As much as I hate to just drop links a la Reynolds, this has to be read. Jesurgislac’s obviously been there, but I don’t recall seeing anyone refer this. I’m not recommending this from any particular point of view, or endorsing any points of view contained in Totten’s post, just thinking that anyone at all might enjoy it. Excerpt:
I respected them more, too, because they stood up to me and Christopher Hitchens. They are not servile people. They will never, ever, be anyone’s puppets. They are gentle and decent, and at the same time fierce and formidable. You really do not want to mess with them. And they’re great to have on your side.
And of course:
At one point, apropos of something I can’t remember, Ahman said to me: “I can tell you in one sentence how my country feels about your country.”
“Really?” I said. “Can you really boil it down to one sentence?”
“Yes,” he said. “And it is this: Thank you for coming, now please leave and take us with you.”
I laughed because it seemed totally contradictory and totally right.
Just go read the whole thing, already. [/InstaDipNut]
That’s the link with the picture I have below. 🙂
Oh, bollocks. Should I just remove this?
Nahh. It is an interesting article, and should be read by people. Mentioning it twice isn’t going to hurt anyone. And I only linked to it with the photo, I didn’t really do enough to encourage people to read it.
I agree (FWIW – IMO). I thought Ghassan Atiyyah’s rejoinder to Chris Hitchens deserves a far wider audience.
I actually liked both sides of that discussion. Ok, I’m done trying to cook up a clever memory-loss-due-to-aging theme for an open thread to replace this with.
Depressing idea, but I just got my first pair of bifocals this morning. If only part of the Gibson-esque future would hurry up and arrive, I’d get a set of Zeiss-Ikon implants in a heartbeat.
A great read, particularly for this Hitchens fan.
Slarti – I had to get my first pair 6 months back (and reading glasses to go with the contacts – talk about a pain in the butt) so I hear you. I’m right behind you for those implants. And, a second post is useful – my feeble eyes missed the link when I first read the earlier post.
It’s not going to come as a shocker that i’m utterly appalled.
[excerpt begins]
Christopher Hitchens said to Ghassan Atiyyah: “If the Iraqis were to elect either a Sunni or Shia Taliban, we would not let them take power.” And of course he was right. We didn’t invade Iraq so we could midwife the birth of yet another despicable tyranny. “One man, one vote, one time” isn’t anything remotely like a democracy.
But Atiyyah would have none of that. He exploded in furious rage. “So you’re my colonial master now, eh?!”
“I agree with Christopher,” I said. “We didn’t invade Iraq to let it turn into another Iran.”
[excerpt ends]
good to know that the 101st Fighting Keyboarders are still taking the fight to the enemy.
but more to the point . . . since Sistani’s party has won an overwhelming victory, and since the news reports are full of stories that sharia will be the law of the land, what are Totten and Hitch going to do? Get themselves appointed dual viceroys and keep throwing out constitutions that don’t track the US constitution [presumably absent the slavery bit]?
denying women the vote was popular in this country until relatively recently. but now we’re in a position to tell other countries that they cannot?
a final point: Anyone who draws strong similarities between Iran’s current govt and the Afghanistan Taliban really needs spend more time reading. Totten’s dismissal of Juan Cole tells a lot more about Totten than it does of Cole. It seems to me entirely possible that the Iraqis relaxed when they realized that they were dealing with just another american ignoramus.
Francis
“He literally, physically, dug his heels into the floor.”
I’ve been known to do this after two too many double martinis, too.
Hitchens has always been a pompous blowhard willing to have others die on the basis of beliefs he ascribes to them. He did it on the left for years and now he’s doing it for the right. It doesn’t surprise me at all that once he meets actual Iraqis who’ve had to deal with the sacrifice he’s so graciously foisted on them, he finds them a tad uppity.
cmas, you sound an awful lot like someone else who posts here.
once he meets actual Iraqis who’ve had to deal with the sacrifice he’s so graciously foisted on them
I hadn’t realized Hitchens was that influential — kinda like Bush, Powell and Rumsfeld rolled into one.
One of the things that’s so interesting in the post is that Totten has absolutely no idea how the fight was calmed down. Whatever the Dutch man whispered into Ghassen Atiyyah’s ear is absolutely mysterious–and yet it seems to me to be the most important conversation of the encounter.
Really? Who’s that, Slarti? I don’t post here much at all.
