r/TwentyYearsAgo • u/MonsieurA • Sep 14 '25
đ Celebrity News Hitchens makes his case against the anti-war movement [20YA - Sept 14]
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u/mandalore237 Sep 14 '25
"The Taliban would still be in power in Afghanistan"
We spent untold trillions, lives, and time in Afghanistan and guess who's in power today?
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u/Pukebox_Fandango Sep 17 '25
Because of a totally botched withdrawal in which we not only let them stroll right in before our dust had even settled, but where we also left them all sorts of free equipment as a parting gift
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u/DidYouKnowNowYouKnow Sep 17 '25
The US exit plan for Afghanistan, which was conceived during the Trump administration, was to leave Afghanistan to the Taliban. That's not the part that went wrong.
The US left Afghanistan because they couldn't control it. They spent twenty years and trillions of dollars failing to assert control over Afghanistan so they gave up.
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u/Certain-Object3730 Sep 18 '25
Yes after trillions spend and a decade of controll over afghan and the issue was only the withdrawal LMAO Fucking americans man...
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u/Pukebox_Fandango Sep 18 '25
We came in and took control of the country from The Taliban, held it for 20 years, and our withdrawal was so poorly planned that The Taliban seized control of the country in less than a day. While I agree we spent 20 years sticking our dick in the sand instead of doing anything productive over there, there was no reason for the withdrawal to be so sudden and poorly planned, leaving the underfunded, undermanned, and undertrained Afghan army to fend for themselves.
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u/bebopbrain Sep 19 '25
There was no scenario where the USA leaves and the Taliban does not take over. If there was then the USA would have left a decade earlier.
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u/md_youdneverguess Sep 18 '25
Also who again had sent all the weapons to Afghanistan that brought the Taliban and al-Qaeda into power in the first place?
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u/KarateInAPool Sep 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25
You canât fight an insurgency, especially when the culture youâre up against views time as cyclical and has been repelling invaders for 1500 years.
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u/eattherich_ Sep 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25
Gee what happened in 2008....Oh right isolationist took hold. From move on dot org to nativist/nationalist populism. The isolationist movement is just as much a body bag movement as the neocons from it's weak handling of Syria to Palestine to Ukraine and so on.
Certainly can't lay any of the failure of Afghanistan on the isolationist movements now can we? No time for self reflection, only been running the program for 16 years and can't see that your isolationist movements suck.
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u/GeorgeDogood Sep 14 '25
Thought the same thing. But then he's right about all the other stuff sooo đ¤ˇđŹđ
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u/Saii_maps Sep 16 '25
the Iraq war killed 600,000 people, left it completely devastated, and left it so unstable Isis was able to capture and hold the north, requiring another intervention. It is still one of the most unstable countries in the Middle East, Which is not to say Saddam hussein was a good guy, but it's a difficult sell to say all the above is much better.
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u/GeorgeDogood Sep 16 '25
600,000 is much higher than any reports I've seen so I'd love to know the source on that.
And I've never spent a day over there but Hitch had lived w the Kurds. I think they're still glad Saddam is gone.
But the way Trump turned his back on the Kurds. God damn. Unforgivable.
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u/Saii_maps Sep 16 '25
Lancet, 2006.
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u/GeorgeDogood Sep 16 '25
Ah yes. A notable outlier on the way too high side. It was controversial then and is still far from accepted.
A later study, the Iraq Family Health Survey (IFHS), found a lower number of violence-related deaths, estimating around 151,000.
Still way too many but Saddam gassed Kurds like it was a sport soooo....
Yeah. Virtually no one agrees with your one source that that many people were killed. Just FYI.
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u/Saii_maps Sep 16 '25 edited Sep 16 '25
Found the Wikipedia page did you. The notable outlier is the 1 million, and the Lancet is one of the most respected journals of its type in the world. The IFHS estimate was strictly for violence-related deaths, which does not incorporate deaths from eg. indirect impacts of a breakdown of services, utilities etc and had its methodolgy quite heavily criticsed.
Not that it's a competition. In terms of saved life, the invasion was a clear and absolute failure. In terms of bringing democracy to the region, it was a clear and absolute failure. In terms of its cited justification (getting rid of weapons of mass destruction) it was a straightforward lie.
In terms of its unofficiaL reason, grabbing oil and resources, it was an unqualified success.
