Hey! Look! A Chickenhawk!

The whole business of calling people chickenhawks has fallen into disrepute but I, for one, enjoy it greatly. What's more, it's precisely things like this Hitchens passage that Julian and Ross are discussing that leads to anti-chickenhawk dogmatism. Check it out, but this time with my emphasis added:

In order to get my own emotions out of the way, I should say briefly that on that day I shared the general register of feeling, from disgust to rage, but was also aware of something that would not quite disclose itself. It only became fully evident quite late that evening. And to my surprise (and pleasure), it was exhilaration. I am not particularly a war lover, and on the occasions when I have seen warfare as a traveling writer, I have tended to shudder. But here was a direct, unmistakable confrontation between everything I loved and everything I hated. On one side, the ethics of the multicultural, the secular, the skeptical, and the cosmopolitan. (Those are the ones I love, by the way.) On the other, the arid monochrome of dull and vicious theocratic fascism. I am prepared for this war to go on for a very long time. I will never become tired of waging it, because it is a fight over essentials. And because it is so interesting.

Now say it with me: which war, exactly, was Hitchens waging? He's not waging a war at all, he's sitting at a desk writing magazine articles and Slate columns and drinking just like the rest of us. He isn't waging war, he's advocating that other people wage war. Which is fine, as far as it goes, but he's saying that part of the reason he's advocating that other people wage war is that he enjoys imagining himself as a warrior.

Comments

Hear hear. I think Atrios had a great take on this:

As for the term chickenhawk, it isn't propaganda, it's what we call an "insult." There's no requirement for war supporters to enlist, any more than those who support tax increases needed to mail extra money to the federal government. Iraq chickenhawks are those who support the war, speak of the conflict in existential terms and describe support or opposition of that war in terms of "bravery" or "cowardice" while obsessing about 300/Lord of the Rings War porn even though there isn't the slightest chance in hell they'd sign up. Jonah Goldberg isn't a chickenhawk because he didn't sign up, he's a chickenhawk because there was never any chance that he would. It's an insult, and it's an effective one, because they know it's true.

Posted by Random Dude | August 17, 2007 4:01 PM

In Hitch's defense, he's been to war zones and other dangerous places many, many times, and not with a U.S. military envoy. When he says he's "waging a war" he means, I think, that he's waging it to the best of his abilities, which means writing about it. But he's in thick of things, he's not sitting at a desk at the Weekly Standard.

And count me as an opponent of the Iraq War who thinks "chickenhawk" is a stupid insult.

Posted by too many steves | August 17, 2007 4:03 PM

A truly sickening passage from Hitchens. The worst part is the last line: "And because it is so interesting."

I think this passage explains a lot about what motivates the neocons (I remember reading a similar column by David Brooks back in the neocon-fervor heyday). Normal life and politics is too boring for them. The need war -- not just any war, mind you -- but an ideological war to make current events interesting enough to match their great minds.

Posted by Jim W | August 17, 2007 4:05 PM

"Stupid insult" is pretty subjective and amorphous. It could be stupid for a number of reasons: ineffective, alienating the non-converted, a waste of breath, etc. But it has a wonderful virtue: it's accurate.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | August 17, 2007 4:08 PM

Some say the 101st Airborne is beating off the marauding hordes. Hitchens is just beating off.

Posted by steve duncan | August 17, 2007 4:09 PM

Hitchens has always loved political violence. It's just that his motivations for calling for killing have changed somewhat over the years, although not enough, for example, to shed his passion for Trotsky. Hitchens' eulogy for Trotsky, in which he calls him "a prophetic moralist," can be read in the July 2004 issue of your Atlantic Monthly:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200407/hitchens

A reader who was an old drinking buddy of Hitchens pointed out to me that in the good old days Hitch regularly had his own Mel Gibson Moments after a dozen scotches:

"When I knew him, he claimed to be the "world's biggest anti-Semite" and a great friend of the Palestinians. Then he "discovered" a Jewish great-aunt and began a reassessment of his antecedents, or just decided to give the flip-side a spin or two."

In 2005, there was an extraordinary on-stage dialogue between the long-estranged brothers Christopher and Peter Hitchens over their infant rivalry.

What might look like ideological clashes on the surface are often actually just rationalizations for ethnic clashes between extended families, but the Hitchens Brothers represent an interesting case of an ethnic clash between brothers within a nuclear family. Tory Peter was the favorite of their English father, Trotskyite Christopher of their [possibly] Jewish mother, who committed suicide.

Christopher is still a strident atheist, but as Paul Johnson pointed out in his "History of the Jews," it's been common down through the centuries for young atheist intellectuals to become more focused on Jewish ethnic interests as they age, without necessarily becoming theists. The conversion to the ideology of neoconism of Christopher, who, despite his hatred of religion, has taken to dropping in to synagogues as he travels to express his ethnic solidarity, is a good example of this venerable tendency toward gerontocratic ethnocentrism.

I suspect that Christopher Hitchens used to love Trotsky for being a Communist mass murderer, but now loves him more for being an ethnically Jewish mass murderer.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 17, 2007 4:15 PM

drinking just like the rest of us

Good Lord, Matthew. If he's drinking just like you (or anyone you know, for that matter), I urge you to seek help immediately.

Posted by Uncle Kvetch | August 17, 2007 4:17 PM

Friends don't let friends drink and blog.

Posted by Mac | August 17, 2007 4:20 PM

And count me as an opponent of the Iraq War who thinks "chickenhawk" is a stupid insult.

Count me as one who loves it. Precisely what Hitchens's reputation was based on has never been clear to me. He's a blowhard with a good vocabulary and an accent. Can't we just get George Will to fake an accent, and save some oxygen?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 17, 2007 4:24 PM

You'd think that as the war drags on and our military wears out...the chickenhawk label would become more and more to the point.

