Cull Hitchens.
jFp | 02.10.07 - 1:04 pm | #

he is sick, but he is right. The best way to get rid of an undesired population is to eliminate it, the pitfall is obviously dehumanization as happened in Nazi Germany. No surprise that this should happen again in Europe. Muslims are the new Jews of Europe, the outsiders/aliens among us. I just hope that this time around, Europe will be wise enough to avoid a second holocaust and instead opt for more civilized forms of dealing with problems of assimilation, namely political inclusion
sam | 02.10.07 - 1:04 pm | #

As disgusting as it is, I don't think he's wrong about their mindset.
RavagesOfTime | 02.10.07 - 1:06 pm | #

The next time either of these two morons are allowed on TV, the interviewer needs to directly ask them why they advocate genocide.

That's all this crap is, pure and simple.
fed up | 02.10.07 - 1:10 pm | #

just a comment...

the Germans cultivated a muslim alliance throughout the former Yugoslavia during WW2... and with some success...

German troops were augmented by Muslim SS troops (most foriegn soldiers recruited by Germany were a part of the SS organization)...

it was well believed throughout the diplomatic world that once Tito died (1980), Yugoslavia would disintegrate...

i guess what i am saying is it is not just about demographics... these are age old feuds...

(even before WW2)...
Peter Hollman | 02.10.07 - 1:19 pm | #

Well, good grief, look at the source.
Christopher Hitchens.
That sums it up right there.
HillCountryGal | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 1:19 pm | #

Europe has been invaded by Muslims from Afghanistan and North Africa. I live in Spain and have watched the old sector of Barcelona go from completely Gypsy to completely Afghan in about ten years. Morroccans have flooded into the other Spanish cities. France is overrun with Algerians. Italy is also overrun. These are not nice people, either. They are rude and aggressive. There is a LOT of animosity toward Muslims growing in Europe.
President PNACcio | 02.10.07 - 1:28 pm | #

Cut the man some slack: by rational vs. irrational he refers to the Serbs' decision making process NOT whether the decision was rational or irrational.

He portends that Serbs didn't sit down and weigh the pros and cons of their policy using percentages and trend lines like Steyn. In other words they weren't thinking in the same way that a farmer does when choosing fertilizer; they were o'erawed by blood lust and other base instincts.

I don't know which picture of the Serbs is accurate, but I do know your accusation of Hitchens soft-peddling genocide is absurd. There is ample real fault in Hitchens's thinking and writing to waste time chasing ghosts.
King of Kings | 02.10.07 - 1:36 pm | #

Moreover, the poster must not have read Hitchens 8 points that contravene Steyn's 10.

Read Hitchens "Nor do I wish to concede that Serbo-fascist ethnic cleansing can appear more rational in retrospect than it did at the time."

Notice the use of the word "nor" as in negate. Hitchens does not wish to concede that which you accuse him of conceding.

Shame on you all.
King of Kings | 02.10.07 - 1:43 pm | #

King of Kings, I admit that I did not read the full text of Hitchens' review, rather I relied on Neiwert's take on it, because my past experience with David's writing is that he is fair and measured with his criticism.

However, I took the time to read the full Hitchens text this morning and I concede that you are right about Hitchens. I will amend my post accordingly.

My larger point in this post was to generate a discussion on the scapegoating of Muslims--both here and in Europe--as the "Other" which the conservative mindset treats with suspicion and dislike.
Nicole Belle | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 1:58 pm | #

King of Kings | 02.10.07 - 1:43 pm

Perhaps I'm misreading his article.

Hitchen says his 8 points are "to sharpen both prongs of his [Steyn's] thesis." He's not in conflict or disagreeing with Steyn.

