Christopher Hitchens - Mario Savio memorial lecture [2002]

thank you for the slight health warning and thank you those of you who took him up on it will be bringing it on okay let's begin with what I suspect is the most recent thing that most of us have encountered of yours with the kissinger film okay oh man i guess we better hold these up to our mouths is this okay alright let's begin with what I suspect is the most recent thing of yours that most of us have encountered which is the Kissinger film and the book that gave rise to it what you were really doing in the film and the book is telling us that Henry Kissinger ought to be indicted as a war criminal give us a bill of particulars of the indictment well war criminal is Henry Kissinger's job description and has been since he first caught Richard Nixon's eye as the talented guy in 1968 and since then he's had a sir one-man International ruling a crime wave extending not just through the subversion of the United States election of that year and the betrayal and subversion of the Paris peace talks both of them in my opinion acts of treason but through the devastation of Vietnam Cambodia and Laos the prolonging of an unjust war of aggression and atrocity for at least four years in those four years you will remember comrades about half the names on the Vietnam Memorial were inscribed and we wouldn't have the nerve or the ability to to put up a wall that would have all the names of the indo-chinese on it then to Chile to the destruction of parliamentary democracy in the murder of its president then to Cyprus with a similar coup against an elected president the destruction of a democracy the partition of Cyprus between two aggressive NATO powers then the direct individual collusion sitting in the room with the planners of the invasion and extirpation of East Timor and I don't think I exhausted no I've left out Angola for example I've left our Bangladesh I've done this a lot of times I always leave out something I sometimes look at my own stuff and think is this all true I went over it with the fact checkers and felt sick of thinking really we're not you know all of this is absolute all did happen it all really did occur um now since the book came out and since the film was made I can report some at least mildly encouraging developments on Memorial Day last year I'm proud to say the staff my book came out in French mr. kisi was visited in the Ritz Hotel in Paris by the Jean de Marie and surf with a summons to testify but what he knew by the disappearance of French people in Chile he fled town he fled town on the same day and hasn't gone back and and the summons is still current if he does go since then the magistrates in Argentina Judge Rodolfo Carell who's the main prosecutor in the death squad cases in Argentina have summons him as well so as Jorge Guzman from Chile that the justice in the Pinochet case I went down to Chile a few months ago and testified before Judge Cruz goods man myself against Kissinger cases being built the Brazilian government recently told kissa could cancel a trip an official trip he was making he attempt was made to arrest him on his last visit to London it's not much but the air around the bastard is being shrunk up there the oxygens being taken away and he and he can't travel much and when he does he has to consult lawyers and there is in federal court in Washington DC filed a lass on September the 11th 2001 which as you also know is the anniversary of the coup in Chile but for that reason not as well-known as it might be the relatives of general Schneider the murdered head of the Chilean General Staff in 1970 have felled a federal suit against Henry Kissinger for murder and every document in that suit is the US government Declassified document that's as far as I know an unprecedented lawsuit and this is good news too so at least I think I can say fully changed his obituary I used to wish he would die now I hope you will live until justice catches up with him but let me just drop something to you Chilean courts Argentine courts French courts Chilean civilians bringing their own lawsuit paying for themselves who've already had family members murdered what's missing here what's missing here is a sense of shame on the part of everyone in the United States why is an American District Attorney not doing this why is Congress not doing it why the American courts not doing it and why is the United States government sheltering a wanted war criminal these are the main questions didn't he come after you he what he called you a Holocaust denier and then you forced him to retract it well I I tried to get him to sue me because I in England where the libel law favors the plaintiff very much and in other jurisdictions I called him a murderer a liar a kidnapper an accomplice to torture and kidnap at a bogus scholar hood who had falsified three volumes of memoirs based on documents that he had stolen and several of the reviewers in England said if he doesn't sue on any of this he's not much of a gentleman which I already knew actually to tell you the truth so then he for a long time he wouldn't comment when he was asked and in fact it's several occasions including at the National Press Club in Washington he made it a condition of his appearance that he not be asked any questions about me and sometimes people I'm afraid to say agreed to those conditions but finally he lost patience because he did get us and he said well why should he why should he answer to someone who abused Mother Teresa and denied the Holocaust and I thought what does he care about Mother Teresa and what's he doing bringing this up so I wrote him through a lawyer I wrote I've never done this before and said I'll see you in court if you don't take that back and shouldn't you be suing me and his lawyers replied the following day and said he our client undertakes not to repeat the allegation and I wrote back saying that's not good enough you have to withdraw it he obviously thought it was worth trying it's it's a it's a powerful smear and he did retract it and you can look it up on my website if you like the correspondence between us but that's I mean that was a victory of a kind I wanted to see him in court because I could then have brought witnesses from Chile from his team or from from Cyprus from Cambodia and so we were getting it ready who could say well yes and furthermore we can show that the the plaintiff is excuse me the defendant is a habitual liar and has lied on a number of things and makes a practice of lying and has made a career out of it we were looking forward to it so was the apology I didn't want but I repeat the disgrace is that there is no proceeding against unites against him by any organ of law justice in the United States the United States Sheldon was a wanted war criminal and the United States opposes the establishment of an International Criminal Court because it knows that it is sheltering a wanted war criminal and he would certainly be defendant number one I presume in that court in looking back over your work over the years one of the things that I've always admired is the way that you have and very consistent in writing about human rights issues and human rights abuses wherever they occur Eastern Europe and so vedera Cheryl and chilly South Africa the Kurds before anybody else was writing about them you've always been a staunch backer of rights for the Palestinians many other places as well and unlike a lot of us you actually seem to to go to all these places and I'm thinking if the FBI and CIA have 150 pages on me the intelligence services of many countries must have thousands of pages on you and I'm wondering whether in your travels there have been any key experiences key encounters that started you on this path or were the key experiences were they things that came before you started going to the various hotspots well you make me sound more intrepid than I am Adam but I would say if you asked what was a formative or turning point experience for me it would probably be it would have been to in the last decade what one was my last visit to Kurdistan to the Kurdish provinces of northern Iraq at the end of the Gulf War where I visited halabja the town that was destroyed with chemical weapons and where the wounds that are inflicted by weapons like that stick around for a long time they base they keep burning on people's skin and flesh and you can you can see this stuff still sizzling more people who see was still suffering from it and I have a photograph of myself sitting on the unexploded chemical bomb that the Iraqis left behind they tried to destroy the evidence but they left one behind and there it is with their Air Force markings and so and I mentioned it because sometimes there are people on the right and some fools on the left too who still try and deny that it was the Iraqis that did that the point I'm making about what why it had a big effect on me though is slightly