1. Comment #48048 by Vinelectric on June 6, 2007 at 12:03 pm

Monotonus and nauseating.

If anyone finds a link to the full debate let me know.

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2. Comment #48050 by RevStyle on June 6, 2007 at 12:07 pm

In terms of context,some more of Hedges' responses would have been welcomed from my point of view.

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3. Comment #48055 by tieInterceptor on June 6, 2007 at 12:17 pm

Hitchens still makes me smile every time, even thought by now I know most of the answers.

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4. Comment #48056 by Rtambree on June 6, 2007 at 12:22 pm

An interesting question is who is the best pro-God or pro-religion debater we've encountered on this site or others?

Obviously not this guy. And Alister McGrath is too unintelligible, but can anyone nominate the least worst, or the most articulate, of the God-botherers?

I'm struggling to think of anyone.

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5. Comment #48061 by Donald on June 6, 2007 at 1:00 pm

Islam planned to take over the world. But there was a Hitch....

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6. Comment #48063 by Vinelectric on June 6, 2007 at 1:11 pm

can anyone nominate the least worst, or the most articulate, of the God-botherers?

Reza Aslan debating Sam Harris.



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7. Comment #48064 by CanadAdam on June 6, 2007 at 1:16 pm

here's another debate Hitchens did a couple of days ago. 1 hour 30 minutes.

itpc://www.townhall.com/talkradio/podcast.aspx?RadioShowId=5

That opens it up in iTunes. I'm not sure how to get the direct mp3 links.

http://www.townhall.com/talkradio/SetUpPodcast.aspx?pc=5

It's the Hugh Hewitt show.

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8. Comment #48065 by tieInterceptor on June 6, 2007 at 1:19 pm

Reza Aslan sounds good because he has a nice voice and good delivery, but as with many God-botherers, I can't seem to understand what the hell is the meaning of their speeches, lots of talk about degrees of subtlety in religion that Atheists do not want to see,

but basically hollow chatter that bores the hell out of anyone with any analytical mind.

In my humble opinion of course,

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9. Comment #48069 by konquererz on June 6, 2007 at 1:27 pm

To many pieces, Ill wait for the full video. But Im sure its the usual. Arguing with hitch is like being in a fist fight in the back ally, one in which you always lose.

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10. Comment #48071 by okmichigan on June 6, 2007 at 1:28 pm

agreed with vinelectric - aslan put up the best fight, regardless of how lofty and confusing his rhetoric was. it is so hard to argue with harris, though. his face stays absolutely placid, it's hilarious. hitch, on the other hand, can move quickly from being sarcastic to deadly serious. just in terms of presentation, i'm glad these two are on our side. :)

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11. Comment #48074 by TheHardProblem on June 6, 2007 at 1:38 pm

Comment #48064 by CanadAdam
here's another debate Hitchens did a couple of days ago. 1 hour 30 minutes.
[...] I'm not sure how to get the direct mp3 links.

Here you go, the mp3 files:
part1:
http://boss.streamos.com/download/townhall/audio/mp3/c2485c8a-747c-4104-a42c-18fb0c62b22d.mp3
part2:
http://boss.streamos.com/download/townhall/audio/mp3/f8fbd28f-f96c-4276-8929-91c4dede684e.mp3
part3:
http://boss.streamos.com/download/townhall/audio/mp3/79afc6d8-c1ea-4df5-9594-460b8fc8cb1c.mp3

Other Comments by TheHardProblem

12. Comment #48078 by shmooth on June 6, 2007 at 1:48 pm

Christopher Hitchens - a truly deplorable human being.

Dude will defend the invasion of Iraq and the wholesale slaughter of those people by Americans until the day he himself dies.

Unfortunately, Hitchens probably won't reach his final demise in the same way that most Iraqis are meeting theirs - from the business end of some high-tech American weaponry.

Other Comments by shmooth

13. Comment #48082 by TheHardProblem on June 6, 2007 at 1:55 pm

lets not go to the Hitchens and Iraq topic again, its been done. Keep it to relgion.
Head to the forums if you must.