Jackmormon, I don’t think Totten had any idea why what Hitchens said was so offensive. I suspect what the Dutch guy whispered into Ghassen Atiyyah’s ear was something like “Totten’s an idiot, Hitchens is drunk, are you really going to get into a fight because a drunken blowhard says something stupid, and an ignoramous backs him up?”
Well, cmas, you’re posting from exactly the same IP address that Iron Lungfish posts from. Same subnet I might buy, but I’m a little intrigued by the identical IP.
And, Jesurgislac, that’s way to the useless side of unnecessary. And it’s not all that improbable that Totten would swing by and see what’s sending the wee bit of traffic his way.
If you want to diss Totten and Hitchens, take it to email. Please.
Slarti: Jes only said what I did in a more poetic way. Totten’s thread is nauseautingly fawning. By allowing comments on your post, you’re allowing Jes. and me a place to voice our thoughts on those two utterly sanctimonious warblogging drunks.
Francis
Great. And it’s fun, saying what great wankers Totten and Hitchens are, especially when they’re nowhere in earshot. But if you want to be honest about it, send them an email.
Or, you could continue being a gossip. Your choice.
two utterly sanctimonious warblogging drunks.
If my prose ever rose to their level (especially Hitchens’) I’d wear those epithets with pride. Such bile.
I’m just thankful that Michael Totten and C. Hitchens are the only people who can be found in the punditocracy and blogosphere who can be sanctimonious. Goodness knows no one else can ever be found posting to this blog who could be characterized that way. And, thankfully, only people on one side of a political discussion can be sanctimonious.
So it’s a good thing we’ve got those fellows identified and pinned in a safe place; I’d be afraid that posting sanctimoniously might otherwise spread, and who knows what sort of trouble might result?
– The linked piece features Totten and Hitchens as characters in a story. It’s entirely appropriate to comment on their personalities and their motivations in this context.
– The story of that piece involves the interaction of supporters of a war versus inhabitants of that war. It’s entirely appropriate to note that there’s a marked gulf between these roles, and hypocrisy fills that gulf rather quickly.
– I find Hitchens’s writing style to be impossible even when I agree with him. He fills his writing with so many sneers, hobbyhorses, random linguistic tics, and an overall sense of self-aggrandizement that he’s difficult to read. This is relevant only to the degree that one’s personality comes through in one’s writing, namely, that he comes off as a pompous boor. As I said, I thought this when he was writing for The Nation; of course, most of this could have been said of most of The Nation.
– I meant “foist” in the sense of “attribute.” He attributes to them a desire to sacrifice for what he believes will be a more perfect Iraq, a willingness to form a secular society, a yearning for the abstract qualities of “freedom.” Maybe one of the reasons real Iraqis don’t get on with him quite so well is because he hasn’t invented them.
– Here are people who have actually been affected by the decision to go to invade Iraq, whose entire country was rather forcibly committed to this war while Hitchens and Totten got to sit comfortably at home and cheer on the revolution, and they’re portrayed as being irrational loons with crazy personal grudges for seeing a bit of a downside to it. That strikes me as rather snotty and arrogant. Attiyah’s remarks to Hitchens are a serious challenge, and deserve a better response than one that seems to reduce to “those wacky Iraqis!”
– I confess, I’m not “Iron Lungfish” or “cmas” or Clark fricking Kent for that matter, but then I’m betting you’re not really the old dude from the Douglas Adams books either. What is this, amateur detective day on the internet? I don’t alert the rest of the pretend world when I change my pretend name.
Aside from all this, I’m curious as to what Hitchens and Totten – and more broadly, those who find themselves with Hitchens and Totten – think the US should or would do in the case of a democratically-elected Iraq choosing to become more or less Islamist. At the very least, even if Iraq looks to reject clerical rule, it looks like it’s headed for making shariah the basis of law. What happens then? Do we re-invade? Do we call for a do-over? The paradox of a democracy is that sometimes the majority might decide to pick a system that is not democratic – or at the very least, is not free. What do you do then?
Yes. Didn’t you get the invite?
Actually, I was curious. I looked. I thought it was a bit odd that you were posting from the exact same IP as another poster. If you had any notion of how effortless it is to even notice that…
Of course. And it’s just exactly like gossiping to your neighbor about what you think about your other neighbor, when the opportunity to actually come clean with the party in question is…well, it’s easily avoidable, if you’re averse to actually discussing your opinion, as opposed to airing your dirty laundry. But you’re in good company in that endeavor.