different it's this I realized that here was an unintended consequence of the Gulf War that by accident and as a result of massive international public opinion because the Kurds ended that war as you remember scattered over the hillsides starving and dispersed and dispossessed though there was a forcible international intervention to put an umbrella a cover over them which still exists and so my question to those who talk to you glibly about American imperialism is would they now demand that American jets stop flying over Kurdistan and stop protecting the Kurds or not and if they were and if they would of course be very glad to hear their reasons and if they wouldn't would they examine those implications because I think they're quite that they're quite important once remember the you know there are we think probably not less than 30 million Kurds maybe more in Turkey Iraq Syria and Iran mainly that they're the largest people in the world without a state that they're the oldest cause of the left in the Middle East I mentioned these things because some it somehow seems to me they don't get mentioned enough do you see in your ideal future a state for all Kurds in all the countries in which they AR or autonomy within the countries in which they are how do I mean just get utopian for a moment well no I think it's quite important not to jamar if you if you take a position of solidarity with some national movement as for example I mean Edwards side and I produced a book of essays on the Palestine question back in 1982 before the last Intifada and I've spoken countless times about this and written a lot about it but I I never wants to take a position that is more militant if you like than me then the friends I have in this other movement it seems to me for them to decide if they can compromise or not not for me and so when the when the when the Iraqi Kurdish leadership says as it now does it's content to be Iraqi to say we are we are Rockies but we are we insist on being regarded as Kurds and granted autonomy I don't think that's a betrayal no and since the Kurds in the neighboring countries also don't demand that they all be fused into one state I don't feel that I'm being unduly moderate either I think I think that's probably a fairly good rule of thumb but I think they would be as justified in demanding a state as any other national minority with a common language and culture would be and it's very much their credit that they're willing for the sake of a peaceful agreement to gain to give up quite a lot of their dignity and quite a lot of their history to regimes that you know and the past good goodness sufficient reasons in the past they have no right and it's sorry no reason to trust I think you were going to say in the answer to my question before this that there was another formative experience for you um well there was I just want to say one more thing about the curse before we're done these guys are for regime change okay my Kurdish comrades are they've been for it for a very long time they've been fighting for it for a very long time they've lost swaths of population fighting for it they're not going to be cheated of it they think this time they can get rid of Saddam is saying they have many brave Iraqi friends willing to join them on this my solidarity is with them in case anyone wanted to ask me about it okay I am for and have always been for those Kurds in Iraq he's fighting for the overthrow and destruction of the Saddam Hussein regime I was for regime change before any Bush family member was for it and if necessary I'll be for it long after they give it up but I'm for it okay and I'm the other one was Bosnia I had to go I felt I had to go to Sarajevo during the siege of Sarajevo in 1992 and I hope no one will think I'm being Eurocentric if I say that having seen terrible things before in Kurdistan among other places and southern Africa so for that I was kind of shocked to see a city in in Europe being reduced to rubble and beggary and destruction at his population put to the sword in the 90s I hadn't I hadn't think I hadn't thought rather I didn't think I would have to endure that little and that they would have to and the inhabitants of mostar and many other cities too and bad as that was to see the serbian orthodox christian racists trying to destroy a muslim bosnia but also the catholic christian croatian fascists colluding with them in this operation and with nato colluding in the partition of bosnia and dismemberment and destruction of bosnia between these two forces and it seemed to me quite essential that the that europe having watched the destruction of the armenians by turkey in the early part of the century and then seen the attempt to destroy the whole of european jewry made by German imperialism in the middle of the century could not end the century by saying well let's have a Muslim minority destroyed too before we get the twentieth century over with so watch that would be impossible and the fact remains that it was only by a tremendous struggle within the United States to change opinion in Congress and in there and in the government that the necessary force was mobilized to prevent that from happening and if that had not been done Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo would now be a howling wilderness a post genocidal howling wilderness and again in case anyone wanted to ask me about this our state for the record I don't regard that rescue operation as having been American imperialism one theme I see running through what you've written is an extreme dislike of organized religion and I heard you quoted as saying that if you died and went to heaven you would be aghast to find that there was one okay and recently I think you said or wrote that for you the real axis of evil is Islam Judaism and Christianity as they say on exam essay questions expand and explain being religious is like living in North Korea you have endless opportunities to praise the leader to thank him for giving you everything to thank him for looking after you to thank him for all his boundless gifts to thank him for all his tireless efforts on your behalf a celestial North Korea is what the religious believer wants but there's there is there's one I suppose there are two differences you can defect from North Korea and you can die and just cease to exist in North Korea if your richest believer the leader goes on persecuting you after you're dead you have to go on praising him forever and thanking him for being born and for others this is civility squared it's the city it is the slave mentality it's contemptible and cowardly and it's prepared it's it's the enemy of the intellect it's the enemy of free enquiry it's the enemy of reason and what I would add is that those who practice it will preach it additionally pissed me off by pretending that they're humble about this they say well don't mind me I'm just on an errand for God at the moment I'm extremely modest about this I'm very humble an objective but it's just that God wants me to be doing this and the reason why I'm ecumenical about it I suppose is because all of them partake of the same illusion or monotheism's particularly partakers of the same absurdities and the quran i regard as especially horrible because it validates both the claims of christianity and old judaism and the quran insists that jesus was a real prophet and so as much so emerges in abraham so they have the whole horrible thing in plain view and the name of the religion Islam is simply the word for surrender as it should be and the posture of it is one of surrender and objection as it should be this is poison frankly and I have nothing but contempt for it and in case you wonder if I can tell the sinner from the sin I can but I have a slight contempt for the people who believe it [Applause] but if there keep it in the home where it belongs I don't mind ah you've written it for you the September 11th attacks were big turning point tell us about that well I wrote I've written that I think it's the cliche is true that September 11th is a big turning point that it did also a number of things and I joined dissent for once I mean I like to always think well what's wrong with the prevailing cliche on prevailing wisdom but in this case I thought well that that's true that's that's what the Germans call attendance vendor it's a turning point for me I it wasn't that much of one on the essential question I thought that the 14th of February 1989 was the turning point and that was the day when my friend Salman Rushdie received a directly incited threat of murder accompanied with an offer of bounty in other words murder solicited for pay in public in his own name from the theocratic leader of a foreign state of which he saw man was not a citizen for writing a novel if you like I'll say all that again some people's forget what the fatwa was I the Ayatollah Khomeini will offer money for your murder for writing a novel and I'll also