Other Comments by TheHardProblem

14. Comment #48085 by Fire1974 on June 6, 2007 at 2:02 pm

I almost thought Hitch had lost this one in terms of the motivations of suicide bombers until the end.

You can't look at the deplorable conditions which Islam imposed on on it's own followers with it's dogmatism and then leave it exempt from responsibility blaming the conditions themselves as the motivation of the Jihadists. Regardless of the fact that they use the Koran itself to justify their actions, anyway you slice it the contamination of religion is ultimately responsible.

This is my own version of what he said, but Hitchens is amazing in his ability to see the whole picture. I hate Bush's war. However, if anyone could turn me around it might be Hitchens. He makes me realize I shouldn't be dogmatic about this issue.

Other Comments by Fire1974

15. Comment #48087 by darwin2 on June 6, 2007 at 2:20 pm

I totally agree with Hitchens' views on the evil, superstitious, divisive and very corrupt nature of organized religions. However I believe Hitchens is totally wrong about the existence of God and I think his obsession with the brutal evils of organized religions has crippled his mind into denying the possible and highly probable existence of God.

Other Comments by darwin2

16. Comment #48088 by TheHardProblem on June 6, 2007 at 2:28 pm

The videos posted is half of the debate, it only features the parts where hitchens spoke.
The whole debate is only be available on DVD if you donate 100 dollars to one of the sponsors. Check out their site https://ittsui.pair.com/kpfa/support/

Other Comments by TheHardProblem

17. Comment #48094 by mintcheerios on June 6, 2007 at 3:02 pm

I'm still waiting for the Harris vs. Hedges debate on audio or video.

Other Comments by mintcheerios

18. Comment #48095 by boblin on June 6, 2007 at 3:05 pm

On that point (Comment#48088), is it not rather unbalanced to post a video of Hitchens 'greatest hits' from this debate (even parts 1-7 chop out hedges contribution at the lectern)? This was the last place I expected to find people worshipping.

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19. Comment #48097 by TheHardProblem on June 6, 2007 at 3:20 pm

is it not rather unbalanced to post a video of Hitchens 'greatest hits' [...]

Maybe it is, but it's the only recording we have. I myself would love to hear the other side, to find out what arguments are used, im truly interested in that.
But if you looked closer to the links posted you could have read that the guy who recorded this didnt have enough tape. So he recorded the more interesting side of the debate which I can perfectly understand. The recording of the debate is not intentionaly presented in an unbalanced way.

There's nothing wrong with admiring someone's skills and wit.

Also, nice of you to call it 'hitchens greatest hits', terminology not unknown to certain critics of Sam Harris. At least we know who you are now.

Other Comments by TheHardProblem

20. Comment #48099 by TheHardProblem on June 6, 2007 at 3:27 pm

On a more positive side, and in follow up of my own post #48088.
KPFA radio is going to broadcast the audio of the whole debate.
The broadcast will be coming Saturday, 10am on KPFA 94.1 FM. An internetstream is available as well.
Someone with a secure connection should record it! Hopefully KPFA's servers will be able to hold the amount of listeners :D.

KPFA's website: http://www.kpfa.org/highlights/?airdate=2007-06-09#14207

Other Comments by TheHardProblem

21. Comment #48102 by agki on June 6, 2007 at 3:41 pm

According to someone who commented on Youtube, Zombietime.com edited Hedges's comments out. The commenter said that Zombietime is a rightwing creation that doesn't like Hedges's liberalism. We need to see the whole thing to judge it.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that the history of ideas of what god is must end in a clear statement that we have given him/her/it up and become atheists. The god of the Old Testament is a "real" entity with fantastic powers of creation but also with a very evil, immoral, and violent personality. Somehow, this "real" thing transmutes in history into a loving principle that becomes more and more shadowy and substance-free. Where it goes from where it is now is obvious. We must admit that it doesn't exist and that loving is one of the (apparently) few positive human traits. Love, kindness, goodness, compassion, and all that are from and within us and not out there as a vague principle no matter how good it may be. When we understand that, we will be what we are but don't know it, intelligent human beings.

