Enjoy Christopher Hitchens getting the smack down I suppose I could cut and paste to fill up space (I'm certainly not above doing such a thing), but instead go to Juan Cole's site here. Enjoy seeing the never apologizing, because those twelve-step programs are for cushy yanks, Christopher Hitchens get thoroughly intellectually squished by Cole. My favorite point: These word games are inconsequential. Do you, Abraham-like, offer up your first-born at this altar? That's what nearly a thousand US military families have done with regard to deaths, and thousands more with regard to permanent maimings and cripplings, and what yet thousands more are likely to be asked to do. If it had been me, I wouldn't have ordered them to do it, not in Iraq. Another question we could throw back at Mr. Hitchens (who, it seems to me, isn't actually doing much for the war effort in Iraq), is whether, if you could only capture one, would you rather have Saddam Hussein in custody, or Usama Bin Laden? Given what we know Usama is planning, I opt for putting all our efforts and I mean all our efforts into capturing him tout de suite. Chasing around Iraq after Salafis and Mahdists doesn't make the homeland even one whit safer.