offer a ticket to paradise to anyone willing to attack you or those who helped you with the book and I thought well there you have it a perfectly arranged collision between all the things I hate and all the things I quite like the things I quite like by the way a free expression the right to write novels without death threats so on and our neighbor President Bush the next day was asked did he have a comment on this and he said no why should he this is President Bush Celia as far as he was concerned no American interests were involved and I remember Susan Sontag pointing out well it would be poultry to say mr. Rushdie's then wife was an American who'd had to go into hiding with him it might've perhaps be said that American interests were involved in say the protection of novelists from state supported terrorism anyway you don't get that now you wouldn't get that kind of sappy stupid comment now because the long period of under reaction to theocratic fascism is now over but until September the 11th what I thought was that there was a great deal of under reaction to it and there's an unwillingness to confront it and I wanted to confront the threat that it represents and our willingness to realize how ruthless it was how much it means business for us how certain its defeat is by the way but how absolutely we must hurry that defeat along what about the other what about the other two religions in your axis of evil there and the fear of theocratic fascist tendencies that they occasionally not alone did the President Bush show a difference that day but the same day Cardinal O'Connor of New York of Great Prince of the church announced that the problem was not the offer of money for murder by religious leader but the problem was profanity on the part of the author he was joined in this by the Archbishop of Canterbury by the oscillatory Romano the Vatican newspaper and by the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel in other words there was a wonderful reverse ecumenical a lineup of characters all of whom said the problem is not the offer of murder for the destruction of literature the problem is profanity and I thought well I'm very glad that you guys have all sort of as were clustered together because there'd be more of a chance of getting you all with one grenade okay I want to move on to the Sandford made major fertilizer and then they'll be the first honest day's work they've done in their lives if you spread them on the fields I want to move on to the subject that I think is on everybody's minds these last few months in the US which is the possible war with Iraq you have a times voiced general support for the prospect of going to war with Iraq are you still feeling that way under what circumstances what would change it spell out your position for us well in the first place I'm not for a war with Iraq and I don't think there will be one of no quarrel with the Iraqi people or with the Iraqi nation and I don't believe anyone else here does however there is going to be a confrontation with the Saddam Hussein regime and it's being forced upon us and the consequences in my opinion will occur whether or not there is a fight because the Saddam Hussein regime is already imploding because of its own horrific internal character and the the dam of hatred and chaos and havoc that has built up and behind the Baath Party dictatorship accumulated behind it over the last many years will burst and spread in any case so that you have two alternatives watch that happen and wonder what will occur or intervene and see if you can try to condition it now it seems to me that the second choice is the obvious one and that those who've worked so patiently and bravely to bring this about should be the people we're working with I mean by that particularly the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan the puk but the Kurdish rebels in general and the Iraqi National Congress this should be a not just a priority for the United States government it should be a priority of those citizens in the United States who consider themselves committed to human rights if they imagine that just by watching it or staying neutral they can as it were avoid or escape the consequences they are quite clearly wrong the the Saddam Hussein regime has staked everything on the acquisition of the weapons of genocide and if it was to acquire them we know what it wants them for it is also the sponsor of great deal of international gangsterism we're not completely certain of the extent of its connection with mr. bin Laden we know mr. bin Laden supports saddam hussein it's interesting we don't know if mr. Soze I would say necessary supports mr. bin Laden but we know that the suicide bombers are supported and encouragement paid for from Iraq we know the Abu Nidal organization which committed many murders among the Palestinian leadership was supported and endorsed from from Iran and we also know that there is a case of quite clear case to be made against Saddam Hussein for war crimes genocide and crimes against humanity in the United States government were it not for its protection of Kissinger would would and should be bringing that case before the United Nations and the International Court of Justice but those who care about these things should be pressing for more action and more careful action and more and more action based upon the principles of human rights and not less and not being neutral about it but here okay Oh both you and George Bush are talking about war with Iraq to eliminate Saddam Hussein but beyond that I sense that there are two different wars you're talking about you're talking about you know guaranteeing autonomy for the Kurds pluralism democracy and so forth but are those the purposes of Bush's war and are the people that Bush is wanting to work with the same people that you would be wanting to work with to reconstruct the Iraq after the war after all the general in Denmark who got arrested a couple of days ago general Nizar Kisaragi who was one of the people i understand that the bush people had tipped to lead an army in iraq post saddam hussein he's now been indicted for his role in the gassing of the Kurds in the 1980s so are you and George Bush talking about two different wars here though there is a faction of the administration that would be happy just to have a military coup just to have just have a military coup in in Baghdad and as been working along those lines and as you say isn't very cheesy about where pics and would settle for a military government after all that's what the CIA always does best you we could usually find you a general willing to take over they haven't actually succeeded in that in this case it wouldn't be the worst thing it would be better than the status quo and it would at least lead to an invitation to the inspectors and others to come in and under identify and destroy the sites where weapons of genocide are being incubated but no you're quite right it wouldn't satisfy me or the long-suffering Iraqi or Kurdish people and then there's another thing which the administration won't say but I know is split about I mean what this really is is a war against Saudi Arabia that's why the Saudis are so against the regime change in Iraq and that's why they won't even let the base United States built for them be used for it because they know that with Saddam gone there buffer stage and client is gone and they also know that with the recuperation of Iraqi oil their oil Monopoly and oligopoly in the region which they with which they've helped to spread bin Laden ISM around the globe is gone and I can't wait for that bit to happen either I accept the logical and probable consequences of listening there's going to be some terrific Johnny no effect here sometimes people you know people on the Left say well it might destabilize the region and I say well I've heard worse words an instability actually when it comes to the Saudi monarchy for example and the there's extraordinary boldness on the part of a wing at least of the Republican intellectuals in that they've decided to make war on what they used to think of as their status quo and I don't think that the Bashir drama and interest of that and the possible excellent consequences are sufficiently discussed well if you talk about destabilizing the region don't the recent election results in Pakistan and Turkey make you think that if things get riled up it could in fact strengthen the forces of Muslim fundamentalism no I joined because for three reasons one well there's work first there's a general reason which would apply to all of them even if these forces are elected they will find you can't run a society out of the Koran makar or any other holy book it can't be done it's been tried many times it's a repeated failure the most encouraging sign of this is the way that the Iranian people are already emerging on the other side of theocracy they've thrown it off especially the younger