I do not believe that many humans can be characterized as "intelligent" no matter how skillful at science, mathematics, or automechanics! They are clever but intelligent? Not a chance.

Agki

Other Comments by agki

22. Comment #48115 by MIND_REBEL on June 6, 2007 at 5:00 pm

Hitchens is brilliant. It's great to see a journalist embracing science and logic instead of just repeating the same old lies over and over. Most people that smart go into science, but he decided to persue writting as a way to change the world for the better. In fifty years, everybody will agree his theories on Iraq were correct the same way Darwin's theories were confirmed generations after his death.

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23. Comment #48116 by Bonzai on June 6, 2007 at 5:05 pm

Am I the only one who thinks that Mind_rebel is just a figment of someone's not very fertile imagination?

He sounds like a character someone like Bizzaro would invent as an parody for atheists.

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24. Comment #48124 by boblin on June 6, 2007 at 5:40 pm

Comment #48097 by TheHardProblem: Also, nice of you to call it 'hitchens greatest hits', terminology not unknown to certain critics of Sam Harris. At least we know who you are now.

Why not just point and scream THEIST, 'Body Snatchers' style?

Actually don't, because you're mistaken - I haven't read any Sam Harris yet, perhaps something I have in common with some of those critics; and I've seen the clips and yes Hitchens is good to watch, but I've never seen anything posted on this site before where the editing was so biased - not suprising if your throwing up someone elses anti-liberal propaganda.

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25. Comment #48138 by Jeffersonian-Marxist on June 6, 2007 at 6:19 pm

I think it's necessary to note the insubstantiality of the stances of these progressive theists. I really don't know what people like Hedges and Reza Aslan stand for, and their posititions are hypocritical, in the least. During the debate with Sam Harris, Reza Aslan stated that we should criticize the fundamental readers of the Bible but criticize people like Sam just as well. It perplexes me that these people, who think much more like the people on this website, would side with the fundamentalists rather than us.

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26. Comment #48142 by cacahahacaca on June 6, 2007 at 6:32 pm

Arrrghhh... we really need an unedited version of this. It really isn't a "debate" if you literally just hear one side of the story.

Saturday seems so far away...

Other Comments by cacahahacaca

27. Comment #48144 by Scott McMeekin on June 6, 2007 at 6:45 pm

I have to agree with those posts calling for the full vid. I don't like this playground bully style of showing one side and using it as a platform from which to point and laugh and declare one side the winner. It's a very American media style, and I for one don't like to see it here of all places.

"An oasis of clear thinking". Indeed. Let's keep it that way.

Scott.

Other Comments by Scott McMeekin

28. Comment #48146 by JJoe on June 6, 2007 at 7:15 pm

Comment #48063 by Vinelectric on June 6, 2007 at 1:11 pm

Reza Aslan debating Sam Harris.

I was going to say the same.

Although upon re-listening to that debate I thought Sam was being particularly non-confrontational. I've heard him knock down many of the points Reza was making in other debates. I'm not sure why he let them go in that one.

Other Comments by JJoe

29. Comment #48147 by hightrekker on June 6, 2007 at 7:29 pm

Reza is civil---
I have been going back and forth with him on another site, and he has commented that it would be best if we were never in the same room---
I think it was the comment about a book I had just read on women who had climbed K2-- and how they were sexually harassed in Pakistan, and these experienced world travelers had come to the conclusion that Pakistani Men were the biggest pigs they had encountered in all their travels.
Reza had some issues with this, I guess---
Reality is not welcome to our superstition based religious friends, and the light is hard to face up to.

Other Comments by hightrekker

30. Comment #48148 by BAEOZ on June 6, 2007 at 7:54 pm

ok hightrekker, reveal your true identity. Are you the FSM?

Other Comments by BAEOZ

31. Comment #48151 by hightrekker on June 6, 2007 at 8:17 pm

Baeoz---
Close- the FSM is my cousin on my Goddess side----
Run with the hunted-

Other Comments by hightrekker

32. Comment #48153 by BAEOZ on June 6, 2007 at 8:40 pm

Close- the FSM is my cousin on my Goddess side----
Run with the hunted-

Obscurantist deities!

