been lifted, in return for a change in Libyan behavior, in 1999. U.S. sanctions had not.)
And this is the character of the entire article. As Hitchens has since pointed out, the Iraq war was not the only influence, but it is rather important to note that Gadhafi did not go to the UN, nor to Europe, but to the British and the Americans. If the Iraq war was not an influence, why are it's biggest supporters the ones that Libya went to and has handed it's weapons to?
More on topic though, in this clip Hitchens and Reagan are talking about terrorist ties in Iraq and Reagan embarasses himself.
I don't necessarily agree with Cole either, because if I just saw the world's super powers shred and spit on International law, it would compel me to make my peace offerings with them pretty quickly too.
The point still holds, it was an inane justification to even ponder invoking in defense of something as farcical as this 'war' regardless of the minutia.
After Hitchen's little waterboarding stunt I'm intrigued to see what he tackles next . . maybe he'll let himself be invaded and occupied by the U.S Military, using their 'Shocker and Awe' doctrine, and maybe then he will revise his views yet again.
Anyway, I'm going way off topic.
Re Libya, not only Cole realises that European sanctions against Libya had, in great part, already been lifted in 1999 (in return for owning up for Lockerbie), so to whom should Gadhafi have turned, if not to the US (who had stuck to their embargo)? Not to mention the fact that Libya had given up supporting terrorism long before that date.
If you really think Hitchens is that cool, try to find anything that supports his 10 points of "positive accounting" in the article Cole responds to:
overthrow of Talibanism and Baathism and exposure of highly suggestive links [I don’t know about those suggestive links, but the Taliban seem to be alive & kicking], a capitulation offered not to Kofi Annan or the E.U. [capitulating to Kofi Annan or the EU, that would be a novelty...], agreement by the United Nations that reform is necessary and overdue [war was waged on Iraq to make the UN realise it needed reform?], showing that Chirac and Schröder were cheating [is anybody willing to explain this to the Iraqis?], the ability to certify Iraq as actually disarmed, rather than accept the word of a psychopathic autocrat [Hans Blix a psychopath?], the encouragement of democratic and civil society movements in Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon [videosifters in any of those countries, please respond], the violent and ignominious death of thousands of bin Ladenist infiltrators [I guess, just arresting, or even killing them, wasn’t enough], training and hardening of many thousands of American servicemen/women in a battle against the forces of nihilism and absolutism [videosifters in the military, what do you think?]. Actually, I can agree (a little bit) with his # 7: the immense gains made by the largest stateless minority in the region--the Kurds--and the spread of this example to other states.
(www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/995phqjw.asp?pg=2)
Anyway, I'm going way off topic.
I agree, nuff said, I'm going back to having a life...