Then, for $DEITY*’s sake, just ask one of them. But that would be far too direct.
*Remind me to hit Farber’s tipjar.
I thought it was a bit odd that you were posting from the exact same IP as another poster.
I get tired of old names/identities fairly quckly. I’d been using that one for a while now; it was feeling rusty.
Then, for $DEITY*’s sake, just ask one of them. But that would be far too direct.
Hitch doesn’t usually respond to my emails. We used to hang out, y’know. I’d drop by his place for a glass of port, he’d stop by my apartment for mac ‘n cheese and tap water, but one day we had a fight over whether or not Gandhi was just a half-naked faker, and Chris responded that all saints must be judged guilty until proven absolutely innocent, and I said “What about Orwell,” and he flew into a blind rage and attempted to beat me to death with a brandy snifter. We haven’t spoken since.
I’m not a regular visitor to Totten’s blog – I think there’s far better conservatives out there, including this lot – but I’ll email him. But since the question came up – and since Totten seems to think that the US would, well, do something to stop a theocratic Iran, I think he should’ve said on his blog what that something should be.
But you’ll note that my question wasn’t just for those two pundits; it would be a very boring world indeed if I limited my view of the pro-war world to them (and a somewhat less intelligible one when one counts Hitchens). It was for anyone else who holds the following view: “Iraqi democracy necessary, Iraqi theocracy unacceptable.” What do you do to stop the former from becoming the latter? It’s a puzzle I’m very much interested in – one that I think gets overlooked by far too many on both sides of the aisle – and I’d love to hear some thoughts on this.
[Pre-emptive fire-extinguisher: I attribute this belief to no one on this blog. I’m asking anyone in the shadows who might hold this view to offer me their opinion, in which I’m genuinely interested, and which will almost certainly be more interesting than Hitchens’s version.]
This is real interesting. Can Totten and Hitchens be considered public figures? I really don’t know. Slart draws the line in one place, Jes and Francis draw it in another place. Chas suggested that Rachel Corrie was a historical figure earlier, there is at least two commentators who feel that constant insults to Bush’s name here constitute a bannable violation.
Now, I think Slart has a point, if Totten came here and there was a huge slag match, it would be like an accident on the freeway, I’d certainly slow down to watch, but would probably shake my head as well. But the way that Francis raised the issue was really spot on.
On preview, I think another topic has opened up. As someone who has agreed with Iron Lungfish on a number of occasions, I really think s/he should rethink this name thing. The key to continuity of discussion is that you have some idea of continuity of opinions. This is not to accuse you of changing your opinions depending on who you are posting as (though I have been involved in incidents where precisely that has occurred and I hope that it never happens here) I don’t recall you using one name to trash someone or anything like that, but I think we attend to the weight of opinions (though we really shouldn’t), and posting under two different handles skews that.
I also think that this came out when Atrios and Sullivan tangled on a radio show. Sullivan suggested that anonymous blogging was just a screen to hide behind. The radio host noted that what Atrios was doing was not writing anonymously, but under a pseudomnym. This defense only works if people are consistent with their pseudonyms.
My 2 yen.
Ah, so the defensiveness was for no reason whatsoever. Whatever floats your boat.
LJ:
Not really my point. My point is, why the incessant complaining about what a staggering drone Cole/Kos/Totten/whomever is, when their email addresses are all handy, and you can just pop over and comment on any (or all) of their blog posts and let them know precisely how you feel about them? I know what answer comes to my mind, but I’m open to what those who insist on repeating this behavior have to say in way of explanation. I just don’t understand it.
Interesting point, slarti. Well, the main reason I would give is that you can’t trust anyone (present company accepted, of course) I mean, the NYTimes Ombudsman posted a letter complaining about a reporter’s reportage, and prominently displayed the person’s name and email address. While Totten seems like a nice guy, you have no guarantee that the person can’t take your email, clip out some parts and make it the subject of their next blog post entitled ‘Get a load of this idiot’ One way to remember that everything is public is to make everything public. This is not suggesting that Totten would (I really have no idea), but being cautious with everyone is a safe bet, IMO.
As to why not wander over to Totten’s blog, I treat blogs the same way I do bars. You don’t wander in them to pick a fight cause you never know what you are going to get involved in. (I don’t go in my favorite bars to pick fights either, but you know what I mean) Bopping over to his blog now, it looks like the chairs are flying, even as we speak.