He may not wish to concede that the Serbian ethic cleansing can be seen as rational in retrospect. (I'm supposing this is a view of Steyn's.) But he doesn't appear to object to it. Doesn't he even say its "the right line" he agrees with just before the line quoted?
Thing Fish | 02.10.07 - 2:10 pm | #

To Peter Hollman What about all the christian members th SS recuited in Croatia, the Ukraine, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium?
Paul | 02.10.07 - 2:14 pm | #

If only it were just Conservatives. The so called "left" in US politics is just as bad, if not worse in this respect. Just look at the bloodlust in the Dem party over last year's destruction of Lebanon and the wholesale killing of Shia muslims.

Steyn nicely dodges the role played by the US in fomenting the civil war/s in the former Yugoslavia or the Soros factor.

Hitchens' critique is pretty sharp IMO and you do yourself no favours lumping him in with Steyn's idiotic class.
Justaguy | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 2:17 pm | #

I appreciate your concern for fairness, even to the likes of Hitchens. It says a lot about you, and can say a lot about all of us if we stick to it.
King of Kings | 02.10.07 - 2:24 pm | #

and you do yourself no favours lumping him in with Steyn's idiotic class.
Justaguy | 02.10.07 - 2:17 pm

See at the top of Hitchen's article, "Mark Steyn’s new book is a welcome wake-up call."

Again I ask, he's agreeing with Steyn isn't he?
Thing Fish | 02.10.07 - 2:24 pm | #

Nicole, knee-jerk mindless liberalism can be as foolishly absurd as flaming right-wingnut conservatism. Hitchins' huge error in misjudging the competence (incompetence?) of the Bush administration, and confusing a murderous dictator and tyrant to his people with the more serious threat of Islamic totalitarianism, should not detract from the unpalatable (to the multicultural PC crowd) truths in his article.

Religious totalitarianism is a far greater threat to liberty and secular humanism than ideological totalitarianism (Marxism, Nazism, and right-wing 20th century fascism) because it wraps itself around the belief in a supernatural being. It has to be aggressively confronted head-on by challenging the core beliefs and by de-programming the cult-like mindset of its adherents. Hitchens, like his hero Orwell, is repulsed by fascists of all forms, right AND left. Neither he, or Steyn, are calling for the ethnic cleansing of Muslim immigrants who refuse to assimilate. He just states that there is no need to tolerate Muslim cultural double-standards in the West, and that the cultural 'war' needs to be taken back to them wherever they live.

Like-minded secular humanists need to take arms and battle Islamicism with the same zeal and concern they feel about right-wing fascists, otherwise they will suffer the same fate as the classical 'pagans' of the Western world. It was no coincidence that the Dark Ages corresponded with the rise in Catholic Talibanism, and it took centuries for the West to get out of that morass.
Diogenes | 02.10.07 - 2:36 pm | #

crazy me thought that Bosnia turned into a warzone because Milosevic and Tudjmann had a secret agreement before the war to split up Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia....

then of course the Croats and Serbs decided to keep on fighting
karl rove | 02.10.07 - 2:40 pm | #

remember in WW2 the Serbs were our allies against the Nazis while the Croats were facists who slaughtered Serbians wholesale

a bit part of the reason the war happened was the death of Tito who kept Yugoslavia together. Apparently noone had really forgiven/forgotten what happened in the region during WW2
karl rove | 02.10.07 - 2:43 pm | #

Nice to see the neo-Nazification of the rightwing elite is almost complete. How soon before Muslims are asked to wear a yellow crescent?

-GSD
GSD | 02.10.07 - 2:45 pm | #

hitchens is xenophobic plain and simple and has found it to be profitabe as a neocon stooge.
john | 02.10.07 - 2:52 pm | #

It seems as though Hitchens was supplying the logic -- "cull 'em" -- used by the Bosnian Serbs. I don't see where Hitchens himself was approving of or endorsing the practice of genocide by the Serbs or anyone else. It's irresponsible to take such leaps of logic.
media concepts | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 2:56 pm | #

"my larger point is more about the conservative fear of "The Other" coloring their perceptions of dealing with a changing demographic."