generation they've repudiated it so far peacefully and so far I'm glad to say without any outside help it's the most single encouraging thing in the Middle East that's why you nearly never hear the peace movement types talk about the Iranian Street the Iranians Street is about 70 million people nearly as big as the Arab Street but people don't talk about it because the Iranian Street is 100 percent pro US policy anti Saddam Hussein and auntie moolah in the region and we can hope for great things from that by the same token the turkish electorate is simply having an election in which a party that has an Islamic inflection has won and is allowed a peaceful transition of power that absolutely proves the secular character of Turkish society it's a very encouraging development and so know we can have the confidence that we're right about this only a secular society can guarantee freedom of religion and only a secular society can offer any hope of progress and the people will find that out either by learning it or little finding it out from bitter experience last August you wrote the following what the Iraqi and Kurdish Democrats would like is American aid for an endorsement of their own efforts to replace the regime and what they fear is what I also fear a heavy-handed us attack which results in an Iraqi puppet government that is designed to placate the Saudis and the Turks now have you changed your feeling on that spawn point are you more optimistic that this is not going to happen well no that's not Adam that's the earlier question you asked been in a different way or rather as I might have asked it as I might have answered it excuse me some time ago I just think the situation has moved on from that now it's very obvious that neither the Czech I'm sorry it's very obvious that neither the Saudi authorities nor the Turkish military ones want such a thing to happen and that if it does it will be therefore by definition overruling them but it's also become much plainer that there's no status quo that can be protected by a non intervention post in other words if you don't intervene if no one intervenes the Saddam Hussein regime will collapse and bring great chaos and havoc in its wake in any case it was very striking I thought to see the other day what happened when after or the prison went after humiliatingly forcing the Iraqi people not just a vote for him 100% but to turn out for him 100% means you to AB negate them and humiliate them one last time and forced them to treat him like a god and put them through through that disgusting experience that he said well let's open the jails at least the jail's that contain the rapists and pickpockets and pimps and murderers in other words I suppose the people he thought were his natural constituency and find that within hours the guards and the waters of the prison were helping to break down the bars and the walls and let down let out everybody or at least everybody they could find because most of the families who came to the prison gates found that their loved one isn't on the list of detainees has been probably sawn in half on a table and a video made of it for his family some time ago and there were spontaneous demonstrations in the streets not long after that and the police quite clearly had no instructions for how to deal with them that's the that's the Nicolae Ceausescu moment that's the moment when the man's made his last mad speech from the balcony he's beginning to go nuts to beginning to consider concessions it means it's over morally and is about to be over politically the only question is are you going to help with the intervention or are you going to be neutral about it and I've even though I tried to hedge in what he quoted me as saying a few months ago I was at least clear on what side I was on what about the factor of oil I mean would Bush be so eager to launch this war if what Iraq had the world's first or second largest proven reserves of was say potatoes rather than oil the Cheney energy plan the one that the Enron folks helped him write has the u.s. rising of course spurns all talk of alternative energy and has the u.s. rising to importing 2/3 of its oil by the year 2020 and Ahmed Chalabi whom Rumsfeld and Cheney seemed to want to install as leader of Iraq told The Washington Post recently American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil and the Heritage Foundation has already put out a detailed plan for privatizing Iraq's oil industry mostly into American hands does that concern you my view has always been you should never be deterred from doing the right thing by the thought that it might also be in your interests the sorry did you know I'll say it again you should never be deterred from doing the right thing by the thought that it might also be in your own interests there's only one country that can hope to rebuild the Iraqi oil industry let's be realistic the our hero the Iraqi oil industry is now working on stuff that's about twenty years out-of-date probably they could pump twice as much oil as they do now with with an overall just of the equipment that they're using it would take a few billion and a couple of years but it could be done and it would no longer be oil just being drilled for the for the feeding and keeping of a barbaric military and party elite who use it to finance aggression and genocide the only country that's capable of this undertaking is the United States the French won't do it because or rather I hope mister Chalabi doesn't let them do it because they've been bribed by mr. Saddam Hussein up til now as have the Russians with with oil contracts in the other direction yes there's going to be some hardball played about that but it's very essential it seems to me that the oil resources of the region be not in the hands of someone who threatens to blow them up or to irradiate them if his rule is challenged in other words do you want to see what it would be like for the world economy if he was in a position to threaten or to do that or to repeat what he did to the Kuwaiti oil fields last time when I remind you he set them on fire while on his way out this is the question who laughed or not you hear people say no war over oil are they listening to what they're saying what they're saying is oil isn't worth fighting about who really believes that come on be serious get real so that's great that's impressive that six people who really believe that that's it that's amazing I'm amazed there are six people in America who think oil isn't worth fighting over but lots of love but wait a minute you're saying that the oil is worth fighting over I'm saying it's essential to fight over it yes Shea's essential they did not be the possession of over maniacal sabotage in despot yes all right but are there not better alternatives to it than it than it being in possession of American oil are we gonna do wind power now Adam I'm willing to talk about alternative energy if you write but that's not the question we're being faced with now well like I mean if you're if you're asking me while we wait to see what Saddam Hussein one shall we talk about solar panels I guess we could I think it would be rather insipid conversation okay all right but okay we're gonna open things up to microphones on the floor in a second but I want to get in another question or two first all right I want to come back to the oil thing but look at the larger context in which Bush's war push is taking place my fear is that the is less the repercussions of the war against Iraq but the fact that it's happening in the framework of his doctrine of asserting the right to make a preemptive strike and impose regime change wherever its wishes wherever it wants to now you and I'm a favored regime change in Iraq but Kissinger was in the business of regime change and if Bush has established this if Bush establishes the precedent of being able to do this at will in Iraq are we not worried about where he's gonna do it next what about Brazil for example where you know a government has taken power much disliked in Washington well that's Maureen that's a very good counter position but I think you'll see at once that between moving into Chile overthrowing a government that has a constitution and that does have elections and murdering its elected president and moving into Iraq and sponsoring political parties and elections and destroying the dictatorship there is a difference and not just a factual one or practical one but also a moral one in the northern provinces of Iraq the provinces that are under currently under American protection that I mentioned before there are to my knowledge 21 newspapers several political parties a friend of mine dr. Barham solía very fun has just been elected the prime minister of God that part of Kurdistan this means that we're not we're not just bluffing or fantasizing or being utopian when we say that we have some achievements to point to in the meanwhile in Bahrain in Gaza and to