Christopher Hitchens takes on Islamic Rage Boy
I met Mr. Hitchens briefly at an event at the National Press Club a few years back – right after he left The Nation for his support of the war against terrorism. We spoke for several minutes and he was a friendly-enough guy – so friendly and interesting that I’ve found it very hard to criticize anything he’s written since.This bit of uncommon sense he’s written for Slate reminds me of those few minutes I spent with him that evening all of those years ago;
This mental and moral capitulation has a bearing on the argument about Iraq, as well. We are incessantly told that the removal of the Saddam Hussein despotism has inflamed the world’s Muslims against us and made Iraq hospitable to terrorism, for all the world as if Baathism had not been pumping out jihadist rhetoric for the past decade (as it still does from Damascus, allied to Tehran). But how are we to know what will incite such rage? A caricature published in Copenhagen appears to do it. A crass remark from Josef Ratzinger (leader of an anti-war church) seems to have the same effect. A rumor from Guantanamo will convulse Peshawar, the Muslim press preaches that the Jews brought down the Twin Towers, and a single citation in a British honors list will cause the Iranian state-run press to repeat its claim that the British government—along with the Israelis, of course—paid Salman Rushdie to write The Satanic Verses to begin with. Exactly how is such a mentality to be placated?
We may have to put up with the Rage Boys of the world, but we ought not to do their work for them, and we must not cry before we have been hurt.
There’s nothing else to add. No matter how hard I try. Good job, Mr. Hitchens.
Someone tell Rage Boy to get his angryface out – Gates of Vienna‘s Baron Bodissey (by way of Gateway Pundit) reports that some Danes have burned Muhammed in effigy.