Posted by alphie | August 17, 2007 4:25 PM

What do you call someone who is against the war but joins the Army? Courageous Dove?

I think the phrase is best used sparsely and against the total war crowd. It has the quality of forcing the argument to be about cost.

Posted by crack | August 17, 2007 4:27 PM

On one side, the ethics of the multicultural, the secular, the skeptical, and the cosmopolitan. (Those are the ones I love, by the way.) On the other, the arid monochrome of dull and vicious theocratic fascism.

I'm glad he makes it clear which side he loves, because I might have gotten the wrong idea if I looked at the result of the Iraq war, where multicultural, secular, and cosmopolitan forces have lost out in the sectarian and ethnic violence.

Posted by fp | August 17, 2007 4:30 PM

Hitchens still loves Trotsky.

On Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a segment in their "Great Lives" series, in which prominent personalities are asked to offer a tribute to their heroes. Can you guess whom Christopher Hitchens, the prominent neocon chose? The BBC website promised:

"A fiery return for the biographical series in which Matthew Parris chooses the living, and the living choose the dead. Christopher Hitchens proposes Leon Trotsky, the hero of the Russian Revolution later assassinated with an ice pick in the skull. He sees him as the perfect combination of the man of ideas and man of action, and says Trotsky's writings still make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Matthew Parris is joined by Professor Robert Service in resisting him all the way."

It's important to realize that just because Trotsky lost out to Stalin, that doesn't mean Trotsky wasn't a comparably bloodthirsty creature. Indeed, Stalin's Ukrainian Holocaust was in pursuit of Trotsky's policy of collectivization of the farms. During the 1920s, Stalin had posed as a "moderate" in his struggles with the blatantly extremist Trotsky. Once he'd driven out Trotsky, though, lacking his own ideas, he quickly adopted Trotsky's economic policy of forced collectivization, with all the genocidal horrors that entailed.

Stalin and Trotsky did, however, genuinely differ on foreign policy, with Trotsky advocating global revolution, while the relatively less fanatical Stalin backed "socialism in one country" with only opportunistic expansion of Soviet power, such as after WWII or when, in early 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson stupidly left South Korea out of the list of Asian countries America would fight to defend. This degree of prudence on Stalin's part is why the many well-meaning people who claim that Stalin was just as bad as, or worse than, Hitler, are wrong. Hitler tried to conquer the world, and thus he unleashed the biggest slaughter of all time. Stalin's paranoia -- with all the bloodshed it inflicted on his own subjects -- made him less dangerous to the rest of the world. If Trotsky had outmaneuvered Stalin, however, he might well have rivaled or even surpassed Hitler as a cause of carnage.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 17, 2007 4:34 PM

I've always thought 'chickenhawk' was a confused insult given that chickenhawks are actual hawks, they're just know to occasionally eat chickens; they're not scared birds. I know its been around as an insult forever and that its supposed to be read like 'scaredy cat' but as a metaphor its a failure. On its face, you're saying a person labeled 'chickenhawk' eats cowards. I think its totally fair to point fingers at these people, I just think the word choice is dumb.

Maybe armchair warrior, and I always liked 101st Fighting Keyboarders, though that's more specific.

Posted by matthew c | August 17, 2007 4:34 PM

I've got no problem with the chickenhawk charge as applied to people who are outspoken in support of the war but who refuse to serve themselves. I do dislike the 'chickenhawk by progeny' charge one often hears, which expresses scorn for war supporters whose children don't serve. Larry Johnson at TPMCafe is a regular offender on this score. Kids shouldn't be held to account for their parents' stupid public positions.

Posted by Ryan | August 17, 2007 4:34 PM

Eh. It's always been a feebleminded insult. After all, Matthew's a chickenhawk too. He supported the war in Afghanistan and didn't join the Army. Hell, Matthew's a chickenhawk because he supported the Iraq war, initially, and didn't join the Army.

The lamest thing about the Left on this is how they call war supporters who didn't join the Army, but when a person who did join the Army wants to say something positive about the war, they tell him to shut him.

It's all just further proof of the Left's intolerence for ideas other than their own.

Posted by Al | August 17, 2007 4:37 PM

I do dislike the 'chickenhawk by progeny' charge one often hears, which expresses scorn for war supporters whose children don't serve.

I agree that this argument needs to be used more carefully than just 'why don't your children serve?'. However asking 'Have you tried to persuade your children to serve, or would you support their decision to fight in Iraq?' while still just a rhetorical game can again focus the issue on the sacrifice involved.

Posted by crack | August 17, 2007 4:39 PM

Here's the amazing 2005 dialogue between columnists Christopher and Peter Hitchens, which was the first time they'd spoken in years:

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2005/06/hitchens-brothers-at-arms.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 17, 2007 4:39 PM

As a Marine veteran of Viet Nam I reserve the right to call those like Chaney and Bush who favored no only this war but my war while avoiding ANY risk of personal harm chickenhawk. Let's you and him fight!

Posted by Roger Tompkins | August 17, 2007 4:41 PM

And here's Hitchens, the famous atheist, in Slate in 2003:

"When I am at home, I never go near the synagogue unless, say, there is a bar or bat mitzvah involving the children of friends. But when I am traveling, in a country where Jewish life is scarce or endangered, I often make a visit to the shul. I always feel vaguely foolish doing this (the sensation of being a slight impostor is best conveyed in "Christian" terms by Philip Larkin's marvellous poem "Churchgoing") but as a result I have seen some fascinating evidences of survival in Damascus, in Havana, in Dubrovnik, in Sarajevo, and in Budapest, among other places. And more than a decade ago, I did go to the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul."

http://slate.com/id/2091338/

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 17, 2007 4:42 PM

I heard that Gideon Rose is picking a fight with MY. Interesting indeed.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | August 17, 2007 4:44 PM

Sailer,

Are we supposed to think there's something wrong with Hitchens going to synagogoue? Hell, I'm an atheist and not an ethnic Jew, and if you put a gun to my head and made me choose a religion other than the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I'd probably pick Judaism. It's always seemed the most rational, relatively speaking. Catholicism has the prettiest ceremonies, though.