Also (and I may be revealing my prejudices here) is there any information about the picture? I recall that some photographer got the sack for splicing two pictures together to make a more confrontational shot. I appreciate the sentiment involved, but I would like to know what the backstory behind the picture is.
“I’m not a regular visitor to Totten’s blog – I think there’s far better conservatives out there, including this lot”
It was a funny and interesting post. I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of stances in Totten’s comment section…umm, I have encountered much worse conservative blogs.
“As someone who has agreed with Iron Lungfish on a number of occasions, I really think s/he should rethink this name thing.”
Yeah, I think it disrespects the discourse here to switch names without warning. And to, well, kind of lie about it when braced doesn’t help. I don’t know if I would have pointed out the IP coincidence publicly if I had known, but to the extent that one builds relationships here and (if nothing else) is assumed to understand the local mores through experience, I find it unfortunate.
Totten doesn’t mean anything to me. I think Hitchens is a public figure and fair game for derision of most sorts.
Well, that’d be exceedingly poor netiquette, and one would be then justified in putting Totten in the pillory. Unless the letter is pure tomato-slinging, Totten would be in the wrong, publishing it as a dig at the author. The threat of publication would, I imagine, also act as an incentive to the author to write something that wasn’t begging for ridicule.
I was going to mention this earlier, but Totten’s attracted some rather decent commentors. Ratatosk, for instance. Read his stuff; you might find yourself liking the guy a lot even in the places where you most disagree with him. Plus, Ratatosk as a handle puts most others to shame. I mean, genius as a handle for a troll, but even more genius as a handle for someone who’s there to intelligently stir the pot. The guy’s way smarter than me, which means he’s at least as smart as an actual squirrel.
Apropos of nothing, but since we’re edging metawards the javascripts for comments here are kinda cool.
I don’t know that I’d do it again. But I was curious. I don’t mean to belittle IL/cmas for switching boats, I just was curious. The reaction prompted me to bristle a bit, but I don’t think it’s all that big a deal. Certainly it’s not against the rules or anything; not even in spirit.
While I think Totten’s article is interesting, I’d like to remind people that all we’re getting is his recounting of events after a night of drinking. Caveat lector.
VERY pretty. Although they’ve got to do a bit of cleanup from time to time. Example:
I don’t think it’s entirely civil to confound our expectations in that way, but whatever. You have responsibility so you have to cast a cold eye on these sorts of things.
… and to think that bronze coelacanth or whatever was available…
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that iron is an element, while bronze is an alloy. Picky, I know, but that’s me. Sometimes. If I feel like it.
“*Remind me to hit Farber’s tipjar.”
I won’t wrestle you down on the way, but do be aware that I most certainly am not the inventor of that usage (“$DEITY”), nor anything close; it’s been floating around the internet for a bunch of years.
Slart, guess you’ll have to take it up with whoever came up with “The Iron Age” and “The Bronze Age” and “The Stone Age” – let him know stone’s not a metal for me.
Since his name has been so tossed about in this thread, I’ll venture my opinion that, in my more than three years of reading Michael Totten (not every post, of course), and exchanging the occasional note from time to time, he’s been a thoughtful, fair-minded guy. Whom I, of course, disagree with about various things, and agree with about others.
He’s also in no way describable as a “conservative,” by the way, just as he’s disclaimed any variant of “liberal.” (Although from my line of sight, he looks considerably like a foreign-affairs hawk, social liberal, who is intensely irritated with various flavors of knee-jerk liberalism and leftism; but I’m not all that interested in political labels, and Mr. Totten may be even less interested, for better or worse.) But “hawk” and “conservative” map quite dreadfully onto each other.
As for Hitchens, if he only existed for a) entertainment value, and; b) as a human Rorschach Test, I’d find him worth every penny I’ve ever spent on him, and more besides. But I have no quarrel with anyone who doesn’t gain such benefits.
(Okay, I’d also find his existence worthwhile if only for him vs. Henry Kissinger and/or him vs. Mother Teresa; in the last case, if he didn’t, really, who would?)
Bronze isn’t a metal? I’m confused. Probably because it’s late, and I ought to be getting to bed.
Yeah, I think it disrespects the discourse here to switch names without warning.