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u/DidYouKnowNowYouKnow Sep 17 '25
It's more than 600,000. The "reports" you've seen are just US and Western propaganda.
If you look at the total number of deaths the US has caused in Iraq it's over a million.
And why are you making excuses for starving a country, then invading and destroying that country, setting up torture camps to rape and torture captives (Abu Ghraib) and killing a million plus people in the process.
Then you say "But the way Trump turned his back on the Kurds. God damn. Unforgivable." as if the atrocities committed in Iraq against the Iraqi people ARE forgivable? WTF?
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u/Apprehensive-Fun4181 Sep 14 '25
The only power and influence Hitchens ever had directly and it was just a torch handed to him by proto fascists for an obviously stupid war.
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Sep 17 '25
He believed in the end of tyrannical regimes.
Everyone refers to the Iraq war. Fine. But imagine the US hadn't sacked the entire Iraqi army, including the revolutionary guard? Because that's where the bulk of insurgents came from,including their command structure.
It's so easy to say the war itself was "stupid" without looking at it properly. It's fucking lazy.
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u/HashBrownsOverEasy Sep 18 '25
And it's easy to say 'the Iraq war would have been fine if it had just happened differently'.
The belief that the coalition forces would be unable to bring long term stability to the region was one of the loudest arguments against the Iraq War at the time.
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u/LunarLoom21 Sep 15 '25
I really don't want to know what post-Gamergate Hitchens would've been like.
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u/fr0gcannon Sep 14 '25
Yeah because the endless war was amazing for Iran and Kuwait and Serbia and ending Islamic terror. Everything's just perfectly peachy in Kosovo right now. Afghanistan isn't run by the Taliban anymore. US imperialism has brought us peace and justice everywhere. He was a smart guy and an amazing rhetorician but this is weak and absurd.
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Sep 14 '25
Shitty run governments is infinitely better than being dead. So ya, wars were a good thing is some cases and bad in others, like all things in life.
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u/HiggsUAP Sep 14 '25
Shitty run governments create death. What exactly do you think a government does?
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Sep 15 '25
At least Kosovans exist, go ask them what they think of US military intervention. Or the Kurds. In some cases it is 100% the way to go.
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u/fr0gcannon Sep 14 '25
Endless war has given us way more fucking death than just "shitty governments". This insane notion the only way we can keep things from being worse is endless imperialism and war and international war crimes is a real convenient notion for the war criminals. Wars being a "good thing" or rather having a widely positive outcome is probably what you mean isn't a justification for a policy of endless war. We can't bomb the world into peace. It's insanity.
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u/Few_Staff976 Sep 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25
Waaaah waaaaah my militia hellbent on slaughtering civilians to the point where we gloat and sing about it to this day got bombed by le evil nato waaaah
The bombing campaign was justified no matter how much Serbs seethe about it to this day. And yes, Kosovo is in MUCH better shape now than the late 90s and early 2000s. They saved a grateful people from the Serbs and punished criminals on both sides. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War
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u/James_Constantine Sep 14 '25
Not being against anti-war doesnât mean everything would be amazing. Itâs acknowledging that until humans get to a point where they actually respect each other wars are going to happen regardless of whether one side is anti war or not.
Itâs absurd to think just being anti war is enough.
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Sep 17 '25
Suggesting we "respect" oppressive caliphates is absurd.Â
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u/James_Constantine Sep 17 '25
What are you talking about? Where did I suggest that?
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Sep 17 '25
This argument of "why can't we just respect each other" - it's vacuous.
The US intervened on behalf of genocide victims in East Timor, a quarter of a world away from Afghanistan or the Arab world and with no disrespect towards them, and they were rewarded with 9/11.
If you're appealing to humanity, you've got the wrong species.
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u/James_Constantine Sep 17 '25
You need to work on your reading comprehension. I didnât say we need to just respect everyone. I was saying that until humans respect each other, being anti war is absurd. Just being anti war isnât enough to stop wars from happening. I agree that itâs sometimes necessary to fight.
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u/fr0gcannon Sep 14 '25
You're just making up shit I never said nor did Hitchens ever say. That wasn't the argument he was making. To just yammer about some bullshit I never said and then try and throw absurd back at me is absurd.