Posted by too many steves | August 17, 2007 4:49 PM

I've never understood why pointing out that someone fit of mind and body who is advocating serious mayhem should not be called to account for why he is not willing to lay his own life on the frontline. Where's the fallacy in that?

On the other hand, Hitchens may be a little out of shape for all that. But he is on record as thinking that having U.S. forces "tempered" in Mesopotamian conflict is doubtless a good thing for future struggles.

You can take the boy out of the British Empire, but....

Posted by elle loco | August 17, 2007 4:51 PM

Matthew,

I don't think "chickenhawk" refers to the bird.

It refers to the NAMBLA pedophiles who prey on children.

Posted by alphie | August 17, 2007 4:52 PM

I think chicken hawk is a perfectly apt insult describing a certain type of person who is willing to commit others to war but will never voluntarily participate in supporting them in any way but verbally.

No war tax, no war draft, no war rationing, no sacrifice. Nothing.

Calling them chicken hawks might actually be too kind.

Posted by ken | August 17, 2007 4:57 PM

The term "chickenhawk" actually has a very precise meaning.

It is someone who boasts about their bravery, the risk they are taking, and in general their personal involvement in the War, without actually taking any risks or ever serving in the war.

Hitchens certainly qualifies. Sullivan did back in his "Eagles" phase. Hugh Hewitt did when he boasted that he was "on the front lines" of the war because he was broadcasting from the Empire State Building. Someone who merely supports the war is not a chickenhawk, regardless of their lack of military service.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | August 17, 2007 4:58 PM

In the past, I've tried to convince myself that the chickenhawk argument was "unfair" and shouldn't be used. But I've found it impossible to deny that there is a good amount of truth in it.

Posted by Algernon | August 17, 2007 4:59 PM

It is a pretty lame insult; it effectively means that nobody is allowed to think any military intervention is worthwhile if they, themselves, are not actively signing up to go.

The insult makes much more sense in the context of a draft, when some are conscripted to go and others maintain outward support for the war but duck service.

Posted by Brad L | August 17, 2007 4:59 PM

"Are we supposed to think there's something wrong with Hitchens going to synagogoue?"

No.

But his current ethnocentrism helps you understand Hitchens' famous change in foreign policy views. He's alway favored killing people, but whom he wants to kill has changed over the years.

What Hitchens has made clear in his writing and speaking is that his conversion from what he called his being the "world's biggest anti-Semite" to his being a leading proponent of neocon wars against Arabs has much to do with his belated discovery that his beloved late mother was partly Jewish, while his resented father, who favored his younger brother Peter, was purely British.

Follow the links above for documentation.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 17, 2007 5:01 PM

Perhaps many of you are right and we need to bury chickenhawk. There must be some word to describe people who tell you that we are in the midst of an epic battle between civilizations where defeat in Iraq will lead to ruin but are unwilling to actual fight in this conflict.

It is not that they support this war. It is the ridiculous lengths they will go to in an attempt to either prop up support for the Iraq debacle or slander political opponents. The chickenhawk label isn't really about cowardice but their disingenuous arguments.

Posted by Foghorn | August 17, 2007 5:03 PM

Are we supposed to think there's something wrong with Hitchens going to synagogoue?

I think there's something pretty damn weird, to say the least, about a guy going to a synagogue who's made a lot of money off a book with the subtitle "How Religion Poisons Everything."

Posted by Christmas | August 17, 2007 5:04 PM

The one constant in Hitchens' politics has been his love of Trotsky, a Communist Jewish mass murderer. In the old days, it was Trotsky's Communist part that got him excited.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 17, 2007 5:04 PM

It is a pretty lame insult; it effectively means that nobody is allowed to think any military intervention is worthwhile if they, themselves, are not actively signing up to go.

No, it means that nobody is allowed to describe themselves as "waging" war, or boast how brave supporting the war makes them, if they, themselves, are not actively signing up to go.

Seems fair, no?

Posted by lemuel pitkin | August 17, 2007 5:05 PM

I'm also a little fuzzy on the documentation for that "world's biggest anti-Semite" thing. A reader of your says Hitch always used to say that? It seems like there should be some instance of somebody else catching him saying it, then.

Anyway, we disagree that Hitchens is "ethnocentric," but I think that's a pretty funny charge coming from you, Mr. Sailer.

Posted by too many steves | August 17, 2007 5:06 PM

"I've never understood why pointing out that someone fit of mind and body who is advocating serious mayhem should not be called to account for why he is not willing to lay his own life on the frontline. Where's the fallacy in that?"

The fallacy is that taken to its logical conclusion this would mean only those who serve in the military, served in the past, or tried to serve but were not allowed for some reason could ever advocate any kind of military intervention. I don't think that is how we want foreign policy determined.

Posted by Mark Adams | August 17, 2007 5:10 PM

Anyway, we disagree that Hitchens is "ethnocentric," but I think that's a pretty funny charge coming from you, Mr. Sailer.

Not funny at all. Sailer's whole thing is that all of politics is just about people supporting their own tribe; he's no different except that he's honest enough to recognize it. He's a vicious racist, but not a hypocrite.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | August 17, 2007 5:11 PM

It's dumb to call Christopher Hitchens a chickenhawk. On 9/11, he was a 52-year-old heavy drinker. What military in the world would have signed him up?

He has a long career of visiting danger spots as a journalist, so there's nothing at all wrong with his courage. And judging from the bloodthirstiness of his prose, and his lifelong love of his fellow intellectual Trotsky, I'm confident that in the right time and place, he wouldn't have had any qualms about slaughtering people (assuming they were on the opposite side from him, which has famously changed over time).