Other Comments by BAEOZ

33. Comment #48155 by Twhupfold on June 6, 2007 at 8:58 pm

I love the things Hitchens does, but I have such a problem with how he -constantly- interrupts everyone he speaks with... I agree that we shouldn't give religion special power to avoid discussion, but it's just a basic manners to not constantly interrupt everyone you speak with *sigh*... Really despite Hithchens immense knowledge and verbal skill, he lacks any shred of manners and comes across as a very deeply arrogant man : ( Such a shame

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34. Comment #48161 by rmercad2 on June 6, 2007 at 10:58 pm

I hate the fact that whoever edited the clips decided for us that Hedge's view was, for the most part, not worth listening to.

I like to make that decision for my self.

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35. Comment #48173 by BathTub on June 7, 2007 at 12:44 am

I dislike the fact that people keep ignoring the reason Zombie did that in the first place.

We are lucky to have what we do, at least for the time being.

Other Comments by BathTub

36. Comment #48193 by JesusH on June 7, 2007 at 2:32 am

>12. Comment #48078 by shmooth on June 6, 2007 at 1:48 pm

>Unfortunately, Hitchens probably won't reach his final demise in the same way that most Iraqis are meeting theirs - from the business end of some high-tech American weaponry.

The vast majority of Iraqis and others who are being killed in Iraq are being killed by other Muslims NOT Coalition forces. Your statement here is a complete falsehood. You may disagree with the coalition being there but don't lie about what is occurring.

Other Comments by JesusH

37. Comment #48194 by Donald on June 7, 2007 at 2:33 am

Comment #48087 by darwin2
However I believe Hitchens is totally wrong about the existence of God and I think his obsession with the brutal evils of organized religions has crippled his mind into denying the possible and highly probable existence of God.

OK. I'll ask. Would you tell us which god you think (probably) exists?

Thor, Zeus, Apollo?
The god of the OT?
Jesus?
The holy spirit?
ALLAH?
Wotan?

Or, another version you think is the real one, that the writers of the above religions didn't manage to describe accurately? If the latter, please tell us for your god:

Did he create the earth, or did it coalesce from star debris?
Did he create humans, or did they evolve from simpler life forms?
Does he have any instructions for us, and what are they?
Does he intervene in the world? If so, does intercessary prayer work?
Has he created an afterlife for us?

If you find those questions difficult to answer, I invite you to consider the possibility that "god" might simply be a human invention.

Other Comments by Donald

38. Comment #48203 by Tyler Durden on June 7, 2007 at 3:27 am

If you find those questions difficult to answer, I invite you to consider the possibility that "god" might simply be a human invention.

Excellent post Donald.

Darwin2, once again Occam's razor comes to the fore:

We don't know whether "god" exists or not (and it's not enough to really, really, believe it with all your heart and hope to die - we're looking for answers), so while Occam's razor cannot prove the nonexistence of "god", it does imply that, in the absence of compelling reasons to believe in "god", disbelief should be preferred.

Comment #48087 by darwin2:

...the possible and highly probable existence of God.

Wow, hold on a sec there, why not just go the whole way and tell us all that "god" actually exists""

"Possible" and "highly probable" in the same sentence about "god"?? Linguists around the globe are laughing their heads off. Talk about hedging one's bets. Methinks somebody is trying too hard.

Other Comments by Tyler Durden

39. Comment #48211 by Tyler Durden on June 7, 2007 at 3:58 am

Comment #48087 by darwin2:

...highly probable existence of God

For the purposes of clarification, Darwin2, can you give us a percentage that equates to your definition of "highly probable"?

·51%
·70%
·82.5%
·99%
·Something inbetween 51% and 99%
·All the above?
·None of the above?
·You don't know?

It can't be 100% surely, and, what will it take in order for it to be 100%??
Death? The second coming? The end of times? Another crying statue of Mary?

Other Comments by Tyler Durden

40. Comment #48213 by Hip_Priest on June 7, 2007 at 4:03 am

can anyone nominate the least worst, or the most articulate, of the God-botherers?