Oh yeah, you're right on the money with that one. If you want to see this kind of right-wing "we must outbreed them" hysteria being played out on a regular basis, you've gotta check out the almost-always horribly digusting No Left Turns blog, from the Ashbrook Center in Ohio. One of their bloggers, Steven Hayward, is one of those American Enterprise Institute/Exxon-funded "global warming is no big whoop" shills, and surprise, surprise, he says as much on the blog all the time. Anyway...back to that demographics paranoia stuff - check out these links from NoLeftTurns:

http://noleftturns.ashbrook.org/ ...ogID=7609#16991

and

http://noleftturns.ashbrook.org/...? archiveID=9922

(be sure to check out the deplorable ocmments beneath the post at the 2nd link)

Let's get some more smart lefties putting these cretins in their place...
Dave | 02.10.07 - 3:00 pm | #

"Steyn nicely dodges the role played by the US in fomenting the civil war/s in the former Yugoslavia or the Soros factor."

I don't know about the 'Soros factor' in the breakup of Yugoslavia, but in my opinion it was the Catholic interests in Germany and elsewhere in Europe who played a major role in breaking away the Catholic-dominated provinces of Yugoslavia, Croatia and Slovania. The enraged Serbs then foolishly took their loss and anger out on Muslims in Bosnia and in Kosovo. The breakup of Kosovo, incidentally, is a hint of the demographic future of Western Europe if Muslim immigrants are not assimilated into Western culture. The US belatedly took the side of the Muslims in this conflict, perhaps, as the cynic in me feels, because the Orthodox Christian Serbs did not have the same cachet to policy makers as mainstream Catholic/Protestant Christianity. Furthermore, the US (Clinton administration) needed to prove to Muslims that their Middle-Eastern policies were not a crusade against Islam.

It is very distressing and horrifying to see how religious tribalism still plays a central role in most wars and acts of aggression in these modern times.
Diogenes | 02.10.07 - 3:01 pm | #

Diogenes, with respect, I categorically reject your "knee-jerk, mindless liberalism" label. In fact, I daresay there are many liberals here that would find me too centrist/conservative for their tastes (labels are annoying).

I do not believe that Islamicism is as big a thing to be threatened by as say, global warming. Further, I believe the threat could be significantly lessened if we just amended our imperialist/neo-colonialist ways by not letting PNAC dictate foreign policy.

This is what I'm saying. The conservative fear of The Other is guiding policy and I believe that is a wrong premise with which to begin.
Nicole Belle | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 3:02 pm | #

the Bosnian Serbs were really the crazy ones

Id suggest reading "the Death of Yugoslavia" for anyone who wants a primer on the Slavic war
karl rove | 02.10.07 - 3:09 pm | #

This is what I'm saying. The conservative fear of The Other is guiding policy and I believe that is a wrong premise with which to begin.
Nicole Belle | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 3:02 pm | #


I think you've got that backward Nicole. The Conservatives are driving the fear to support their policies of plunder and domination and Eretz Y'israel.

The fear of muslims is the opiate for the masses.
Justaguy | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 3:09 pm | #

Again I ask, he's agreeing with Steyn isn't he?
Thing Fish | 02.10.07 - 2:24 pm | #

I think Hitchens position is more nuanced than that. His criticism is not overt dismissal but is criticism nonetheless.

I rarely if ever agree with Hitchens but I have far more respect for his intellect than I do for a polemecist like Steyn.
Justaguy | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 3:14 pm | #

It is very distressing and horrifying to see how religious tribalism still plays a central role in most wars and acts of aggression in these modern times.
Diogenes | 02.10.07 - 3:01 pm | #

Like all wars, the break up of Yugoslavia was about treasure and the power to control resources. The elites see the treasure and the masses do the fighting on their behalf. Religions/tribes are just part of the propaganda.

Wars are the product of human beings, not religions. That religion is used by human beings to achieve their ends is the overriding fact of history that seems to be lost on most of the followers of the Clash of Civilizations nonsense.
Justaguy | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 3:21 pm | #

The demographic changes do need to be slowed down or stopped as soon as possible or there will be a great deal of violence in Europe sometime in the future.