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 17, 2007 5:14 PM

The insult makes much more sense in the context of a draft, when some are conscripted to go and others maintain outward support for the war but duck service.

You people must have been hell on wheels on the playground. "But I'm not actually an ass lick. Is that even a noun?" It's a good insult because (a) they find insulting, and (b) they find it insulting because they think there's a bit of truth to it. Such is life if you're going to play at Sparta. Mostly it's (a).

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 17, 2007 5:16 PM

No, it means that nobody is allowed to describe themselves as "waging" war, or boast how brave supporting the war makes them, if they, themselves, are not actively signing up to go.

Seems fair, no?

Absolutely. We just aren't working off of the same definition. I've always understood it to mean support (often fervent) without service and/or sacrifice, with the idea that you are demanding sacrifice without making one yourself.

I don't know what I'd call people that claim to be part of the effort but aren't, as you are describing. Nothing good.

Posted by Brad L | August 17, 2007 5:21 PM

It's preposterous for anyone eligible for military service to

(1) Claim that we are in a war for the very survival of our way of life;

(2) While this purportedly existential war is currently being fought by the military in two foreign countries; and

(3) There is a severe shortage of well-qualified recruits for military service; and

(4) The strategic options of the military are severely limited in a practical way by this shortage (the "surge" can't last past next spring because of manpower constraints); and

then complain that there's something unfair about people pointing out the grotesque disjunction between your rhetoric and your actions.

Posted by Paul Campos | August 17, 2007 5:22 PM

It's an extraordinarily apt insult for cowardly people who urge us to war. The phrase is a lovely way of branding them.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | August 17, 2007 5:24 PM

Should add I'm not referring to Hitchens. Nobody needs an old drunk guy randomly discharging an automatic rifle while muttering Oxbridgian witticisms.

Posted by Paul | August 17, 2007 5:25 PM

Al,

Chickenhawk is not indiscriminately used by war opponents to describe everyone who supports the war. It is used specifically to describe 2 particularly contemptible types of war supporters.

One, policymakers (such as the President, the Vice President, members of Congress who voted to authorize the war) who brought us this disaster of a war, thereby imposing the burdens of it on our servicemen and their families, without bearing those burdens themselves (such as persuading their loved ones who are in the prime years for military service to enlist in the active military). What makes this type particularly contemptible is that tendency to continue supporting their failed policies that place our brave servicemen in the meat grinder of Iraq, even when the facts on the ground undeniably tell them that their policy is dead wrong. I am mad at people like Kerry and Murtha and Edwards who displayed poor judgment and voted for the war, but at least they recognized that their vote was a mistake, and have tried to rectify that error by working to end our occupation in Iraq. Bush, Cheney, Lieberman, etc. on the other hand still persist in continuing this occupation, without placing any of the burden our military endure on themselves.

Two, it is referred for advocates & propagandists of the war like Jonah Goldberg, Bill Kristol, Rush Limbaugh, etc. who are quick to label any and all opponents of the war as being cowardly & unpatriotic, and who demand that Americans in general make more sacrifices in order to ensure victory, while avoiding making such a sacrifice themselves either enlistment of themselves or our loved ones who are in the prime age for military service.

Chickenhawk is not an appropriate label for former supporters like Matt Yglesias or Andrew Sullivan, who supported the war in good faith, but changed their mind when the facts on the ground pointed to no other conclusion other than that the war was a blunder, and that for the good of our country as a whole and of our servicemen in particular, when need our occupation of Iraq. Such people were not neocon apparatchniks like Goldberg & Kristol, because they never resorted to the type of patriotism arguments that are the last (heck the first) refuge of chickenhawk scoundrels. Matt and Andrew had respect for dissenters on the Iraq war. They thought the dissenters were wrong, but they ascribed to a wrong judgement on the dissenters' part, not to a lack of patriotism and courage.

I do not know if Matt was guilty was this, but Andrew's fault (as well as mine)was letting his distaste for what he perceived to be as the "blame America first" mentality to inappropriately color his assessment of the merits of the Iraq war. That however is simply an example of bad judgement; it is not example of being a chickenhawk. Andrew & Matt made their arguments for the war in good faith, unlike Goldberg, Kristol, Limbaugh, etc. That is why they changed their minds.

Posted by eltoro | August 17, 2007 5:26 PM

(3) There is a severe shortage of well-qualified recruits for military service

This is obviously complete bullsh*t. We will hit our recruiting target this year. As anybody with even a cursory knowledge of the military would know.

But then left-wingers who make this argument are usually not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Posted by Al | August 17, 2007 5:27 PM

But then left-wingers who make this argument are usually not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Hard words coming from a chickenhawk.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 17, 2007 5:30 PM

There's good reasons not to use the chickenhawk metaphor, such as the fact that civilian control of the military is a genuinely good thing and we don't want people to think that military experience is a necessary precondition of having opinions about war.

Nonetheless, the problem is as some people have pointed out, a lot of hawks like to make it sound like anyone who is anti-war is a wimp who doesn't have the guts to take on evil, etc. In other words, rather than simply saying "here's why we need to go to war", they are saying "anyone who opposes the war is spineless". It seems to me that THIS is the argument that opens the door for the chickenhawk issue, because, actually, ADVOCACY of war takes no guts at all. FIGHTING a war takes tremendous guts. And the people who call anti-war types wimps are conflating advocating a war and fighting a war. Indeed, it takes even less guts to advocate a war than to oppose one.

So I would propose this deal with the hawks. Stop calling anti-war types wimps, and we'll stop pointing out that you guys didn't serve.

Posted by Dilan Esper | August 17, 2007 5:30 PM

So I would propose this deal with the hawks.

