Newsflash for Hitch: there were plenty of books and avid readers in Iraq before the imperialist invasion of Iraq. The invaders sent warplanes, bombs, decimated the Iraqi nation, exiled 4 million people and killed who knows how many civilians (the US won't reveal this), and now, wait for it, Hitch proposes sending books!

You fucking, drunken, bloated cunt.

What a digusting comment from a bloated, self-absorbed jerk who doesn't care about people suffering real oppression. Typical scumbag who loves his own freedoms but the rest of the world can go to hell if it thinks he would ever lift a boil-encrusted butt cheek to help liberate them.

Muslims killed more innocent civilians in Iraq than US military operations following the liberation of the nation. This is what turned the tide with the Sunni tribes, and now the tribal shiekh of anbar province is asking to be allowed to go to the Afghan-Pakistan border area to hunt down and kill al-Qaeda.

The United States of America and its allies LIBERATED Iraq, and we have WON. The people of Iraq have WON. Now it is time to prepare Iraq to become the postwar Japan or Germany of the Middle East. I see great things in store for the Iraqi people, and that nation will be a model for other Arab and Muslim nations as its representative republic form of govenrment provides the stability for the natural entrepreneurship of the Iraqi people to flourish.

Thanks for the article and the contact info, Hitch. I'll be sending books. Manny, you can simply just go screw yourself.

Nah, I gotta call bullshit on you, pal. Everything you said may be true or false, but a good idea is a good idea. If Hitchens had typed the letter "q" and that was it you would have responded the same way. Here's a novel idea: why not actually respond to the article as written?

While I don't subscribe to using profanity and derogatory slurs, reasonable people have to agree that the subsequent turn of events included an American led invasion which decimated Iraq's cultural landscape- Shock.

And using Naomi Klein's masteful Shock Doctrine thesis that the Bush admin sought to 'shock' Iraq, dulling its senses, and then implant and nurture neo conservative, economic liberalist ideology into its "awakening" from its forced comatose. The final executive orders of J Paul Bremer, a neo con and student of Milton Friedman, included the absolute privatization of the Iraqi energy industry and education system. Neither were obeyed by the incoming Iraqi ministry, but it reflected the intent of the Bush admin.

So in that vein, Hitchens, a converted neo con, is simply proposing a pedestrian campaign which coencides with the neo con venture in Iraq.

"Ayn Rand in every Iraqi lunch box!"

While Hitchens didn't exclusively advocate works by Joseph Farah or Grover Norquist, he is implicitly including intellectual colonization of Iraq, like it or not. A 'shocked' people, numb from death and chaos, are easily convinced of new ideas. Certainly Hitler took advantage of this.

Did you just compare current Iraq with postwar Japan? Are you THAT delusional?

Usama2:

While I don't subscribe to using profanity and derogatory slurs, reasonable people have to agree that the subsequent turn of events included an American led invasion which decimated Iraq's cultural landscape- Shock.

And using Naomi Klein's masteful Shock Doctrine thesis that the Bush admin sought to 'shock' Iraq, dulling its senses, and then implant and nurture neo conservative, economic liberalist ideology into its "awakening" from its forced comatose. The final executive orders of J Paul Bremer, a neo con and student of Milton Friedman, included the absolute privatization of the Iraqi energy industry and education system. Neither were obeyed by the incoming Iraqi ministry, but it reflected the intent of the Bush admin.

So in that vein, Hitchens, a converted neo con, is simply proposing a pedestrian campaign which coencides with the neo con venture in Iraq.

"Ayn Rand in every Iraqi lunch box!"

While Hitchens didn't exclusively advocate works by Joseph Farah or Grover Norquist, he is implicitly including intellectual colonization of Iraq, like it or not. A 'shocked' people, numb from death and chaos, are easily convinced of new ideas. Certainly Hitler took advantage of this.

Oh, I'm sorry, should we have taught them fascism or how about some Karl Marx.

You obviously have a problem with capitalism, even though it's obvious that other nations that practiced communism finally realized and are now realizing that capitalism is BETTER. Not perfect, no. But better. For business, for individual freedoms.

In Kenya, you can open a store one day and the next day it is closed down by the government. Is that a better system?

Pray tell, Usama (great name BTW), what's your favorite economic system?

This I gotta hear!