I found Andrew Sullivan debating Sam Harris very engaging. This is probably because if you took away what little of the supernatural Andrew had preserved in his version of 'catholicism' it would still stand up as something very positive and worthwhile. It's sad that Andrew's religion is totally unrepresentitive of the other billion catholics, not least the pope.

Other Comments by Hip_Priest

41. Comment #48216 by Turiel on June 7, 2007 at 4:30 am

I think we are all hopeless debate addicts. Thats not a bad thing, if they created a division of youtube that was just public debates I would not be getting much done for quite awhile.

With Hitchens, well sometimes it just shooting fish in a barrel against alot of his unprepared opponents. However this fact won't keep me from watching.

Other Comments by Turiel

42. Comment #48225 by HunterZolomon on June 7, 2007 at 5:53 am

If only Hitchens could be slightly more civil. The overpowering bullying of his opponent doesn't help his credibility, even though I think he is right in almost all cases here. A measure of restraint on his part would give him an even more formidable position from where to verbally demolish his opponents.

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43. Comment #48226 by Xenocratic on June 7, 2007 at 6:00 am

While I believe that Hitchens has many significant things to say about religion, a subject which I am also constantly criticising with unrepentant vehemence and agree is a great evil in the world, he is completely deluding himself if he thinks that the Republicans, or Neocons who are responsible for guiding contemporary Republican policy, are secularists. This quote from the Canadian ambassador, available on this website, clarifies the matter nicely: "Right now the United States is in many ways a theocratic state, not dissimilar to some of the other religious states in the world where religion has a huge part to play in government."
Even if Hitchens was correct in assuming that the US Government was interested in nothing else than establishing lovely little secular states all over the world, he would do well to remember that no fundamentalist Islamic state ever dropped nuclear weapons on civilian populations. Or overthrew democratically elected leaders across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Nor did any Islamic theocracy overthrow President Sukharno's regime in Indonesia in 1965 to instate the horrible dictator General Suharto, leading to the slaughter of between 800 000 to a million people in a few months, and condemning the people of Indonesia to one of the most atrocious regimes the 20th century has ever known. Last time I checked it wasn't Iran who illegally invaded Vietnam and killed between 3 to 6 million people. No one in the West is counting, or even cares, certainly not Mr Hitchens, who was once a vociferous supporter of the Palestinian cause and now has summarily sold them down the drain in his newfound obsession with the ills of religion. He is strangely blind to, or at least no longer chooses to see, the manifold evils of the world's biggest terrorist state, the United States, which he now champions so wholeheartedly. Perhaps Mr Hitchens would also blow himself up if he saw his children, or his siblings, or his parents, being killed by Israeli soldiers or being kicked off his ancestral land. The sad truth about our world is that religion is very often, though of course not always, a product of politics. The reason many Palestinians have turned to Islamic extremism is because the secular Arab nationalists have not, in their eyes, been able to broker an acceptable peace deal with the Israelis, who, along with the US, are the biggest obstacles to peace in the region. Anyone who doesn't understand this is living in a dream world. One of the world's greatest journalists, John Pilger, experienced the horrors of Vietnam firsthand and many years after witnessing a particularly nasty incident he wrote this, in his superb book 'The New Rulers of the World':

"It was experiences such as this that led me to question the nature of power imposed from a distance, not just those above the clouds, but by impeccable, faraway figures who order the mass killing of people, and by those who justify their crimes by representing the victims as terrorists, or merely as numbers, without names, faces and histories, or as the inevitable casualties of a superior morality"(2002:102)

Hitchens and others would do well to remember these words whenever they invoke their "superior morality" and attempt to force it on others. As Saul Williams once sang - "We will not allow history to march over the graves of the nameless", and that is exactly what Hitchens, latterly incarnated as an apologist for empire, is allowing to happen by being blinded by his detestation of religion and not delving into the root political causes of religious extremism. For an understanding of the real world I urge people to read books by Noam Chomsky, Pilger, William Blum, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Arundhati Roy and many others who have at least tried, as Hitchens once did, to understand the real elephant in the room...