The European populations are being replaced through immigration from muslim and African countries and by the high birth rates among those populations.

I think France's youth population is now 30% muslim vs around 1% muslim just 50 years ago.

The Netherlands isn't doing much better with around 6% of their overall population now muslim up from less than one percent muslim in 1960.

Something has to be done to stop this.
hellfire | 02.10.07 - 3:31 pm | #

"Nicole, knee-jerk mindless liberalism can be as foolishly absurd as flaming right-wingnut conservatism."


No, it can't be, is the funny thing. both sides can be stupid, and of course, once you get to the extreme end they're both the same thing (but at that point neither liberal nor conservative.) retarded liberals are usually pretty dumb and barely tolerable, but retarded conservatives should all be culled.

oh, i'm sorry, is even moving to imply that somehow genocide had its benefits wrong? god, i hope so. and you were right with the original post; forget this king of kings cat. hitchens is a monster, and it's pretty much as simple as that. even if you don't get it from that article (which i did) just, like, read any of his other articles where he goes on about his love of death, guns, and statistics.
rotten apples | 02.10.07 - 3:55 pm | #

This would seem like a bunch of crap until I recall reading of PNAC discussion about how it will be necessary to "depopulate" the earth by about 4 millions people.
Paul | 02.10.07 - 3:58 pm | #

Hitchens is all too often a gin-soaked clown, especially when he shows up on TV, but whether you agree with him or not, he remains a serious thinker and writer.

This review outlines several large, complex issues which can't be simply dismissed. The alienation, marginalization and radicalization of the large Muslim population of Europe, which Hitchens ascribes to inadequate and misguided Liberal policies of assimilation, is real, and bodes ill for the future.

Two thoughts:

First, Hitchens undermines his own support for the Iraq war in this review. He does this twice. He identifies Steyn's theory of the growth in Muslim numbers as a proportion of the Serbian population as a primary reason for the Serbian genocide. Fair enough - this is hard to refute. But this same demographic imbalance exists within the Muslim population of Iraq, between the Sunnis and Shias. Hitchens acknowledges elsewhere in the review the religious schism within Islam and the divisions and hatreds which divide Muslims from different countries and cultures. These divisios are particularly vicious in Iraq. The US invasion, which Hitchens loudly supported at the outset (not so much now, though), is running aground on these conflicts.

Hitchens further undermines the case for war by acknowledging that the partition of Iraq, which will have negative consequenses throughout the region, is in process.

Second thought:

Hitchens is right about the danger posed by growing Muslim populations in the West. Too many Muslims live apart from the mainstream of life in Western Democracies. Their willful insularity increases the cultural and economic divide between immigrants and established citizens, and serves to marginalize and radicalize the descendants of Muslim immigrants. The long-held assumptions that Muslims would adopt Western ideals of tolerance, in the cultural and political senses if not in religious terms, are false. For proof of this, look at Holland. The most liberal, tolerant country in Europe is now home to an angry Muslim minority which refuses to integrate and refuses to tolerate criticism. The result is a huge backlash from the Dutch people as a whole.

Mock Hitchens if you will, he certainly deserves to be criticized for the oafish behior he often indulges in. But before you do, read the last paragraph of the posted review.
Annoyed Canuck | 02.10.07 - 4:03 pm | #

February 6, 2007

WASHINGTON -- President Bush yesterday asked Congress for an additional $6.4 billion to develop ways of defeating roadside bombs in Iraq
Joe Blow | 02.10.07 - 4:17 pm | #

Well, Hitchens could be predicting the kind of dilemma Europeans will face and how they are likely to see the issue. He can do that without advocating that they do the act he thinks they might possibly choose.
John S. Ransom | 02.10.07 - 4:21 pm | #

I shows that Hitchens shares the same assumptions as the war criminals. However, we forget that Croatian-Serbs approached Germany and NATO before the conflict about splitting-from Yugoslavia. They basically gave them the go-ahead, which precipitated the conflict and the dismantling of a breakaway economy that was successful. We in the West fostered some of the ethnic-conflicts before, during, and after. For this reason, we're responsible for many of the depredations. It's a strategically-desired region, while Dafur is not.
Matt Janovic | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 4:30 pm | #

Hitchens is often vile but he is not evil and anyone who gave him a reasonably attentive reading should have clearly seen, as Homepage points out, that "Hitchens was supplying the logic -- "cull 'em" -- used by the Bosnian Serbs. I don't see where Hitchens himself was approving of or endorsing the practice of genocide by the Serbs or anyone else. It's irresponsible to take such leaps of logic."