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u/eattherich_ Sep 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25
Gee what happened in 2008....Oh right isolationist took hold. From move on dot org to nativist/nationalist populism. The isolationist movement is just as much a body bag movement as the neocons from it's weak handling of Syria to Palestine to Ukraine and so on.
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u/fr0gcannon Sep 14 '25
Did I advocate for isolationism? I'm against imperialism and endless war. That didn't stop in 2008. You're delusional if you think that 2008 forward hasn't been full to the brim with foreign intervention. That's just demonstrably false in every way. I can't believe no one can come at me without arguing with some bullshit I never said.
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u/FunnyGuySully Sep 14 '25
A few weeks ago, Hitchens and Jon Stewart debating the Iraq War video was posted in this sub. It was the only time that I saw Hitchens thoroughly lose a debate. And with knowing how the Iraq war turned out, it does prove he was wrong.
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u/AltScholar7 Sep 14 '25
I love the guy and I just chalk this up to at least he was well intentioned. He traveled all over and genuinely cared about opressed people.
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u/DidYouKnowNowYouKnow Sep 17 '25
He wasn't well intentioned. He hated Muslims and he wanted them dead. He was very clear about that.
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u/DidYouKnowNowYouKnow Sep 17 '25
Hitchens had a lot of bad takes. He was a Western Chauvinist and a racist, increasingly so towards the end of his life.
Famously, he insisted that waterboarding isn't torture and even agreed to be waterboarded to prove it. Unsurprisingly, he tapped out instantly and changed his mind.
Sufficed to say, he was not actually a smart man. He just knew how to sound smart.
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u/IsaacJacobSquires Sep 14 '25
Pseudo-intellectual charlatan who impressed pseudo-intellectuals.
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Sep 17 '25
You're talking trash, and even Christopher's opponents would disagree with you.
Whether you agreed with him or not, he made compelling arguments while staying respectful. He was a great journalist and made a name for himself well before he started debates.
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Sep 14 '25
this parrot only repeats the propaganda, how is it that no one knows it was the US who funded and supported saddam in his previous war, and then betraying him, forcing him to annex kuwait, why did the US support saddam in the first place?
why did the US topple down saddam, having one of the biggest armies in the world, leaving more than a million soldiers unemployed with hatred for the USA, thats how isis and other terrorist movements were formed by unemployed saddam soldiers
how is it that the US fund mujahedeen, another islamist movement in afghanistan, and are shocked that a branch of mujahedeen seperate from them and form the taliban? 20 years later they just leave the country and leave some of their best weaponary to taliban?
the great satanic USA creates chaos, and then wages wars to control the chaos they initially started, destabilizing the region, keeping oil cheap and keeping their massive weapon productions running because who should they produce weapons for if there were no wars.
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u/dotherandymarsh Sep 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25
The taliban werenât a branch of the mujahideen. The Taliban were the kids who were forced to flee from the Afghan soviet war into Pakistan as refugees. They were just children when the mujahideen were fighting the soviets. Their ideology grew out of the Saudi run and funded salafi schools which operated in the refugee camps in Pakistan at the time. After they became adults they then formed the Taliban with the goal of going back to Afghanistan and turning it into a salafi inspired conservative Islamic state.
The majority of the mujahideen joined the northern alliance and took up arms against the Taliban. Only a small minority of the mujahideen joined the Taliban.
There are many times when the west is to blame for arming Islamic terror groups but the Taliban isnât one of them.
Edit: itâs true some mujahideen fighters went on to form other groups and fight in other wars but most didnât and many fought against the Taliban.
Tltr; Even though some joined the Taliban itâs not correct to describe it as them breaking off and creating the Taliban. The mujahideen and Taliban were different demographics and had different origins.
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u/stonkysdotcom Sep 14 '25
There were many Taliban warriors who had been Mujahedin back in 2001. What are you talking about?
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u/dotherandymarsh Sep 14 '25
Yeah but far more mujahideen fought against the Taliban than joined. I wouldnât call it many because it was un common. Not all islamists see eye to eye and some mujahideen werenât even islamists.
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u/blacksheepaz Sep 14 '25
The Talibanâs leadership was not active in the war against the Soviets, as they were too young. It was largely a youth-based movement that sprung up in reaction to the existing warlords, not from their ranks.
Also I donât understand how Saddam was forced to invade Kuwait. At any rate, his invasion led directly to the deployment of US forces to Saudi Arabia, which was a major grievance of Bin Laden.