Other Comments by Xenocratic

44. Comment #48258 by Stuart Paul Wood on June 7, 2007 at 7:59 am

HunterZolomon - I've defended Hitchen's before but I sort of agree with your post. Xenocratic also - well said.

I support Hitchens on religion but I'm afraid he is quite wrong to assert that the main reason (as he would have it) for Palestinian suicide bombing is religion. The Japanese used Kamikaze attacks during World War Two purely as an military tactic that was relatively successful. There is no difference in this respect between the Japanese and Palestinian use of this tactic because it is a wartime strategy. The Palestinians are at war with Israel and vice versa. In so far as Islam authorising the use of suicide bombing, this is a secondary consideration and one that we all, no doubt, deplore. Hedges was not seeking to excuse suicide bombing and nor do I. However, as Hedges points out the Palestinians have no army, no airforce and no means of delivering our western brand of sanitized violence to their enemy, unlike Israel. Airstrikes mean nothing to us but suicide bombing is somehow "real" and "scary". That said, what is the difference between killing Palestinian children and bombing Israeli civilians? If you're going to condemn one condemn the other too. Both are repugnant acts but for Hitchens to simply concentrate on one particular side and on the religion of that chosen side is wrong and stupid. Xenocratic is correct that Hitchens has chosen to completely ignore the political details of the situation.

The distinction that Hitchens seeks to make is that the Palestinians are primarily motivated by their religion, which isn't true (it is an additional motivator), but to have enlightened this issue further he should have said that the Israelis are similarly - if not to an even greater extent - motivated by the Zionist elements of the Jewish faith which have authorised the invasion and illegal settling of the occupied teritories for the last 40 years, contrary to international law. Let Hitchens scream about the numerous UN resolutions passed against Israel as much as he does about those passed against Iraq. Using his own arguments we would by now have invaded Israel and implemented regime change. Israeli flouting of internatonal law and the gross double standard brought to bear is the WHOLE basis for the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and Hitchens knows this. Normally Hitchens gives a robust and hearty mention to Zionist nutters - and this proves HunterZolomon's point - Hitchens discredits himself, not through lack of civility but by his selective memory when it comes to his own arguments. Any logical person can see that there is no moral difference between the Islamists and the Zionists and to focus on one side is to misrepresent the facts. It seemed Hitchen's only tactic here was to disagree with everything Chris Hedges said. Hedges exploited this by drawing him into a debate about the middle east and made him look slightly silly. I got the impression that the same people applauding Hitchens on religion were applauding Hedges on the middle east. A little more digging please Mr Hitchens, at least until you find your previous arguments. Islamists and Zionists are as bad as each other.

And also Hitchens repeated supposed distinction between murder and SUICIDE MURDER(!) is lost on me. How is it any worse than normal murder?. Are we to suppose that pressing a nice clean "missile launch" button from a nice clean F-16 to deliver a nice clean missle into a Palestinian house is somehow more virtuous than somebody who gives his/her own life in the process of delivering exactly the same result? I don't agree that there's any moral difference. By drawing on his supreme distaste for the Islamist I feel Hitchens concedes points to Hedges, who, while being utterly wrong on religion, has a much less tainted view on the state of Middle Easten affairs.

Hitch is still a hero of mine but he sometimes isn't as reliable I wish he would be.