some extent in Kuwait elections are being held women are being allowed to vote in them and run in them where it can be discovered with where the pressure for this comes from it's the United States supporting this process not opposing it and as for the the old cases of the banana republics in South America I think you can see from the Inspector Clouseau like performance of the Bush administration over the shudders coup that never was that the the the will to act in that way in what in the in the countries that now constitute the OAS has simply evaporated there will not be a return to government by coup in South America if there is I'm just well what was I talking about when I said showers big boy Columbia and look at Argentina's had no government for nearly a year now barely has a pulse it has a holiday as of casa does the army want it no it doesn't it doesn't the army doesn't watch it they say we have to leave this to civil society or maybe they're too cynical and say we don't want the responsibility now with the era of the military banana republic regime in latin america is in my judgment over there's only one military regime now in the region which is cuba is there's only one regime in the area that is run by men in uniform and it's in Havana and that of that one I think probably knighted States wouldn't mind a ratio changes well that's an old story in in the night very creditable 111 in the 1980s Wolfowitz and pearl were calling for a US military invasion of Cuba and you don't have any fear that no one's holding for it now it's not even on the axis of evil but hubely proposal II think like John Bolton remember to insult Fidel the maximum leader but the fact of the matter is as everyone in this room knows one way or another the things run so far are a steam that everyone's just waiting for it to end in its own way and there's no need for a fight over it and that's the situation sad in a way because the Cuban Revolution once meant a good deal to the people of Cuba and to the and to the neighboring countries too and it's what says this with some regression but it has to be faced but no there was not going to be Richard to the golpe and the cardia in South America and we would know by now if there was going to be I'm going to ask you one final question about the Iraq war and then I think it's probably time to open up the mics on the floor and my final question is this imagine that you are Osama bin Laden you're sitting in your cave and Afghanistan or Pakistan or maybe in your luxury apartment in Lahore or maybe in the basement of a mosque in Saudi Arabia we don't know wherever you are you're thinking what's going to be my best recruiting tool would not a US invasion of Iraq be at the top of your list I [Applause] can't think where why he thinks I mean I'm interested that you pick this because implied in this is the idea that mr. bin Laden takes the Iraqi side or the Saddam Hussein side in this dispute and that is indeed implied or suggested in his own broadcasts he refers to an attack on Iraq has been attack on the Muslim world as if the Kurds were not Muslims for example they're Sunni Muslim as if a Khmer Chalabi wasn't a Muslim he's Shia Muslim as if any replacement government in Iraq wouldn't be Muslim as if the Northern Alliance isn't Muslim this is these are the ways in which mr. bin Laden shows to us that he's blinded by his own fascist limited primitive ideology it's this that's done us the great favor it seems to me that if things have gone on as they were before the 11th of September the year before last and last year excuse me there was a very chance that the Taliban ization of Pakistan world process that was well underway would have been completed within the Pakistani secret police and army there was a strong process of colonization tuition United States government was practically indifferent was about to take over the Pakistani state with its nuclear weapons and it was drawing with complete complacency on support from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere this movement was gaining ground everywhere mr. bin Laden completely ruined the plan because for him it's not enough to be a fundamentalist or a fanatic for him there must be a grand opera there must be the real gesture propaganda by deed and martyrdom and sacrifice and he has made it certain he has made a certain that for as long as he's willing to keep on trying it his network will be broken and broken again and he will have to hide his face he will have to admit as he has already had to that he he left behind the people of Afghanistan with his Taliban friends they fled on the cover of night the people who they tortured and oppressed they did not meet the infidel in battle but they ran away they hide now in holes and they can hear from us at any time they want you wish martyrdom we are here to help let me add one more thing about mr. bin Laden because I'm really shocked a little attention it Scott if it's true as it seems to be that this statement is originally from him I hope you noticed his justification for the mass murder of tourists in Bali in Indonesia did you he said Australians have to be punished because of the world of Australia in assisting the independence of East Timor now what the Australians did was little enough to supervise the evacuation of Indian troops from East Timor and the eventual independence of the territory but it was Australia's responsibility under the UN and mr. bin Laden now says this is this means we must kill Australians where we find them because they have separated a Christian people from Muslim Indonesia if you want it if you want to put any more plainly than that what you're looking at that you're staring right down the gun barrel of fascism I don't know if there's any plane away [Applause] I'd like to lay down just a few rules for the question period first of all if you'd like to ask a question I think there's two mics you can line up at the mics and we go back and forth we're going to let our young activist award when it says first questions if they want to do you want to tell us anymore I mean Genevieve this questions are you Oh second thing is please actually ask a question it's like jeopardy so you know you can turn which pants into a question but you have to do that so that Christopher can respond to it and finally we'd like to give as many people an opportunity to speak as possible so you'll have about a minute to make your point and when they're 15 seconds less left I'll hit my high tech timer okay so some again my name is harmony I wanted to ask I do want to put out unstated right and then ask a question the results from it she's already late astray oh it's just a quick it's a quick point right a lot of time in my question I don't know it okay it is the question to me the question is the question of imperialism and it's not a question of is this and abstract left analysis on the question of imperialism the people who are in power right now have been very explicit in the newspaper in their plans that they're trying to build an American Empire and I hear what you're saying and you have a lot of factual information to back up what you're saying but I want to hear how you justify any kind of us an intervention when they're very explicit that what their agenda is is to build an American Empire okay Martha well here's the situation the United States has been attacked itself on its own soil by an internationally coordinated movement which is also attacking in different forms innumerable other societies from well not in umaril numerable numerous from Nigeria to Indonesia the way I would phrase it would be this there's a civil war going on in the Muslim world it's been going on for some time the the side that wants to impose the Sharia the absolutist theocratic form of Islam has not much chance of winning this war but it's a war on a very very big front it wants to win it by bringing the war to the United States and to European societies which means we can't be neutral in the war which is a war that goes on on rather a large front in fact is global the suggester will have to be for a very long time a globalized sense of engagement and commitment to make sure that our Muslim allies who also don't want to live under Sharia theocracy do not lose this international civil war if some over-ambitious neoconservative types choose to call this an imperial responsibility on the part of the United States I don't think that they very much overstated I wish they would find a better word more more elegant term for it but the but the the brute facts of the situation are as I have described them unless anyone can find a way of evading this challenge or or this responsibility and I don't find as I go around talking about this that anybody can so glib talk about imperialism gets you nowhere well it gets animal noises out of some people but if they could hear themselves doing it they wouldn't believe you me questions that you're having