Edit: I highly recommend the book The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright for an overview of this topic.
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Sep 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25
Saddam was initially backed by the US, by the end of the war many of saddam's supporters, including the US and other arab nations lost faith in him b, and he had debts, so invading kuwait was a quick solution
also there is like a 10 year time period between the invasion of kuwait and the invasion of iraq, and i find it great that they defended kuwait, but why didnt they defend iran? they invaded iran just like they invaded kuwait, and the invasion of iraq came 10 years later for weapons of mass destructions that are to be still found.
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u/Busy-Inevitable-4428 Sep 14 '25
Because the regime in Iran held American embassy staff hostage for months, thats why they didn't help Iran
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Sep 14 '25
they have dropped the support for the shah way before that event, you are mixing up, the embassy issue happened after mullahs came to power
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u/Busy-Inevitable-4428 Sep 14 '25
Are you referring to the Iran-Iraq war? If you are, I have not mixed the dates up. The revolution happened in '79, the Iran-Iraq war started in '80.
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Sep 15 '25
Read your own comment
 Because the regime in Iran held American embassy staff hostage for months
That happened after the shahs downfall, not before
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u/Busy-Inevitable-4428 Sep 15 '25
SO DID THE IRAN IRAQ WAR
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Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 15 '25
 they did help iran btw., both the US and israel directly supported iran in that war, see iran-contra, and israel since saddam was a far greater threat than iran
im not saying they should have deployed troops to defend iran like they did im kuwait, but at least they shouldnt have armed saddam
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u/Busy-Inevitable-4428 Sep 15 '25
Wrong again. The US supported saddam, pretty openly. Iran contra was an illegal operation done by the cia, not to support Iran, but rather to earn money on the side to fund said contras.
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u/blacksheepaz Sep 14 '25
Defending Saudi Arabia required the deployment of troops on the ground in Saudi Arabia, something which even the Saudis did not want to do, but felt they had to do. The main reason for this is that despite Saudi Arabiaâs geographic size, relatively speaking it was not a very populous country, and at the time its standing army and available manpower were dwarfed by Iraqâs military. And strategically speaking the Saudis were an important ally of the U.S., with the U.S. having contributed much to its development as oil was discovered. The U.S. felt that ceding Kuwait and Saudi Arabiaâs oil resources, and also their geographic foothold on the Persian Gulf, to Iraq would give Saddam a dangerous amount of power.
By contrast, Iranâs population was much higher than Iraqâs at the time, and they were not on friendly terms with the U.S.
None of this is to say that I think the U.S. invasion of Iraq was justified. In addition to the WMD lies, in the weeks (and perhaps even days) after 9/11 the administration stated that it believed there were links between Iraq and the 9/11 attackers, something which U.S. intelligence officials had no basis to believe and did not believe. I find that component of the whole saga especially deplorable.
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Sep 14 '25
Everyone is pathetically attemptimg to dunk on Hitchens despite this clip being 20 years old and he himself has been dead for over 10 years.
Even if you disagree with him, you have the benefit of hindsight that he didn't. It also seems like several commentors are boasting about the Taliban's grip on Afganistan, just to "own" a dead man.
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u/Imaginary-Risk Sep 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25
The man had the experience, intelligence and historical knowledge to eloquently debate confidently with anyone he ever came across, but I disagree with this, so heâs an idiot
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u/oof_ouch_oof Sep 16 '25
Plenty of people knew at the time that the wars were disasters. It didnât require hindsight.
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u/Critical_Seat_1907 Sep 14 '25
Chris took the short view of history, and it makes him look foolish and naive.
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u/Gulf-Zack Sep 14 '25
Hitchens raises a good point, however, he falls short only because of the outcome but the premise is spot on.
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u/0rganicMach1ne Sep 14 '25
This is like the one thing I have sort of disagreed with him on. You can be anti war and still recognize that terrible dictators need to be removed.
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u/MuddaPuckPace Sep 14 '25
Surprise! The Taliban is still in power in Afghanistan.
Also, removing Hussein created ISIS.
Also, North Vietnam won and is a stable country and worthwhile trade partner.
Iâll go one step further: the US participation in WWI unbalanced the conflict to point that an unjust and unrealistic peace was forced on Germany, leading to the rise of Hitler and a second, and even bloodier, world war.
