The Deconstruction of Christopher Hitchens

One of the most discussed reviews of Fahrenheit 9/11 is Christopher Hitchens' review on Slate. You can read Hitchens' review here.

Unfahrenheit 9/11 The Lies of Michael Moore

For a thorough deconstruction of Hitchens' review, please read this article by Chris Parry.

Defending Truth: Slate's Chris Hitchens does a hatchet job on Michael Moore

Is it your duty to track filth into our nice clean house?

This is not a "deconstruction" of anything, it is a witty retort by a person who has no knowledge of either side's argument, just opinions.

"A simplistic attempt at 'Gotcha'. Allow me to explain Moore's motivation, as if it needed explaining to anyone with a concept of logic, law and due process. Bin Laden IS innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the law. That IS the American Way. Indeed, it's the World Way. But in order to prove his guilt, one much capture him and put him to trial."

We didn't do that with Hitler, this person is a moron.

Hitchens in a way suffers from my own online syndrom, of being far too distructive of his opponent, giving liberals who know-nothing the chance to say "oh look, he attacks Michael Moore, that must mean whatever he says is FALSE".

In truth, Christopher Hitchens raises factual points against Moore's "questions" (which are or are not based on accurate observations).

The author of this "deconstruction" does nothing but attempt to word a retort against those factual points as being "non-important" or "biased" because the author of this "deconstruction" can not raise factual counter-points of his own.

It's a pile of garbage, lending veracity to that great warning of never doing your research online.

I personally really got a kick out of Hitchen's review.

Originally posted by FreeMason
Is it your duty to track filth into our nice clean house?

FreeMason, you spread more filth on this forum than anyone else. Just because you disagree with something does not make it filth.

This is not a "deconstruction" of anything, it is a witty retort by a person who has no knowledge of either side's argument, just opinions.

This is a perfect description of your post. Did you even read the Chris Parry article?

"A simplistic attempt at 'Gotcha'. Allow me to explain Moore's motivation, as if it needed explaining to anyone with a concept of logic, law and due process. Bin Laden IS innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the law. That IS the American Way. Indeed, it's the World Way. But in order to prove his guilt, one much capture him and put him to trial."

We didn't do that with Hitler, this person is a moron.

Hitler committed suicide. If we had captured him, we would have put him on trial at Nuremberg.

The author of this "deconstruction" does nothing but attempt to word a retort against those factual points as being "non-important" or "biased" because the author of this "deconstruction" can not raise factual counter-points of his own.

That is a brazen lie. Chris Parry raises many factual counterpoints.

It's a pile of garbage, lending veracity to that great warning of never doing your research online.

Again, this is a perfect description of your post -- a pile of garbage.

Originally posted by donguillermo
FreeMason, you spread more filth on this forum than anyone else. Just because you disagree with something does not make it filth.

And you would know this will all 14 days of membership.

That is a brazen lie. Chris Parry raises many factual counterpoints.

Im willing to read em if you got em.

Again, this is a perfect description of your post -- a pile of garbage.

Really insulting FreeMason is the same thing your decrying earlier.

First, my point with Hitler was that we didn't need to "put him on trial" to know he was guilty. That claim by Chris is a stupid one.

"I'll just say that the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once. (Actually, that's not quite right. It is briefly mentioned but only, and smarmily, because of the bad period when Washington preferred Saddam to the likewise unmentioned Ayatollah Khomeini.)"

If I were an editor who wanted to twist Hitchens' words here, I could have changed the above passage to: "Moore mentions the 30-year record of war crimes and repression of Saddam's Baath Party, while pointing out that the Bush cabinet members that very much wanted to go to war against him also once sold him chemical weapons, financed his army and called him their great friend in the Middle East" - and it wouldn't be a lie. That's exactly what Moore says, but Hitchens prefers to twist it so he looks eville.

Hitchens is essentially admitting the same thing Moore is saying - that the US built Saddam, and that the blood of those Iraqis he killed and tortured is on that country's hands. But he says it in such a way that anyone who hasn't seen the film could say "Yeah! That Michael Moore, he's a liar!"

Which is the title of the piece yet, remarkably, we haven't actually got to a single lie yet. Let's see if any pop up in the rest of the article...

Let's look at this.

Hitchens makes a valuable point, that is, "the context that Moore brings up certain facts."

If Moore brough them up as facts, he would lose credibility, because they are facts supporting Bush, Hitchens was pointing out that Moore brought them up such that you'd think "ohhh that bad Bush".

Chris completely restates what Hitchens says.

"Moore mentions the 30-year record of war crimes and repression of Saddam's Baath Party, while pointing out that the Bush cabinet members that very much wanted to go to war against him also once sold him chemical weapons, financed his army and called him their great friend in the Middle East"

The fact is this is not true, Moore does mention the 30-year record of war crimes, but ONLY when he is saying "Bush helped Saddam".

Hitchens was pointing that out, Chris's retort was to completely ignore reality by even ignoring what actually happens in Moore's film.

Then Chris says this:

"that the US built Saddam, and that the blood of those Iraqis he killed and tortured is on that country's hands."

That is a flat out lie, the US never built Saddam, Saddam took over the Baathist party on his own, took over Iraq on his own, and launched his war against Iran on his own.