I don't think anything starting with "I would propose this deal" is going to convince a hawk that we're not wimps. It just means we're appeasers, too.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 17, 2007 5:32 PM

The phrase, "when need our occupation of Iraq", should read "we need to end our occupation of Iraq".

Sorry for that appalling typo.

Posted by eltoro | August 17, 2007 5:35 PM

He isn't waging war, he's advocating that other people wage war.

Put this into liquid form, please! Darts tipped with it will stop a bloviating, stampeding elephant at ten paces or ten seconds into a screed (whatever gets encountered first).

Posted by Ellie | August 17, 2007 5:36 PM

Steve Sailer:

Christopher Hitchens's habit of visiting synagogues in countries where Jews are vulnerable minorities is of a piece with his more general embrace of the underdogs. He remains a zealous advocate of the Kurds and the Palestinians, among others, and a critic of Israel -- can this be explained by "ethnocentrism"?

Also, finding out that one may have Jewish ancestry doesn't always make one like Jews more; sometimes it has the opposite effect. That appears to have been the case with you, no? Despite (or perhaps because of) your Jewish ancestry, you seem to revel in writing about Jewish evil-doers, wherever you can fit them in.

Posted by Juan | August 17, 2007 5:37 PM

On one side, the ethics of the multicultural, the secular, the skeptical, and the cosmopolitan. (Those are the ones I love, by the way.) On the other, the arid monochrome of dull and vicious theocratic fascism.

I think you've got it wrong. The "war" he's referring to is a cultural war between the two sides noted above.

Posted by Don Bacon | August 17, 2007 5:38 PM

The whole point is he's conflating the two wars.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | August 17, 2007 5:40 PM

We will hit our recruiting target this year. As anybody with even a cursory knowledge of the military would know.

Al, you're not trying very hard. "Cursory knowledge" says that recruiting targets have been shrunk over the past few years so the Army can say it's meeting them. Also, the phrase was "well-qualified recruits", and everyone knows standards have been radically lowered over the past few years.

Troll harder there, buddy.

Posted by Ryan | August 17, 2007 5:41 PM

One is forced to conclude that Hitchens' addiction to the Grape is exceeded only by his addiction to comic books. (One wonders whether his declared delighted excitement over the Megaterrorism War against Islamic theocratism will be as strong if the Bad Guys effectively win -- which they may very easily do if they decide to start smuggling Moslem nukes into cities and thus bring all civilization down, Samson-style.)

Posted by BruceMoomaw | August 17, 2007 5:43 PM

In all fairness to Hitchens, it is wrong to conflate him with other war supporters in matters of style. Hitchens does not use patriot baiting; he doesn't accuse people of physical cowardice. Actually, many of Hitchens target's on the left often do deserve a rhetorical beating: I am sorry, but the Michael Moore/Galloway faction is not defensible.

I'm an old fan - if you can tell - but I admit there are some passages of his work which are, even beyond political disagreement, stupid. You should check out his column against the "Chickenhawk" smear - at one point, he says that civilians are on the front lines, and they it may indeed be more dangerous to be a civilian than a solider in Kandahar or something like that.

I don't like the Chickenhawk smear under any circumstances, simply because it is ad-hominem and not a terribly good one at that.

Posted by Neal Murray | August 17, 2007 5:48 PM

Okay, Al, you don't like chickenhawk? How about something more accurate, like "pussy"? "Little namby-pamby baby who shit his pants in 2001 and doesn't know how to unshit them?"

Posted by Walt | August 17, 2007 5:48 PM

I am sorry, but the Michael Moore/Galloway faction is not defensible.

Oh right: Michael Moore is fat.

Tell us Neal, in what sense are Michael Moore and Gorgeous George part of a "faction", and what specific things has Michael Moore said about Iraq that you object to?

Posted by lemuel pitkin | August 17, 2007 5:52 PM

Al,

We are not talking about meeting recruiting targets. We are talking about having enough well-qualified servicemen to carry out our military strategies successfully. Maybe my reading is completely wrong, but last time I looked, a sectarian civil war in Iraq was not part of our military strategy. This civil war could have been averted in the immediate aftermath of Saddam's toppling, if we had enough soldiers to occupy the whole of Iraq outside of the Kurdish areas. However, we only had 150,000 troops, and that wasn't enough for a country the size of Iraq. Of course, if the great mass of diehard Dubya supporters were willing to actually bear the burdens of the war they have unceasingly advocated despite logic and evidence to the contrary, the US could actually raise a military force of say, half a million. So why aren't deadenders like yourself doing this to serve the aims of your Great & Noble leader?

Posted by eltoro | August 17, 2007 5:56 PM

Comparing the Iraqi Resistance to the Minutemen seems a bit tactless.

But hey, let nothing shake our political solidarity, right?

Posted by Neal Murray | August 17, 2007 5:58 PM

"The lamest thing about the Left on this is how they call war supporters who didn't join the Army, but when a person who did join the Army wants to say something positive about the war, they tell him to shut him.

It's all just further proof of the Left's intolerence for ideas other than their own."-Al

Al,
Did it occur to you that you were linking to a left leaning author on a left leaning site that presented an unfettered discussion of this topic. That multiple viewpoints were allowed to be presented. That the majority of the lefties posting agreed that the soldier should probably have been allowed to talk even though it was a violation of DoD policy. Do you need to paint targets on your shoes to so consistently shoot yourself in the foot?

Posted by Njorl | August 17, 2007 6:02 PM

"Cursory knowledge" says that recruiting targets have been shrunk over the past few years so the Army can say it's meeting them.

Actually, cursory knowledge says that this is false. The army's recruitment goals are higher now than they were in 2001. The main reason that the Army fell short of recruiting in 2005 is that the goals had been increased so much (from 72,500 accessions to 80,000)

Posted by Al | August 17, 2007 6:04 PM

No sensible antiwar person wants another man or woman to sign up for military service until we withdraw from Iraq. Friends don't let friends go to Iraq. And beyond that, cretinizing the army with recruits who have the shrunken mental capability of the usual war supporter is probably not a good idea, either. Imagine a battalion composed of Als.