Other Comments by Stuart Paul Wood

45. Comment #48267 by Xenocratic on June 7, 2007 at 8:32 am

Excellent post, Mr Stuart Paul Wood. You expanded on some of the points I was only hinting at in my earlier contribution. Hitchens has an extremely "selective memory" and this discredits most of what he says apropos US policy. I'm all in favour of people changing their perspective based on new evidence or arguments, but to simply discard positions you've held, and evidence you've adduced in earlier contentions, is intellectually dishonest. I also noticed in Sam Harris' 'End of Faith', which is in many respects a superb book, that there is a tendency to be politically naive when it comes to analysing the Middle East because it is so easy to look at suicide bombers and the nuts who ran Afghanistan, etc., and lay all the blame on Islam. Reza Aslan may not be a great genius, but his insight into Islam is considerable and he has made the point that "fundamentalism is a reaction to change". That the Middle East is the source of "stupendous strategic wealth", as was identified shortly after World War II by State Department officials, is an incontrovertible truism. They have seen virtually all their democratically elected officials overthrown so, as a result, many Muslims clearly see extremism as the only means to fight the evil infidels who have propped up heinous regimes and continue to subvert real attempts at democracy. You are quite correct, Stuart, that the Israelis are just as inspired to commit atrocities because of their religion as the Palestinians. Since the second Intifada Pilger reports that 6000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israelis, half of them children. On the other hand, since the early 90s more IDF soldiers have committed suicide than have been killed by suicide bombers. With this new security wall that has been illegally built yet fewer Israeli civilians have been murdered as a result of suicide bombings, but the killing continues in Gaza and the West Bank. How many people know that Israel at one point funded Hamas so that they could divide the Palestinian populace?

Other Comments by Xenocratic

46. Comment #48268 by Stuart Paul Wood on June 7, 2007 at 8:47 am

Xenocratic - thankyou, sir.

I admire Pilger greatly and it is a great detriment to this particular issue that more are not aware of his work.

It is the very politics of the situation that drive so many in Palestine into the arms and teachings of religious nutcases. A political settlement would render such people redundant to some degree. Maybe then, it might be said, would their victims be in a better position to reject the Islamic belief.

And thankyou, I wasn't aware that Hamas was once funded by the Israelis. But "par for the course" as one might say. As usual, I'm only tempted to laugh.

Other Comments by Stuart Paul Wood

47. Comment #48280 by 3legcat on June 7, 2007 at 9:41 am

he would do well to remember that no fundamentalist Islamic state ever dropped nuclear weapons on civilian populations.

good grief

Last time I checked it wasn't Iran who illegally invaded Vietnam and killed between 3 to 6 million people.

impeach JFK!

remember how happy the south vietnamese were to see us leaving, waving goodbye and all from the embassy roof top, that was nice.

The reason many Palestinians have turned to Islamic extremism is because the secular Arab nationalists have not, in their eyes, been able to broker an acceptable peace deal with the Israelis, who, along with the US, are the biggest obstacles to peace in the region.

you mean like Sadat and the return of the sinai, that's right, they embraced him in the back of the head. why did the palestinians turn down the two state solution at oslo?

the manifold evils of the world's biggest terrorist state, the United States

i wonder if mail order american brides are popular in russia?

How many people know that Israel at one point funded Hamas so that they could divide the Palestinian populace?

and what do we call belief without evidence?

the Israelis are just as inspired to commit atrocities because of their religion as the Palestinians.

surrounded as they are, by governments that have publicly sworn to their complete destruction (genocide) for 60 years, what course of action do you suggest? should they leave? perhaps they would be interested in florida, i wonder if that would bring a cuban intifada?

it is possible to oppose this war on consequentialist grounds and not let your frustrations with this idiotic president get the better of you.

Other Comments by 3legcat

48. Comment #48304 by eno on June 7, 2007 at 11:23 am

Hitchens is a tornado of a public speaker and debator.

It's about time we had someone this fierce to speak up on behalf of atheists, free-thinkers, Brites, Secularists or whatever you want to call us.

He is formidabale unlike the idiotic zealots that challenge him because he argues with the greatest of tools: reason, language and sense.

Like Dawkins, he is seeking the truth for all of our sakes.

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49. Comment #48308 by Stuart Paul Wood on June 7, 2007 at 11:36 am

3legcat - "surrounded as they are, by governments that have publicly sworn to their complete destruction (genocide) for 60 years, what course of action do you suggest? should they leave?"

They should take down their illegal settlements and leave the occupied teritories in accordance with international law. In other words, play by the rules like everyone else.

Other Comments by Stuart Paul Wood

50. Comment #48315 by 3legcat on June 7, 2007 at 11:51 am

"They should take down their illegal settlements and leave the occupied teritories"

this, i can agree with, though i would remove the legal/illegal language, i am much more interested in actual progress than assessing legality.

however, wasn't this the essence of the Olso Accords, passed by the knesset and fatah but shot down by islamic jihad and the popular front?

Other Comments by 3legcat