On the question on how the middle east would look 10 years from 2005, it's incredible how completely different from anyone predictions at that time, it actually turned out.Although Hitchen's warning of the Islamic caliphate from other interviews did come true.
Hitchens was wrong on Iraq, but not for the reason that most liberals think. Hussein did need to be deposed, but (as Hitchens concedes in some interviews) it was handled badly. Namely, the putting off of elections and America becoming an occupying force. Secondly, the dissolution of the old Iraqi military, which was unnecessary, and it guaranteed that a group like ISIS would arise.
+Brandon Sotomayor He talked about these failings, at length lol, so he was right. I think the complete dissolving of the Iraqi army was a very bad idea. However, many of the generals (who then founded ISIS as you said) were war criminal mass murderers and rapists. They should have been captured by any means necessary and new military leadership stalled. The idea that ISIS only exist because of the Iraqi army dissolution is false though. Also, consider the amount of murder and rape these ISIS people committed when they were under Saddam (as his generals)? The difference now, is that they do not have massive stocks of poison gas, and crucially, they do not have an air-force. This is an improvement imo.
I would agree. The issue is that although putting off elections and having America as an occupying force was a short term issue there is a strong correlation between the decrease in violence when American troops were present. The problem with all of this being that America never created the organic, long term institutions which would have aided democracy coming into fruition. Elections are the end goal, they shouldn't be the beginning step in democracy you need organic institutions (see the 13 Colonies which had essentially governed themselves for years and when they did become a part of an independent state they based their governing body on the English Parliament, the Act of Union and the Bill of Rights- essentially institutions and law they were already familiar with as members of the Anglosphere)
I'm a Viet Nam era Libya, Lebanon, Libya, Persian Gulf (False Flag) war veteran and I think this 26-27 min. of hog wash with Peter Robinson is incomplete and simplistic. The only position Hitch is on the correct side on for peace, and justice was Viet Nam's. And I couldn't quite hear all of his sentences the way he drops off at the end of his speech. My research of North Korea reveals a lot of Catholic Church, and CIA prodding, that does sound facinating though of Hitch's trip there. On the street in Israel they brag about selling nuclear material to North Korea. They say some body will anyway. I didn't hear Robinson or Hitch mention Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program for Iran, and Iraq which was how both their programs got started. Somebody was slipping MK-Ultra kool-aid in Hitch's gin me thinks by this 2005 period. The U.S. went into Iraq in 2003 one week before they were going to receive oil payments from France in Euros. The only true statement that anyone made in the 'W' Governor of Texas administration was Collin Blow Powell's when he said "If we go in there, we own it." Now of course those pallets of freshley printed cash that disappeared over there could sure help us out here in 2020 to help this inept president to fix infrastructure problems, corona virus etc. Our Congress has squandered trillions of dollars now since FDR's time making up problems we have to fix with our Military. The Congress has completely abdicated to fascist covert presidents and big government ABC agency's on the MIC gravy train.
The issue is that whatever you think of saddam it is universally acknowledged that he was going to loose power because of his declining mental state, had this happened he would have been replace by his sons. That would have been catastrophic. His sons were known for going to weddings killing everybody in attendance, then kidnapping the bride and groom and forcing the groom to watch as the bride was gang rapped and then forcing the bride to watch as the groom was eaten alive by starving dogs, after this the bride was raped again and then tortured to death. This was done multiple times for no other reason than they thought it was funny.