But the chickenhawk insult still works, because the chickenhawks themselves started using the extreme language of treason and fifth columns to describe the sensible people who opposed the war. And they still like to pose, as some kind of stunning irrefutable argument, the question, well, don't you want the U.S. to win the war? Of course, that question is hilarious. The questioner usually doesn't even know what it means - does it mean that we have secured the Islamic Republic of Iraq for domination by the Dawa party? Apparently that is what winning would mean at the moment. Anyway, as long as the chickenhawk insult never ever causes a chickenhawk to actually join the military, I'm for it.

Posted by roger | August 17, 2007 6:05 PM

You people must have been hell on wheels on the playground. "But I'm not actually an ass lick. Is that even a noun?"

I'm sure I was the same as anyone else when I was on a playground. Then I grew up.

When I insult someone (as when I debate), I like to mean what I say. I didn't think that was a fantastically high standard, but apparently, you do.

If you can't insult someone without using words that actually fit, you need to learn more words.

Posted by Brad L | August 17, 2007 6:06 PM

Did it occur to you that you were linking to a left leaning author on a left leaning site that presented an unfettered discussion of this topic. That multiple viewpoints were allowed to be presented. That the majority of the lefties posting agreed that the soldier should probably have been allowed to talk even though it was a violation of DoD policy.

All well and nice after the fact, but that doesn't detract from my point, which was about what actually happened to the soldier who tried to speak at the convention.

Posted by Al | August 17, 2007 6:09 PM

We are not talking about meeting recruiting targets. We are talking about having enough well-qualified servicemen to carry out our military strategies successfully. ... However, we only had 150,000 troops, and that wasn't enough for a country the size of Iraq. Of course, if the great mass of diehard Dubya supporters were willing to actually bear the burdens of the war they have unceasingly advocated despite logic and evidence to the contrary, the US could actually raise a military force of say, half a million. So why aren't deadenders like yourself doing this to serve the aims of your Great & Noble leader?

Of course, in increase in the size of the military requires an change in law. As it happens, I favor returning the size of our military to what we had in 1991. I have no doubt that we could successfully recruit an all volunteer military of that size, and I would bear the burden in the same way as everyone else - through my tax dollars.

Posted by Al | August 17, 2007 6:14 PM

Intellectuals love war, don't they? Nobody as eager for war as the guy who couldn't throw a decent spiral. Or the British equivalent.

Posted by bjk | August 17, 2007 6:15 PM

I don't like the Chickenhawk smear under any circumstances, simply because it is ad-hominem and not a terribly good one at that.

Then I wouldn't worry about it, as there's little damage done. Hitchens is fatuous.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 17, 2007 6:18 PM

"Also, finding out that one may have Jewish ancestry doesn't always make one like Jews more; sometimes it has the opposite effect. That appears to have been the case with you, no?"

Sailer is part Jew? Get the hell out!

Next we'll find out he's part black.

Posted by Josh | August 17, 2007 6:22 PM

Juan says regarding Hitchens change of politics: "Also, finding out that one may have Jewish ancestry doesn't always make one like Jews more..."

Lynn Barber in The Observer:

"Surprisingly - given how much he writes - Christopher Hitchens has written only one autobiographical piece, the title essay of Prepared for the Worst (1988). It is self-revealing as far as it goes, but it covers only one small aspect of his life, the discovery of his Jewishness when he was 38. It happened when his brother Peter took his new bride to meet their maternal grandmother, Dodo, who was then in her nineties, and Dodo said, 'She's Jewish, isn't she?' and then announced: 'Well, I've got something to tell you. So are you.' She said that her real surname was Levin, not Lynn, and that her ancestors were Blumenthals from Poland.

Christopher was thrilled when Peter told him. By then he was living in Washington and most of his friends were Jewish. Moreover, he felt that he had somehow known all along. He remembers an odd dream in which he was on the deck of a ship and a group of men approached him and said they needed a 10th man to make up a minyan (Jewish prayer group) and he calmly strolled across the deck and joined them. He insists that he is Jewish - because Jewish descent goes through the mother - though Peter Hitchens, who has traced the family tree, says they are only one 32nd Jewish."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/worldview/story/0,,683899,00.html

It's not exactly a state secret that Hitchens' move toward the neocons followed his happy discovery that he was a little bit Jewish through his beloved mother, who had killed herself.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 17, 2007 6:32 PM

Then I wouldn't worry about it, as there's little damage done.

See that's what's great about ad hominem attacks. Little damage done! Right, SCMT, you unpatriotic communist?

Posted by Al | August 17, 2007 6:33 PM

As it happens, I favor returning the size of our military to what we had in 1991

...but never serving in it.

And thanks eltoro for patiently setting things a-right.

Posted by ed | August 17, 2007 6:45 PM

Yeah, I supported Afghanistan but I didn't join the Army, and Kosovo and Bosnia too. Maybe if we didn't have standing armies I'd enlist for Afghanistan. Really, you ought to be able to choose your battles. It is a democracy.

I just don't like wearing uniforms or saluting or taking orders or even giving orders. It's just not my nature. This country was founded by antiauthoritarian cranks, so I feel no shame in this.

I'm not afraid of fighting but there's no way I'd drive around Iraq waiting for an IED to blow my legs off. That ain't fighting, it's just human sacrifice.

Posted by Chris | August 17, 2007 6:50 PM

See that's what's great about ad hominem attacks. Little damage done! Right, SCMT, you unpatriotic communist?

