Herman and Hamid

Why is it so hard to speak honestly about allegations of sexual harassment or our corrupt ally in Afghanistan?
By Christopher Hitchens

There were two generally depressing controversies last week, in both of which an exercise of free speech might have done more harm than good. The first concerns our disordered policy in Afghanistan and the second our ongoing and increasingly dishonest discussion of sexual harassment.

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In Defense of Endless War

As 9/11 showed, civilization has enemies with which peace is neither possible nor desirable.
By Christopher Hitchens

A continuous and repetitive thread in the commentary on the decade since 9/11—one might almost call it an endless and open-ended theme—was the plaintive observation that the struggle against al-Qaida and its surrogates is somehow a "war without end."

Read More: http://www.slate.com/id/2304120/

Cynicism by the Book

Hamid Karzai's despicable response to the Quran burning in Florida.
By Christopher Hitchens

"Heinrich Heine's famous observation about book burning—that where books are burned, people also will be—was actually first made about the torching of the Quran. The Spanish Inquisition used to delight in putting heretical works "on trial," and zealously convicted the Muslim holy book before feeding it to the flames in what is one of Christianity's oldest traditions."

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Baseless Words - or: A Little Coaching for Christopher Hitchens

By Thomas Ruttig

"A reply to Chistopher Hitchens’ under-researched rant against what he calls the human rights ‘activists’ community that ‘finally notices the Taliban's war crimes’. AAN’s senior analyst Thomas Ruttig points to some reports that show how far this is from truth."

Read More http://www.aan-afghanistan.org/index.asp?id=1502

AT LARGE: A Conversation With Christopher Hitchens

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty writer James Kirchick recently interviewed Hitchens at his home in Washington about his left-wing revolutionary past, his views on America, Iran's nuclear program, Turkey's Islamist turn, Putin's Russia, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sampled his views on a variety of international figures.


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