from the audience one makes me want to ask you where do you think the left is going now with this new kind of war usually our enemies are people that are really good guys and in this case we have Islam fundamentalists and I have noticed that the left is absent on so many things for example when Iraq beheaded all these women and a lot of human rights groups were pretty upset about the left didn't say anything because it wasn't clear so these are the kinds of things that keep me up at night and I'm wondering I think they keep you up at night too where do you think the left is hitting and where would you like them to hit and is there a left that you think is a responsible response to what's happening in the changing world well I mean I'm really tempted to take that as a statement and a very good one too I mean noticed of your own observation that the left has failed on these tests but of the of the realization that something will be done about it but I I hope I've given you an idea of what I would think about that right now have I not I mean if if people really think I haven't I haven't another try but if you if you take the case of firm of say September the 11th you have an organization that is partly a bank a really corrupt multinational and true about Al Qaeda now partly a really corrupt multinational corporation run by Saudi capital and supported by the Saudi oligarchy and secret Pakistani secret police it's partly that it's poly a crime family it's partly a cult organization it's partly a fascists cult group this is I think an enemy right a pretty reactionary enemy are pretty obvious at least it's not just that its methods are the mass destruction of civilians using civilian aviation to inflict further death as it is but its objective is a stone age society without music culture philosophy dialectic of any kind at all the model of being China than Afghanistan it's not my objection to their means it's to their objectives this attack puts the working class of New York in the in the driving seat in the saddle he makes a direct attack on democracy and on secularism and on pluralism and by the indiscriminate nature of its tactics on everything that we hold dear by way of the multicultural ethic hundreds of Muslims are killed in those attacks people from every nationality as well you couldn't really have a more clear confrontation between lesson let's at least say left liberalism and the right and the left says well I don't know what about East Timor this is disgraceful to try and evade to try and sit out a moment like that really invites historical condemnation of the kind that you can't you can't appeal to later you can't say well sorry maybe I think differently you're tested by how you react at a moment like that just as you are indeed when you read the reports of planned and organized genocide in northern Iraq which we have we have all the evidence to charge the Jenners under the Genocide Convention and the Genocide Convention by the way mandates immediate action by any stage as soon as the information is received either to prevent or to punish the people who are looking for neutral or evasive positions here I think do not deserve the name radical so what you're really asking me is this is to say what I've come to believe which is that a very large number of the American Left have become a status quo force and what they really wish about all this is that it hadn't come up and it hadn't happened that we didn't have to think about it because then they could go on with their domestic agenda whatever that turns out to be perhaps prescription drugs for seniors as you say so as you so rightly say I find your only lead I find your allegiance to the Kurds admirable and a number of other points of your your allegiance to the courage is admirable and a number of the other points you're making are very sound from as well a local or regional perspective but by talking about the evils elsewhere enables you to simplify the situation and conspire often addressing the question directly directly deal with reckoning there's deep concern here about the tribalism and legacy the United States not in abstract terms but in the real historical situation which it's driving forces and character are my hands how can I say no where's the lair my life I never thought I wish to have Richard Nixon that is just a simple egomaniacal fun looks like Mother Teresa looks like okay would you please address this question directly what about well I'm after what you said about dick I think you'll have to admit that even if you accuse me of being simple you you are confused I can't say everything each time your question wasn't very direct but if you want me to say what the misgivings are it's pretty easy to do let me give you an example judge Garzon in Spain who was the the heroic judge in the Pinochet case and in many other human rights cases not long after September 11th apprehended the first al-qaeda cell that was fully busted in Europe it was in Madrid he had them all collared and locked down before the FBI of the CIA had even really worked rather they've been an attack of any kind at all and incidentally when is anyone going to be fired at the FBI in the CIA for being asleep at the switch on this and for eating such a gigantic share of the national security budget and leaving us defenseless under open skies don't ask anyway judge Garzon he'll Gotham he got a team six of them but he said I'm willing to hand them over he said but I can't hand them over to any country that has capital punishment because European law forbids that you can't extradite people to a nation that is that is going to execute them this is the only country comparable to itself that retains the barbaric practice of capital punishment now john ashcroft has recently shown in the in the malvo case and others prefers the exercise of capital punishment to the doing of justice of course but he also prefers it to law and order the fetishizing of this filthy human sacrifice penalty means more to him than say cooperation with someone like Josh goes on in the fight against terrorism that's what tells you what you're up against people who are ideological fanatics and not competent to defend us from enemies either foreign or domestic furthermore in their grandiosity they insist on saying well all this is designed to make sure that American superiority goes on militarily now and forever can never be challenged by any other power which means to say you're saying also to people in Spain and Britain and Germany by the way if you want to join us and help fight what is after all a common threat we want you to know your soldiers are dying for American supremacy and superiority it's not a very brilliant way of proceeding or of achieving solidarity and I could go on and I hope you wouldn't doubt me I've generated in print and on screen a number of other criticisms of this kind but don't mistake me I'm I'm breathing supple because I'm committed to a pitiless and conclusive victory in this war and I'm not bringing up these criticisms for any other reason and I don't trust anyone who I suspect of doing sir yes hi professor Adams kind of asks you about two main areas which is uh Henry Henry Kissinger book and then the war on Iraq but there was an area of oil produce and if there was an area and what you wrote extensively and that is the question of Palestine so my question is could you please expand and comment on the situation in Palestine right now and on the Palestinian movement for justice and liberation thank you well the I think I may have to ventriloquist the questioner who he asked me for my comments on the present state of affairs in in Palestine but he doesn't ask anything very specific i i i i don't feel just like running off at the mouth about what i think about what's going or you should reach the subject worth room yeah but i'd like to be asked as proper guidelines be asked a question if you know what i mean it's like saying talk about yourself you know you suddenly think all right I knew the subject but I wonder he'll have a question more specific question with is the two-state solution still viable in Europe that's much mattered that's a lot thank you well it's no it's that's much better because it dramatizes something very important it's quite clear that the present government in Israel hopes to avoid it forestall a two-state solution by completing the annexation of the occupied territories as quickly as it can pronouncing that a fete accompli by making it undoable some people Mehran been ministry for one Eyal Weitzman for another have produced impressive documentation suggesting that the annexation of the territories is already nearly complete and this of course very much reduces the pressure on Palestinians to consider a two-state solution as their program either and the one of the appalling consequences or causes of that because I believe it to be both cause and consequence is the decision by some