Don't tell me, Al. I'm not the one who thinks it's a poor insult. I've always thought it bothered the Keyboard Kommandos.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 17, 2007 6:53 PM

Al: All well and nice after the fact, but that doesn't detract from my point, which was about what actually happened to the soldier who tried to speak at the convention.

Your original point was that leftists do not allow dissent. That has been refuted. Furthermore, he didn't try to speak, he actually was allowed to speak, even though the meeting had to be extended to allow it. The moderator's complaint was that making political statements while in uniform violates the military's own rules, which, of course, it does. But, I guess, the rules only apply to those you disagree with.

Posted by k | August 17, 2007 7:08 PM

Since it has been mentioned that the heart of the chicken-hawk argument is that other people are bearing the risks and the suffering, I think it is worth mentioning that it is the Iraqi civilians who are affected the most in this regard. They risk getting shot by some nutjob faction or run-over by a humvee everyday to fetch a bucket of water. US soldiers are volunteers and some of them may well be brave, but the civilians have no choice at all but to be brave. Hitchens et al are just lame.

Hitchens is also a major blowhard and apparently not ashamed of it either: I remember when he pontificated about Proust translations and nonchalantly interjected at some point that he hadn't read him in the original.

Posted by novakant | August 17, 2007 7:36 PM

Both Hitchens and the neocons share intellectual roots in Trotsyite world views. The embrace of violence and lies to accomplish political ends are not altogether shocking given this fact.

Posted by klein's tiny left nut | August 17, 2007 8:24 PM

well, in a liberal democracy in the 21st century allow me to find it a tad shocking, but your point is correct

Posted by novakant | August 17, 2007 8:41 PM

The chickenhawk 'smear' is good because it puts various GOP hacks on the defensive. Someday (he said hopefully) that will be our Standard Operating Procedure. Because that is what they have been doing for years. Or decades. They don't worry about the disain of David Brooks/Broder.

How anyone with Dem leanings hasn't picked that up by now...well, makes me want to get another drink.

Posted by Andruw | August 17, 2007 9:14 PM

He's waging war on the war against the war.

Posted by aleks | August 17, 2007 9:45 PM

Chickenhawk - Stupid insult" is pretty subjective and amorphous. It could be stupid for a number of reasons: ineffective, alienating the non-converted, a waste of breath, etc. But it has a wonderful virtue: it's accurate.
Posted by Jeffrey Davis

Not as accurate as calling Lefties who claim they "support the troops!!" out as the lying traitors they are. Nor as satisfying as calling a Lefty that to their face after one displays fake grief over US soldier's deaths, or barely masked glee on the Lefty "Iraq dead list"..

It's an extraordinarily apt insult for cowardly people who urge us to war. The phrase is a lovely way of branding them.Posted by Jeffrey Davis

But it is nowhere close to the pungent branding the Lefties as traitors, enemy collaborators, terrorist rights lovers. That stain will be long-lived as the struggle with the deadly ideology of radical Islam continues, as statements young Lefties make now may haunt their lives 20 years from now.....Much as the "Communism is chic and Stalin is Our God" found out after WWII.

And the best thing is Lefties bring that sort of vile backlash on themselves by their very tactics of insulting, questioning the morals and motives and bravery of their opponents and expecting only civil criticism in return.

Andruw - The chickenhawk 'smear' is good because it puts various GOP hacks on the defensive. Someday (he said hopefully) that will be our Standard Operating Procedure.

NO, it will put people on the offensive and after the next big radical Islamist attack on America, lead to direct accusations the Left collaborates with the enemy, enables them, have blood on their hands, and need to be removed from positions of influence.
Leading to Lefties who adopted it as SOP and went on the record bawling that their careers and influence are under attack by the public as the poor German Bund members, Copperheads, and Stalinists were "discriminated against".

As a Marine veteran of Viet Nam I reserve the right to call those like Chaney and Bush who favored no only this war but my war while avoiding ANY risk of personal harm chickenhawk. Let's you and him fight!Posted by Roger Tompkins

Just proves that the Marines in Vietnam had quality control problems if they let a stupid asshole like you in.
You have no moral authority.
I'm a Vet of the Gulf War and my Dad was a medic who did helo rescue missions inside S Vietnam in VC territory.
YOu are either stupid or one of those myriad of Lefties who posture as faux veterans if you think Dubya avoided ANY risk of personal harm as a F-102 pilot whose pilot cohort had a higher death rate than the average soldier who served in the Vietnam war zone.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 17, 2007 11:30 PM

"He isn't waging war, he's advocating that other people wage war. Which is fine, as far as it goes, but he's saying that part of the reason he's advocating that other people wage war is that he enjoys imagining himself as a warrior."

Hitchens is an egregious asshole (I haven't read much of his stuff, but I watched his debate with George Galloway - who handed him his head), but in some sense, I understand his reaction. And Matt's.

I've always despised the "armchair anarchist" - the guy who wails about the state but does nothing about it except "protest" - which is utterly useless. The best they can do is join a WTO protest march and throw a newspaper kiosk through a storefront window.

Eventually I became a terrorist - defined as someone who is pushed to his limits and decides, as an act of suicide, essentially, to fight back. I wanted to drop US society. I wanted to make Osama bin Lade (who didn't come along until much later) look like the Flying Nun. I wanted to kill the top 10,000 people running this country. I wanted to burn down or blow up every church, school, and government building in this country.

I ended up doing eight years in prison for it. So I didn't just "imagine" myself a "warrior", I tried to be one. Unfortunately, in terms of physical ability and resources, I wasn't good enough to be one.

While in prison, I had plenty of time to think. I learned that rather than ask Lenin's question, "What is to be done?", it is better to acknowledge that nothing can be done. As William Burroughs put it, "The human problem does not have a solution". He meant that the human problem does not have a human solution. There is a Transhuman solution.