But what disturbs me most is not that initial mistaken accusation, but rather the nonchalant " . . . not a fair interpretation. However, my larger point . . ." fashion with which you acknowledge the mistake. You've just accused someone of harboring the deepest of evils in their heart, and you think it's okay to just gloss over it with that casual admission of error before jumping right back in to defending your "larger point."

This is really unconscionable, and I suspect—hope—totally out of character and just the result of haste and carelessness.
Camillus | 02.10.07 - 5:07 pm | #

To Peter Hollman What about all the christian members th SS recuited in Croatia, the Ukraine, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium?
Paul | 02.10.07 - 2:14 pm | #

In Yugoslavia the focus was on recruiting muslims...

the Germans were also hoping for a muslim uprising throughout the middle east against the British...

yeah, they recruited christians, but using anti-communist (communists were anti-christian) slogans...

Yugoslavia was problematic in that communism was looked upon more favorably, and insurgency was well organized... the Germans always looked for local help...
Peter Hollman | 02.10.07 - 5:18 pm | #

I think Hitchens position is more nuanced than that. His criticism is not overt dismissal but is criticism nonetheless.
Justaguy | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 3:14 pm

Would you say his criticism is more toward the belief of multiculturalism? It is a belief I never under stood, instead preferring eclecticism.

Would feel then from his article that he’s throwing his hands up saying there’s no way we can get along with Muslim culture unless they become more “Western”. And he lost me where he feels that such change must occur through confrontation.

Though the only alternative I can suggest is isolationism. Which isn’t really a viable option.
Thing Fish | 02.10.07 - 5:29 pm | #

This is also a common tactic for those against family planning and zero growth population policy. That some "others" are breeding like rabbits, therefore permanantly changing demographics.

Additionally, we'll probably soon have to face changes in immigration policy, as well as refugees, as more and more Islamic folk, some displaced by "our" war, might seek safety by moving here.
ysbaddaden | 02.10.07 - 5:30 pm | #

Camillus, this may sound like a cop out to you, but if you read my comment upthread, I admitted that I had not read the breadth of Hitchens' original article, but had rather relied on David Niewert's characterization. The accusation comes from David, not me, which I then amended the original post to say was not fair. I didn't couch the amendment insofar as saying "it may not be fair."

I did go back and reach the entire Hitchens article. Personally, I found it "damning with faint criticism" to twist a metaphor. I ascribe that to Niewert's opinion that Hitchens does not reject Steyn's premise, which is what I wanted to focus on. We have turned Muslims into the big bad wolves of our time. That fear, which I believe to be irrational and unsupported by facts (we exaggerate the "Islamocist" threat and ignore those threats done by those who look like us--i.e., the fear of the Other), tied in nicely with the Barbara O'Brien post I wanted to highlight.
Nicole Belle | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 5:50 pm | #

"We have turned Muslims into the big bad wolves of our time. . .
Nicole Belle | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 5:50 pm | "



OK, I'll concede your point, to a certain extent. The phony War on Terror, really the War for Oil, was based from the start upon a set of mostly false premises, one being the fear of Islamofascism.

Fear of "the Other" played well on the airwaves after 9/11 and helped squelch any effective opposition to the march on Baghdad.

Of course it was all meaningless because the US has consistently protected and allied itself with Saudi Arabia, the primary sponsor of fundamentalist Islam.