Palestinian organizations to conduct attacks within Israel itself upon kibbutzim or old people's homes or civilian targets within the borders of pre-1967 Israel and suicide attacks murder attacks in Jerusalem and elsewhere which quite clearly express the intention to remove all Jews from Palestine now that is of course precisely the propaganda with which Ariel Sharon would like to deal because it justifies his own rejection ISM and in my opinion the Palestinian Parliament for example would already have voted mr. Arafat out as it nearly did if mr. Charan hadn't confined mr. Arafat in Ramallah so there's an another negative dielectric here if you like another negative ecumenism where the thuggish elements on both sides feed upon one another well here clearly a very responsibility descends upon the United States which has the power to arrest these settlements and the power to enforce a solution and instead pretends to be both a mediator while in fact it's a participant and that seems to me something that American voters and citizens should or long ago forced them to decide about is the United States a mediator of the Palestine dispute or is it the patron and Armour and financier of one side in it we can't go on like this much longer [Applause] thank you yes my name is Joseph Anderson and I say that to say that if anyone's interested they can plug my name into a search box in the Berkeley Daily Planet or the San Francisco Chronicle and read a letter that I wrote about the former SF gem on 12 sorry 12 1600 December 16 2000 and in the San Francisco Chronicle on December 18 2 mm I would like to say that uh I've had an amiable acquaintance ship with Christopher Hitchens I've agreed with him on some issues disagreed with him on other issues and I dare say corrected him on still others I must say that I'm shocked that in a that a Mario Savio award recipient was not allowed her free speech to make a comment tonight but restricted only to a question I would welcome a real debate such as this in almost any other venue but I believe that the debates a pseudo debate hardly even a debate like this where we have a we have a lecturer who's pro war in Yugoslavia excuse one in Afghanistan and pro war in Iraq is an insult to the memory of Mario Savio and I hate to say this but I believe that Lin Hollander Savio has become the Coretta Scott King to the memory of Mario Savio okay excuse me is an insult why don't you guys why don't you guys love that you why don't you cut that too this should not be loud no one clap happen monkey scuse me could we have the next question please the the Guardian used contemptible remark shameful contemptible remark by a guy who always comes to my readings always takes up everybody's time always Awards himself a time and never buys one of my damn books probably because he can't read hey leave him there didn't leave him that's fine yeah the even though did you go on with the next question please the Guardian newspaper you what you look like muster it's comments on arm when you compare what they said about September 11th you compare it to what they wrote about the sarin gas attack in Tokyo or the bombing of the Oklahoma Federal Building in your opinion what about September 11th is so attractive to the Guardian newspaper I didn't get the last sentence I'm sorry like in your opinion what about the September 11th attack was so attractive to the editorial staff of the Guardian newspaper Manchester Guardian Sochi it's your countrymen what about the September 11th attack was so tragic to the editorial staff of the Manchester Guardian that's an extraordinary question I mean I I don't really think it's a proper question for me I have no insight into their editorial processes if you mean why did September the 11th get more coverage than say the sarin gas in the Tokyo subway which I believe you mentioned why did they not condemn why did they watch The Guardian not condemn the September 11th attacks on us well I'm sorry I we are we have a planetary difference here hey you managed to do this whole presentation quite evidence I agree with you a hundred percent on crimes of religion we have no disagreement on that but you do not want in your presentation mention the fact that the United States who which is what you are defending is responsible through its military and economic arms for the deaths of tens of millions of people in the world every year compared to what the Muslim fundamentalists by the way who were largely created as a political force by the United States and there's still many places used by the United States as a political force against the left where necessary compared to them though well I mean compared to United States oppression and murder around the world these fundamentalists are small-time players and if anybody but these fundamentalist killed 3,000 Americans retaliation what the US did I think a reasonable person could say it was a drop in the bucket for what the US really has coming as a nation thank you thank you too did you want to comment no : hi my name is Abe Gardner I'm with the Berkeley ACLU I am an executive with common cause of California at Berkeley and I'm with democracy matters on campus I'd like to ask you a question regarding oil I feel as though the response that you gave to the question earlier was indeed interesting and has an interesting point but I'd like to know more about if this if Saddam Hussein were to gain weapons of mass destruction and if he did had the ability to control up to 44% of the oil reserves of the world in that region as a result due to change or shift in the balance of power I don't understand how you can justify a claim that this is not a war about oil particularly given the political interests of the Bush family but my Jessa did I not plainly say that anyone who didn't think war oil was worth fighting about was a fool that have clearly it's a war battle you said before oil is worth fighting over must be fought over if it's not to become the property of megalomaniac pyromaniac a despots yes I certainly most certainly did I mean in terms of the power of the United States in the oil industry rather than in terms of money going to a specific person who you clearly disagree with thank you I mean people used to say there were braver slogans in the old days like no blood for Texaco for example or and I remember it myself from the the obvious fact that the United States government had overthrown an elected regime in Iran the Masonic regime in the 1950s in order to get a preponderance of American oil companies over British once in the anglo-iranian oil company could do real populist and then about Empire oil and attacks on democracy the sad thing is that none of it applies now as you can see from the whimpering Lee no-good slogans that you get like no war over oil which means nothing unless you think oil is unimportant and now it bears on an important question it hasn't come up which I might just take a minute on many people say look Saddam Hussein may be horrible everyone likes to clear their throat this way and so they don't really like him everyone except Ramsey Clark and a few fans of the Baath Party want to get this out of the way of course we agree he's a bad guy but you know he understands self preservation he understands deterrence he can be boxed in and so forth now having invaded Kuwait which was an insane thing for him to have done and having refused pressure from almost every member of the Arab League the whole of the United Nations and every other conceivable neighbor or international group to withdraw his forces Saddam Hussein was told when a note delivered personally by James Baker now he was going to be pushed out by a coalition that involved the Egyptian army the Syrian army the French army everyone you can think of but that there was no chance that he could resist being pushed out but he was to not do two things he was not to try and use no nerve or chemical gas agents on American or coalition forces on pain of what were called the most extreme and severe consequences and he was not to set fire to the Kuwaiti oil fields before he abandoned them now we don't know at least I will claim I don't know whether the Gulf War Syndrome and some other illnesses do result from some rash commander perhaps with orders trying out nerve gas in that war nor the jury's out on that there's a strong suspicion that he did but there's no doubt at all that on his way out of Kuwait he blew up the Kuwaiti oil fields set them up set them ablaze flooded the Gulf killed new normal for those of you who care about these kinds of things and I know you do kill huge numbers of seals birds that kind of thing while in Berkeley I'm not going to waste this opportunity generally behaved a but but but also insanely mega maniacally pyro maniacally and without without rationality now the question is do you want to find out what this guy would be like if he ever got the uranium or the plutonium do you want to find