When Iran was losing the US helped Iran.

When Iran was winning, the US helped Iraq.

For reasons of "balance of power".

But never did the US help Saddam to his position.

And who helped the Ba’ath party to power?:

The coup that brought the Ba'ath Party to power in 1963 was celebrated by the United States.

The CIA had a hand in it. They had funded the Ba'ath Party - of which Saddam Hussein was a young member - when it was in opposition.

US diplomat James Akins served in the Baghdad Embassy at the time. Mr. Akins said, "I knew all the Ba'ath Party leaders and I liked them".
"The CIA were definitely involved in that coup. We saw the rise of the Ba'athists as a way of replacing a pro-Soviet government with a pro-American one and you don't get that chance very often.
…On February 8, a military coup in Baghdad, in which the Baath Party played a leading role, overthrew Qassim. Support for the conspirators was limited. In the first hours of fighting, they had only nine tanks under their control. The Baath Party had just 850 active members. But Qassim ignored warnings about the impending coup. What tipped the balance against him was the involvement of the United States. He had taken Iraq out of the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact. In 1961, he threatened to occupy Kuwait and nationalized part of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC),
the foreign oil consortium that exploited Iraq's oil. In retrospect, it was the ClAs favorite coup. "We really had the ts crossed on what was happening," James Critchfield, then head of the CIA in the Middle East, told us. "We regarded it as a great victory." Iraqi participants later confirmed American involvement. "We came to power on a CIA train," admitted Ali Saleh Sa'adi, the Baath Party secretary general who was about to institute an unprecedented reign of terror.

www.representativepress.org...

Saddams personal involvement with the C.I.A started as early as 1959 when he was recruited for a plot to overthrow Qasim.

According to another former senior State Department official, Saddam, while only in his early 20s, became a part of a U.S. plot to get rid of Qasim. According to this source, Saddam was installed in an apartment in Baghdad on al-Rashid Street directly opposite Qasim's office in Iraq's Ministry of Defense, to observe Qasim's movements.
Adel Darwish, Middle East expert and author of "Unholy Babylon," said the move was done "with full knowledge of the CIA," and that Saddam's CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist working for CIA and Egyptian intelligence. U.S. officials separately confirmed Darwish's account.

www.upi.com...


And his involvement with them didn't end there.

[edit on 26-6-2004 by kegs]

Ugh, way to post crap.

First Akins is not the CIA, he doesn't know that for sure.

Second this is 1963, a decade before Saddam took over the Baathist party.

So why you drag this crap into a forum of "truths" I don't know....

Sorry, but a quick review of Mr. Parry's earlier writing shows his pro-Moore philosophy well before the movie was even released. Mr. Hitchens, a person I have followed with interest for a number of years, is an equal opportunity critic. After reading both articles I would have to say Mr. Hitchens seems to be the less politically biased, while Mr. Parry's is a liberal CYA worthy of Bill Clinton himself.

donguillermo-I don't understand how you can say that Chris Hitchens is a conservative. This man simply hates most everyone in power liberal or conservative.

Here are several of his articles you might find interesting:

The Stupidity of Ronald Reagan

Interview with Chris Hitchens/Mother Theresa

Seth- You know I am also a huge fan of Hitchens. He is one of the few journalists who actually makes you think, question and want to know more.

Originally posted by Bleys
donguillermo-I don't understand how you can say that Chris Hitchens is a conservative. This man simply hates most everyone in power liberal or conservative.

I don't believe I said that Hitchens is a conservative. I think he is a nutcase. He praises Ahmad Chalabi but has harsh words for Mother Teresa.

My apologies to you - I obviously misinterpreted your post.

I pulled up Hitchens article defending Chalabi and found it interesting - don't agree with it - but it was interesting nontheless.

This is what I find so fascinating about Hitchens. He spins for no one, calls 'em as he sees 'em and provides readers with a view that caters to no particular belief system. You watch any of the networks, cable or print news and you can feel the bias, but not with him. Look at Reagan and Mo Theresa pieces - he was unflinchingly brutal and honest.

What you term nutcase, I find refreshing even when I don't happen to agree with him.

By FreeMason
Ugh, way to post crap.

Lol, yeah and way to refute. Just say it’s all crap; Now why didn’t I think of that? I’ll need to try that myself sometime.

First Akins is not the CIA, he doesn't know that for sure.

No Akins is not the C.I.A, but if you’d bothered to read the other paragraph you’d see James Critchfield was:

"We really had the t’s crossed on what was happening,"James Critchfield, then head of the CIA in the Middle East, told us. "We regarded it as a great victory."

The point of showing the CIA’s involvement with Saddam and the Ba’ath party before he came to power should be pretty self evident. The C.I.A had a long established relationship with both when Saddam came to power. Their involvement with Saddam before and after he came to power is well documented. To think they had absolutely no bearing on his coming to power, to me, is naïve at best.

Originally posted by donguillermo
I think he is a nutcase. He praises Ahmad Chalabi but has harsh words for Mother Teresa.

I finally found the full article on Mother Theresa. The title is not mine, but Hitchens.

Mommie Dearest