But the radical incarnation of Islam IS a serious problem. It is illogical for tolerant Western Liberals to ignore, excuse or defend the growing intolerance and insularity of Muslim immigrants to the West, particularly in Europe.

Sharia Law and the Burka are imcompatible with Western democratic values. Period.
Annoyed Canuck | 02.10.07 - 6:23 pm | #

Societies opt for genocide over slavery when they don't need the labor.
ed | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 6:54 pm | #

Genocide is just another mode of US nationalism playing out on the world stage. The best example likely being the incapacity for most liberal Americans to reconcile the use of nuclear weapons on civilians at the end of WWII. This is nothing new, and you'll bathe yourselves in the blood of Iranians while the left wrings its hands but keeps paying its taxes and living in the homeland.
Todd | 02.10.07 - 7:43 pm | #

Hitchens thinking was the same thimking in all of Western Europe that prodded Hitler to finding the solution of the Jewish problem AKA "Holocaust". it is never faraway in the thoughts of these people. It happened to the American Indians too only nobody in the US was punished for the genocide.
nony | 02.10.07 - 8:42 pm | #

>We have turned Muslims into the big
>bad wolves of our time.

On the contrary, they have done that by themselves. In europe, the hatred towards christians and jews by immigrant muslims has been overtly displayed since the 60's. their struggle towards creating an alternative society where islam rules was initiated as soon as the first muslims settled in the 60's.

>That fear,
>which I believe to be irrational and
>unsupported by facts

Then you don't know history, or perhaps you only know the 'left wing version of history'. History clearly shows that if islam gains a foothold in a nonislamic area, the area will be overrun by force and the natives will be slaughtered or converted by force, their culture erased and their history destroyed, unless the natives rids themselves of the invaders by war.

>(we exaggerate
>the "Islamocist" threat and ignore
>those threats done by those who look
>like us--i.e., the fear of the
>Other)

Islam is not fascist, which really makes the term 'islamofascism' a nonstarter. The real joke is that the US is in fact very close to fascism.

Ideology is the central core of a society(the beliefs that a society holds to be absolute truths), and no society can support more than one ideology. That's what the cold war was about, 2 societies trying to impose their own ideology on each other.

Islam is also an ideology, and this ideology is being introduced into western societies, where it clashes with democracy. There can be only one winner, and although I root for democracy, based on history I think my grandchildren will be muslims because of people who don't understand islam and would rather discuss the terms of their surrender than fight for their own children. Ironically, these very people will be the first to be executed as they are generally not very religious.

As for enemies within, if the left wing decides to govern, the neocons should be a short term threat. Even the neocons can't fool the majority of people all of the time. On the other hand, unless the democrats reverse all of the changes made by the right wing from the reagan administration forward, they will only be slowing the descent into fascism.


Andy
Andy | 02.10.07 - 9:26 pm | #

>Hitchens thinking was the same

See the corrections to the story above...

>thimking in all of Western Europe
>that prodded Hitler to finding the
>solution of the Jewish problem
>AKA "Holocaust".

Don't forget eastern europe, northamerica, southamerica, asia, northafrica and the arab world.

The solution to the 'jewish problem' was a natural extension of the euthanasia and racial breeding programmes that had been going on since '34'.

>it is never faraway
>in the thoughts of these people.

Who are these people? Don't foget that racial theory, mental disorder research, frenology, euthanasia etc. were worldwide phenomena, not just confined to western europe.

>It
>happened to the American Indians too
>only nobody in the US was punished
>for the genocide.

The american indians did the same thing to the natives when they arrived.

Andy
Andy | 02.10.07 - 9:47 pm | #

Intolerant, theocratic Muslims living in what they imagine to be the weak and decadent West are in grave peril. Beneath the veneer of tame Christianity and enlightenment humanism sleeps the barbarian heart of the blond beast and its war gods.
ed | Homepage | 02.10.07 - 10:44 pm | #

Smart post, Nicole. your "larger point" is the point. Contest is all.
Mickey Finn | 02.10.07 - 11:27 pm | #