Hitchens, the Gift that Keeps on Giving
By Peter Collier: Of all the public intellectuals that kind of snapped to attention on 9/11, only you and a few others — Victor Davis Hanson comes to mind — still seem to be on a war footing. Do you feel embattled? You feel chastened by the stuttering incompetence of the War on Terror? Has it become a chore to defend the war in Iraq?
Christopher Hitchens: Well, when you say I feel embattled, it would be as if, if I said yes, that would be in some way to be morose, or to feel self-pity. You picked the crucial word. I should come right out and say it. I mean, for me, it’s enough to be at war. The crucial thing is to be at war, and to know what side you’re on in it.
As with Victor Hanson, who I didn’t know before this, though I’d once reviewed one of his books on classical studies — if you haven’t read his book on the Peloponnesian War, you must.
Peter Collier: It’s great.
Christopher Hitchens: Very modest and decent guy. If you like the Cincinnatus of our struggle — and he was a farmer. He wanted to be left alone, teaching classics to Spanish-speaking immigrants in the valley around Fresno, and traveling up every now and then to Stanford to teach classics at a higher level, and be a great historian. And his only real work on warfare had been a sort of memoir of those of his family [who fought] at Iwo Jima.
A man literally — like Cincinnatus — taken from the plough to say, All right, now it’s war. Now everyone must be involved. Very proud to have met him this way. He and I agree.
Hitch’s belief that “the crucial thing is to be at war” — and that he offers up this casual belligerence to deflect a question on the failures of the war on terrorism — is merely the second most jaw-droppingly thick thing he has to offer in this passage. Remarkable feat, that.