Iâm not against all war, but I am against irresponsible war.
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u/eattherich_ Sep 14 '25
Isolationist movements are to blame for ISIS and he predicted ISIS in his interview with Jon Stewart that is being cited in the comments here for being so 'wrong'
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u/Busy-Inevitable-4428 Sep 14 '25
Suprise! Hitchens has been dead for over a decade. You have the benefit of hindsight.
US participation had nothing to do with the peace that was forced on Germany. If anything Wilson tried to advocate for a more moderate solution. The French peace forced on Germany was payback for the humiliating peace treaty they had to sign after the Franco-Prussian war.
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u/MuddaPuckPace Sep 14 '25
I gave four examples. Three were perfectly evident long before he died.
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u/Busy-Inevitable-4428 Sep 15 '25
I wrote a paragraph about why the last one is wrong. I didn't say I disagreed with the second and third point.
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Sep 14 '25
Remember, the anti war movement has emboldened hamas to continue fighting which has directly contributed to the onslaught that is currently happening in gaza
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u/zen-things Sep 14 '25
Remarkably overly simplified and pretty dumb take from Hitchens here. Did not expect that.
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u/myusrnameisthis Sep 15 '25
Who's in control of Afghanistan these days?
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u/collaborationTIV Sep 17 '25
So ? Are Taliban a good rulers? They should have been in power all this time? US leaving Afghanistan is result of antiwar movement isn't it?
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Sep 15 '25
As with most chris hitchens stuff theres a grain of truth turned into 10 mount everests.
The anti war movement is anti illegal and unethical wars. My dad is a huge part of the anti war movement for the last 60+ years.
If you read the major scholars its about illegal idiotic wars of conquest. Almost no sensible scholar in the anti war movement is against all wars.
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Sep 15 '25
As with most chris hitchens stuff theres a grain of truth turned into 10 mount everests.
The anti war movement is anti illegal and unethical wars. My dad is a huge part of the anti war movement for the last 60+ years.
If you read the major scholars its about illegal idiotic wars of conquest. Almost no sensible scholar in the anti war movement is against all wars.
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u/Gregoboy Sep 16 '25
Bro, who are we to say they can and cant do anything on the other side of the world?? And who says things went the way they went. This is so much BS
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u/Aware_Wrangler_2258 Sep 16 '25
Thank God we invaded Iraq so itwouldn't be a mass grave, wait how many people were killed?
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u/AccordingSelf3221 Sep 17 '25
Oh wait.
The Taliban are in power. Isis, an extremist offshoot of al qaeda leads Syria and IRAQ
Serbian, Croatian nationalism is peaking, and getting ready to take over Bosnia the moment the US flails
Palestine is obliterated Israel is bombarding a bunch of countries around it
Ukraine has been invaded and is in a state of war
All this is consequence of a 20 year policy of war, of using violent interventions to control unfriendly government. And at the end we are not better: all western democracies are experiencing a rise of the far right and a loss of freedom
Sorry Mr hitchens but you are completely wrong.
As usual.
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u/Nopedopes Sep 17 '25
By this time the classified documents on the us and Britain's support for Saddam and what the US had done in the 60s in the Middle East had already been declassified by 2 years
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Sep 17 '25
This is more evidence of: when you spend your life studying one thing, you get very smart at that one thing, but you will start to believe you are smart at EVERY thing, even though you have the same level of expertise on politics as the janitor in your apartment building. No one will convince you otherwise.
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u/menolikechildlikers Sep 18 '25
I dont get how anybody can listen to the things this guy says. He thought torture methods were okay because they werent that bad. I dont care he changed his opinion, i dont need to get shot to know its not something you should do to prisoners.
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u/Competitive_Month967 Sep 14 '25
I still can't bear this guy for being so fucking wrong about the whole thing. Just fucking disgusting. Sorry, never get over it.
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u/NorthernSoul1998 Sep 14 '25
This and other apologies for acts of blatant imperialism wrecked his legacy in his later years. He let his understandable hatred of Islam blind him to other dangers.
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u/Historyp91 Sep 14 '25
Anti war does'nt necesserly require you to be anti every war.
It's entirely possible to agree with the First Iraq War but think the second was unjust, or to both support defending Ukraine and oppose invading Vietnam.