that out or not or would you rather say that we've seen enough and we would rather take the side of his enemies and off his people and see the last of him I think that's a no-brainer myself there's another guy another guy advertising his wares from the back of the hall a cheap peddler crying his wares um and with it we're not gonna know jakers ion so we're not gonna get everybody to it you know come to consensus so that's fine let's go in 1989 Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of all I'm too tall the microphone too short um in 1985 in 1989 Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of Israeli college students the Israel ship took advantage of Tiananmen Square massacre to expel Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza recent polls in summers over 60% of his really supported transferring Palestinians from the occupied territories with the rightward shift of Israel with the elections coming up with the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu is a leading laocoon candidate what do you think about the prospects of Israel using the war in Iraq as a cover for ethnic cleansing there's a lot of palestinians and israelis we now are afraid of and has that figured into your your calculations in your position on the war on Iraq thinking these the Sharon government has invited the situation is in some ways worse than you say in some ways perhaps not as bad the Shorin government has invited on more than one occasion it's shifting coalition's the supporters or leaders of Pro expulsion parties into into the Israeli cabinet it's well known people who openly advocate what is disgustingly called transfer in other words the deeper so forcible deportation of the remaining Palestinians of the West Bank Gaza in either injured Jordan across the river or injured Gaza into a kind of massive holding pen pending further solution and there are it's very sad to have to say a quite a number of people in the United States including quite senior Republican congressman and spokesman for the Christian Coalition and others who have also advocated this and it seems to me a great a great responsibility on everybody's part to repudiate this idea of a racist cleansing campaign whether it was conducted under cover of war or for any other reason now the question is would war make it more likely or less I personally think it makes it less but I hope I hope I'm not being optimistic because the United States government in that in such in a case seems to me would have no choice at all but to forcibly restrain Israel or any or any crazy general or politician who like you are here from taking advantage of a war which involves the international interest the will of the UN and a whole number of other very important civilizational questions for Israel to take advantage of such a thing to pursue a policy that is evidently racist and repulsive would be unpardonable and I think would be opposed I think would be opposed but it's something I think there should be a lot more vigilance about then there is and I think it's very badly reported in our press that there is this constant threat forum for a for a cleansing of the of the occupied territories I think we baby should take one more question from each each side and then Christopher will be out at the table signing books and you can talk to him individually at that time if you're holding a receipt the pro bono period will be over by then okay let's go over here uh you said that you know no blood for oil is simplistic and you know of course oil is worth fighting for I just wonder how far do you go with that I mean is it worth burying people alive in the desert for oil I mean if you ask me you ask me I mean you seriously ask me specifically is it worth not just fighting for oil the war but fighting a war in which people were killed we're buried alive shall we say or burn their life why not burn to life why not blown to pieces why not um how do you get some earrings I don't think it's a very deconstructive rephrasing of my original point I mean yes if it's worth fighting for I'm willing to accept that what I'm going to accept what's entailed in what I said can you take one more question sir just one more question am I going to enlist that's a good one can you take one more question sir just one word I hope it's I hope it has struck people by now that we're talking about a war or serious of conflicts in which in which civilians are American civilians are quite near the front line in fact newer than many soldiers are so it seems to me ridiculous to to ask of people whether they favor the war or oppose it what they're asked you to enlistment is you've already been enlisted sweetie by being a civilian so I ask you one more question I have a question here actually I'll give you a chance to I yeah okay notice a better Christopher I read a lot of what you've written in the past year and you never talked about the people who may be killed in this war not the Iraqis or the Americans and I think Yorkin when you talk about the Americans who are on the front lines you are conflating the Iraqi war and the bin Laden forces which are not one in the same in fact and I would just like you to address the question of the numbers of people that may be killed in this war and is the consequence I know what point is that consequence outweighed by you know the oil is it how many people are worth killing in order to protect the oil well it's very flattering of you to ask me as if I knew the answer to what to whether more people it's very flattering excuse me it's distinctly flattering to be asked so respectfully politely I must say as if I might know whether more people would die whether Saddam Hussein forced us into war now or later in other words that I could guarantee I could tell you in advance what the respective tolls might be or how many people he might kill if there was no war with him at all I can't tell you the answer to that either I would suspect on the past evidence a lot would be the answer on your pointer of conflation I'm not so sure you're right to say that the civilian soldier Jakarta me is as strong as you think I don't know who put anthrax in my mail room in Washington last year nobody does yet I know there are people who think it would be wishy to make it smallpox instead and I know that the rock has been involved in producing and distributing a great deal of this stuff and I certainly know those are the weapons of choice of the other side so no I don't feel that there's any question at all one reason why people are taking this argument so seriously is because in the age of weapons of mass destruction wield it by the way by either side the distinction between civilian and soldier is more or less morally abolished at least US workers regards safety or the right to criticize after all if I was a woman taking this position and suppose I was 55 and a mother you wouldn't taunt me for not putting on a uniform and so I had no right to my opinion with you so if you don't want to be addressed as a don't talk to people as if they were stupid well sometimes the temptation is a bit much after well after 150 years of history intervation around the world again will become here again in Panama and Yugoslavia overthrowing government what do you think guaranteed the United States is going to be fair and post justice forever enclose this with these armies and why the goodness they have the right to intervene all around the world and causing faces all around the planet and these corporations around the planet is a very honorable in tank of bringing democracy around the world like I mean where do you find in the regime and then the other thing is is also concern about the life of the course I am concerned about the people who were killing Russia my sake in all the world i nitrate carry around the planet i mean i you can say about that i you concern about the weapon of destruction that the arsenal colonized a thank you can you finish up please these are questions are all questions when i listen of all data and british empire I never thought I never thought I'd be doing this but I'm gonna have to ask you to repeat the last bit how perfectly ghastly what maybe someone can tell me what the British bit was a my reminiscent jolly well that would be for someone else to say am i toast Elgin for it I could say but I think as with the rest of the question I'm going to make an arrogant assumption I'm going to say that I don't believe anyone will object if I say I've had enough of it and I have answered all those questions already and it's time for me to go and sign books but thank you very much any take no more I mean it just one more sinner I came one more you

Channel: CaNANDian

Views: 108,668

Rating: 4.7851086 out of 5

Keywords: Christopher, Hitchens, Mario, Savio, memorial, lecture, 2002, Adam, Hochschild

Id: t-cm-qGSeG4

Length: 82min 46sec (4966 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 21 2012