Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Eric Hitchens (born April 13, 1949) is a British journalist, author, and literary critic. He lives in Washington, DC, and has been a columnist at Vanity Fair, The Nation, Slate, and an occasional contributor to many other publications.

Political views

Early career

Hitchens became a Trotskyist during his years as a student at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was tutored by Steven Lukes and was impressed by the example of Noam Chomsky (Hitchens 1985). He wrote for the magazine International Socialism, which was published by the International Socialists, the forerunners of today's British Socialist Workers Party. This group was broadly Trotskyist but differed from more orthodox Trotskyist groups in its refusal to defend communist states as "workers' states". This was symbolized in their slogan "Neither Washington nor Moscow but International Socialism". Hitchens left Oxford with a third class degree and in the 1970s went on to work for the New Statesman, where he became friends with, amongst others, Martin Amis and Ian McEwan. At the New Statesman he became known as an aggressive left-winger, stridently attacking targets such as Henry Kissinger, the Vietnam War, and the Catholic Church. After moving to the United States in the 1980s, Hitchens wrote for The Nation. While at The Nation he penned vociferous critiques of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and American foreign policy in South and Central America. Hitchens criticized the first Gulf War, claiming—in an essay reprinted in For the Sake of Argument—that the Bush administration lured Saddam Hussein into the war.

Related Topics:
Trotskyist - Balliol College, Oxford - Steven Lukes - Noam Chomsky - International Socialists - Socialist Workers Party - Communist - Third class - New Statesman - Martin Amis - Ian McEwan - Henry Kissinger - Vietnam War - Catholic Church - Ronald Reagan - George H.W. Bush - American foreign policy - South - Central America - Gulf War - Saddam Hussein

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"Theocratic fascism" and early disagreements with the Left

Hitchens was deeply shocked by the fatwa (February 14, 1989) against his longtime friend Salman Rushdie, and he became increasingly concerned by the dangers of what he called "theocratic fascism" or "fascism with an Islamic face": radical Islamists who supported the fatwa against Rushdie and sought the recreation of the medieval Caliphate. Hitchens is sometimes credited with coining the term Islamofascism, but he denies inventing or using this term. Malise Ruthven appears to be the first to have used it in an article in The Independent on 8 September 1990.

Related Topics:
Fatwa - February 14 - 1989 - Salman Rushdie - Theocratic - Islamists - Medieval - Caliphate - Islamofascism - Malise Ruthven - The Independent - 8 September - 1990

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Hitchens did use the term "Islamic Fascism" for an article he wrote for The Nation shortly after 9/11 (although again the phrase is used earlier than that, for example in the Washington Post on 13 January 1979, and it also seems to have been used by secularists in Turkey and Afghanistan to describe their opponents).

Related Topics:
13 January - 1979 - Secularists - Turkey - Afghanistan

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Hitchens also became increasingly disenchanted by the presidency of Bill Clinton, accusing him of being a rapist and a serial liar. Hitchens also claimed that the missile attacks by Clinton on Sudan were a major war crime. The support of some on the left for Clinton alienated him further from the "soft left" in the United States. On the other hand, he became increasingly distanced from the "hard left" by their lack of support for Western intervention in Kosovo.

Related Topics:
Bill Clinton - Rapist - Sudan - War crime - Kosovo

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The years after the Rushdie fatwa also saw him looking for allies and friends, and in the United States he became increasingly frustrated by what he saw as the "excuse making" of the multiculturalist left. At the same time, he was attracted to the foreign policy ideas of some on the Republican right, especially the neoconservative group that included Paul Wolfowitz, with whom he became friends. Around this time he also befriended the Iraqi dissident and businessman Ahmed Chalabi.

Related Topics:
Multiculturalist - Foreign policy - Neoconservative - Paul Wolfowitz - Iraq - Ahmed Chalabi

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Post-9/11

After 9/11 his stance hardened, and he has strongly supported US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly in his "Fighting Words" columns in Slate. Hitchens had been a longterm contributor to the left-wing The Nation weekly, where he wrote his "Minority Report" column. After 9/11 he decided the paper was making excuses on behalf of Islamist terrorism, and in the following months he wrote articles increasingly at odds with his colleagues.