Being a Transhumanist, I can sit back, like Hitchens, and watch the unfolding disaster for the US in the Middle East and say, "It's interesting." Another "Empire" is going down. History in the making.

Unfortunately, before the end of this century, human history will be superceded and no longer relevant.

My only concern at this stage of my existence is that I avoid ending my existence before I can take advantage of the relevant technology necessary to extend my existence. Everything else is mostly an intellectual curiosity - including 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, and, upcoming, Iran and the bleeding to death of Israel and the US.

Unlike Hitchens, I look forward to these events because they confirm my low opinion of the human species. Unlike Hitchens, however, I still argue for the correct actions to avoid these events - simply because it is correct to be correct. But the reality is, they're going to happen because they are unavoidable given human nature.

As I always say, Hitchens and the rest of his ilk - and pretty much all the other "ilks" - are all going to die. We Transhumans won't.

Have a nice day.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 17, 2007 11:34 PM

Steve Sailer:

"It's not exactly a state secret that Hitchens' move toward the neocons followed his happy discovery that he was a little bit Jewish through his beloved mother, who had killed herself."

So, post hoc, ergo prompter hoc? And what about Hitchens's consistently anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian positions -- how does that fit with an ethnocentric conversion to neoconservatism?

Sailer, you usually argue more rationally than this. You either have a bug up your ass about Hitchens, Jews, or both.

Posted by Juan | August 17, 2007 11:44 PM

Excuse me, Chris Ford, but you think Lefties are displaying fake grief about the death of our servicemen? It just shows how successfully the wingnuts have brainwashed you. They have needlessly caused the deaths of over 3,000 servicemen, and don't have the decency to acknowledge that they are making them fignt in a civil war that has nothing to do with our national security, but according to you, the grief the right-wingers express is genuine, but the grief left-wingers express is not? The right-wingers keep sending servicemen back into the meat grinder that is the Iraq civil war in the name of fighting AQ, when the Iraqis are perfectly capable of killing AQ on their own? They tell lies repeatedly that the Iraq war is necessary to fight Islamic terrorism against the West, even though this conflict is an internal one, with Muslim fighting Muslim for sectarian reasons, but the righties are the ones who care about you? Bullshit. If they cared about you, they would working overtime to get our brave men & women the hell out of Iraq, instead of impeding and blocking every attempt by the lefties to get you out of there. The lefties don't see the point of sacrificing our soldiers in a war that doesn't concern us, but according to you, the death of every servicemen brings glee to them. If that were true, that it follows that lefties would be the biggest supporters of the war, because as long as our troops are there, they will get numerous opportunities to die needlessly. The fact that lefties are the biggest opponents of the war must tell you then that the lefties actually care about the troops, who they see as people, unlike the righties who regard our soldiers as playing pieces on the geopolitical chess board.

Posted by eltoro | August 18, 2007 12:35 AM

Let me also remind you Chris Ford that the same wingnuts who you believe care about you so damn much are the same ones who cut back on funding for VA hospitals and healthcare for our returning veterans, and that it took the lefties to reverse that trend. Yet, according to you, the lefties are the ones out to get you.

Posted by eltoro | August 18, 2007 12:53 AM

Moreover, Chris Ford, it is precisely that rhetoric that the lefties are traitors and collaborators that has earned the supporters of the war the label chickenhawk. They couldn't have the decency to merely ascribe differences in opinion as a matter of judgment; no, your wingnut buddies had to resort to impugning the patriotism of lefties. Yet, while they had to gall to call opponents of the war traitors & collaborators, even those that were your fellow veterans, they conspiciously abstained from taking actions like enlisting in the military, or even persuading their loved ones to go fight in the alleged central front on the war on terror. These wingnuts keep demanding that other people be sacrificed in the name of the neocon agenda, but according it is the lefties that are the enemy. Well, that's the problem in a nutshell with you Dubya deadenders; you're can't tell who the real enemy is, so that's why you've got our troops fighting in the wrong damn country and in the wrong damn war. Some friends of the servicemen you people are.

In fact, if we are attacked again, I dare you to utter just one slanderous attack on Iraq war opponents as being traitors, because I will call you out as the traitor you are, to both your country and to your fellow servicemen. You are on record here as opposing an attack on the stronghold where AQ is currently holed up, thereby allowing them the chance to plot and carry out another attack on American soil. The fact that you are a veteran makes your treason all the more despicable. Don't like being called a traitor, especially for such a blatantly unfair reason? Then don't engage in such rhetoric yourself, especially for the blatantly unfair reasons that you do.

Posted by eltoro | August 18, 2007 1:13 AM

Chris Ford,

How many Vietcong did Dubya kill while in the Texas National Air Guard? How much combat did he see in Vietnam? The answer to both questions is none. John Kerry for all his faults killed more Vietcong than Dubya, Cheney, Rommney, Giuliani, Limbaugh, and Fred Thompson combined. No that he had to kill that many, since none of them actually served in Vietnam itself. (FYI, Texas is part of the US, not Southeast Asia, and shares the border with Mexico, not Vietnam). Yet unlike Bill Clinton, who also avoided serving in Vietnam, Dubya & company were supporters of sending other young men of their generation to get shot at by the Vietcong. While John McCain was being tortured by the North Vietnamese, while John Kerry was patrolling on swiftboats, while Al Gore was working as a military journalist in Saigon (like Matthew Modine's Private Joker in Full Metal Jacket), Dubya was whooping it up stateside. He gleefully supported sending people like McCain and Kerry to actually fight in Vietnam, while endangering himself mainly through drunk driving, not from flying jets. After all, according to Dubya's service records, he didn't really fly that much compared to his fellow pilots in the Guard.

One wonders if Dubya in basic training suffered like Full Metal Jacket's Private Pyle at the hands of a Lee Ermey type DI.

Posted by eltoro | August 18, 2007 1:36 AM

eltoro, that's ki