Why? What do you know about me as a person that you can attach to an internet handle that’s so betrayed by my changing a name? Did you know any more or any less about “Iron Lungfish” than you did about “cmas”?
I didn’t dress up in a wig and Groucho glasses. I didn’t put on a mask – or at least, any more of a mask than most of us are already wearing by default here (namely, our anonymity). I changed my nickname without announcing it. And why should I announce it? If I’d announced it, presumably it would’ve been in some random thread, and the people on that random thread, at that time, who noticed my old nickname from previous random threads and attached any significance to it, would have made some note of it. Because I’m not a prolific commenter, most people’s associations of that nickname are probably “that liberal” or “that lefty,” which isn’t even accurate, but since I’ve only really commented on war and torture threads – in which I’m anti-Iraq War and anti-torture – people assume I’m a liberal.
Delusions, illusions, misunderstandings and grudges are the kind of inane foolishness we’re forced to accept with the continuous identities we’re given in reality; on the internet we can, and in fact do, discard our identities all the time. This isn’t a bad thing; this is quite natural for a medium that’s as shifting and fluid as the net. I happen to think that it’s good to throw away the old and literally get over yourself once in a while.
I realize that most internet discourse is bound by such fragile illusions as the attachment of a sense of community to something as ephemeral and non-spatial as a website, but before you get all upset about me sullying the discourse and perpetrating e-fraud by changing the value of a field on a web form, please grab a bit of perspective and remember that this is an illusion.
And to, well, kind of lie about it when braced doesn’t help.
How did I lie? I’m not a constant poster here; I’m certainly much more of a lurker. Jes is a regular. Rilkefan is a regular. Timmy is a regular. Gary Farber, historically, has posted far more than I have (and is one of the only posters here to show anything resembling transparency in his identity). So please stop beating this high horse. You’ve made me tired already, which is what started this in the first place.
Sorry, I retract “lie” – please substitute “dissemble” or some similar somewhat pejorative word – “weasle”, perhaps.
Announced in some thread where regulars are posting, it would have been noted and ignored until such a time as anyone cared – seems like due diligence to me.
As far as transparency, I’m trivially easy to track from my email (queries to which are answered under my real name for those who can’t figure out google.)
As far as the samsara stuff is concerned, if it’s all an illusion, then keeping your old handle shouldn’t matter.
Anyway, I too am bored with this conversation, too bad you brought it up again.
I personally don’t care if people change names, though I think it tends to hurt the possibility of good long term discussions. But just as a reminder, if you impersonate a regular you are going to get banned.
Slarti, FWIW, my comment was made in the context of teying to imagine what the Dutch guy could have said to Ghassen Atiyyah to cool him down: and again FWIW, I’m fairly certain he probably did point out that Chris Hitchens was not sober* and probably had no idea why what he was saying was so offensive**. And I don’t think that’s over the line.
What I said about Totten probably was, though, even in that context.
*Which is also just a guess. But a good guess.
**I’m working on the assumption that Hitchens probably wouldn’t have talked like that to a table full of Iraqis if he hadn’t been drunk.
Slarti: the reason I posted here and not there is the same reason I didn’t send an e-mail. i don’t particularly care what Totten or Hitchens thinks about me. However, i’ve found that I do (oddly enough, very much) enjoy the debate on this blog. You and SH independently thought that your readers would enjoy the story. I did, and am sharing my thoughts because that’s what i like to do.
on the substantive point — i notice that no one has taken up the challenge of WHAT TO DO when the iraqi constitution imposes a Shia version of sharia as law of the land (except, presumably, in a semi-independent Province of Kurdistan).
some have said that such a constitution would be unacceptable. Well, recent stories suggest that Sistani is calling in his marker. Now what?
Francis
notice that no one has taken up the challenge of WHAT TO DO when the iraqi constitution imposes a Shia version of sharia as law of the land…
“if”. Let’s not borrow more trouble than we already have.
This misses the point, I think. My point is that what you have to say about someone else’s words and deeds is far more interesting than what you think about them as a person, and how much of a putz you think they are. IOW, complaints are far less useful and interesting to the rest of us (by which I mean, me) than incisive commentary.
i notice that no one has taken up the challenge of WHAT TO DO when the iraqi constitution imposes a Shia version of sharia as law of the land
Unless you are positing that the constitution would abolish the “one person, one vote” rule, there would be absolutely nothing we could do about it. IMHO.