Related Topics:
9/11 - Afghanistan - Iraq - Left-wing - The Nation

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Following the 9/11 attacks, Hitchens and Noam Chomsky debated the nature of the threat of radical Islam and of the proper response to it. On September 24 and October 8, 2001, Hitchens wrote criticisms of Chomsky in The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011008&s=hitchens20010924http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20011022&s=hitchens Chomsky responded. http://www.zmag.org/chomskyhitchens.htm Hitchens issued a rebuttal to Chomsky,http://humanities.psydeshow.org/political/hitchens-3.htm to which Chomsky again responded. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011015/chomsky20011004 Approximately a year after the 9/11 attacks and his exchanges with Chomsky, Hitchens left The Nation in part because he believed its editors, its readers, and contributors such as Chomsky considered John Ashcroft a bigger threat than Osama bin Laden.http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20021014&s=hitchens This was one of the most highly-charged exchanges of letters in American journalism, involving Hitchens and Chomsky, as well as Katha Pollitt and Alexander Cockburn.

Related Topics:
Noam Chomsky - Radical Islam - September 24 - October 8 - 2001 - John Ashcroft - Osama bin Laden - Katha Pollitt - Alexander Cockburn

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Where he stands now

Hitchens has said he no longer feels a part of the Left and does not object to being called a former Trotskyist. However, his affection for Trotsky remains strong, and he says that his political and historical view of the world is still shaped by Marxist categories. In June 2004, Hitchens wrote a blistering attack on Michael Moore in a review of Moore's latest film, Fahrenheit 9/11; http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723 this review was so widely discussed that three major publications offered rebuttals.

Related Topics:
June 2004 - Michael Moore - Fahrenheit 9/11

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Despite his many articles supporting the US invasion of Iraq, Hitchens made a brief return to The Nation just before the US presidential election and wrote that he was "slightly" for Bush, but shortly afterwards when Slate polled its staff on their positions on the candidates, and mistakenly printed Hitchens's vote as pro-Kerry, Hitchens shifted his opinion to neutral, saying: "It's absurd for liberals to talk as if Kristallnacht is impending with Bush, and it's unwise and indecent for Republicans to equate Kerry with capitulation. There's no one to whom he can surrender, is there? I think that the nature of the jihadist enemy will decide things in the end."http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041108&s=hitchens.

Related Topics:
Invasion of Iraq - Kristallnacht

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In an interview with the journalist Johann Hari in 2004, Hitchens described himself as "on the same side as the neo-conservatives". In that interview, Hitchens made clear that he supports not George Bush per se (still less Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld), but rather those whom he sees as the "pure" neo-conservatives, especially Paul Wolfowitz. Although Hitchens finds himself defending Bush?s foreign policy, he has little admiration for the man himself, and has criticized Bush's support of 'intelligent design' and disdain for reading. As an anti-theist intellectual with a penchant for drinking, Hitchens was unimpressed by Bush's claim to have been "saved from drink by Jesus."

Related Topics:
Johann Hari - Neo-conservatives - Dick Cheney - Donald Rumsfeld - Paul Wolfowitz

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In March 2005 Hitchens supported further investigation into alleged voting irregularities in Ohio during the US presidential election, 2004.

Related Topics:
March 2005 - Alleged voting irregularities in Ohio - US presidential election, 2004

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In contributions to Vanity Fair, Hitchens offered overt criticism of the Bush administration for its continued protection of Henry Kissinger, whom he views as complicit in the human rights abuses of Southern Cone military dictatorships during the 1970s. In 2001 he had published a book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, on Kissinger's alleged role in the crimes of regimes in South America and Asia. An even more iconoclastic work was his 1995 book on Mother Teresa, The Missionary Position, which was highly controversial.

Related Topics:
Vanity Fair - Henry Kissinger - Southern Cone - Military dictatorship - Iconoclastic - Mother Teresa

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In May 2005, George Galloway MP, got into an argument with Hitchens before giving evidence to the US Senate. Galloway called Hitchens a "drink-sodden former Trotskyist popinjay". "Some of which," Hitchens subsequently wrote in a newspaper column, "was unfair." A few days later, Hitchens wrote an article that attacked Galloway's political record, criticized his Senate testimony, and made a case for Galloway's complicity in the Oil-for-Food scandal. Hitchens debated Galloway in New York at Baruch College on 14 September, 2005. http://book.democracynow.org/tourpage.php?id=472 Both Galloway and Hitchens appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher on September 23, 2005.

Related Topics:
May 2005 - George Galloway - MP - Trotskyist - Popinjay - Oil-for-Food scandal - New York - Baruch College - 14 September - 2005 - Real Time with Bill Maher - September 23

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