I wonder if Mr Hitchens will ever beat up a fuss over "the gang that strove to prevent the United Nations from enforcing its library of resolutions" on Israel's occupation of Palestine.

Oh, that's right, it's anti-semitic to talk about that, isn't it?

The answer is, No, he won't.

By his own admission, Hitchens is a "one issue" man - that's what he boasted at the last election, the Democrats' less hawkish line on Iraq being the reason he supported the Bush regime instead.

This is one of the reasons why he is a pseudo-intellectual: He merely uses fancy language but, behind that, and sporadically rearing its ugly face, is his boorish soccer hooligan simpleton thinking: "Bring it on!" "I know what side I'm on!" 'Belief in God is stupid – the anti-God team rules!'

In fact, more than pseudo-, Hitchens is actually anti-intellectual. He is contemptuous of true intellectuals, - Chomsky, Cockburn, Monbiot, Fisk, Johnson ... - who can think multi-dimensionally, take account of complexities (Hitchens merely spits on notions such as 'Blowback'); and discuss Iraq in wider contexts such as global security generally (including climate change and nuclear proliferation), geopolitical motivations and priorities, political institutions (the simpleton Hitchens prefers merely to hurl abuse at, say, the UN), inconsistencies and hypocrisies, et al.

This is why Hitchens is practically silent on Israeli occupation, Turkey's treatment of the Kurds (comparable to Saddam, but a regime expediently supported, not condemned, by his beloved Bush regime), Uzbekistan's human rights record (comparable to Saddam, but a regime expediently supported, not condemned, by the Bush regime), compared to his drum-beating about the evils of Saddam and the necessity of the glorious bombing (which he courageously cheered from the dangerous vantage point of his desk and keyboard), the war-crime illegality of which he is silent about because it ruffles his simpleton's good-against-evil narrative.

Hitchens is a disgusting entity. Perhaps the whisky is how Hitchens helps hide that ugly truth from himself.

"one of the reasons why he is a pseudo-intellectual ... his boorish soccer hooligan simpleton thinking"
(excised are non-quotes encapsulated in quotes)

"Hitchens is actually anti-intellectual. He is contemptuous of true intellectuals ..."
(excised is a list of celebrities of the fin de siecle left, nearly all from the UK, presumably because that's where all truly intelligent people live, right?)

"the simpleton Hitchens prefers merely to hurl abuse"
Unlike you, who are an exemplar of rational debate.

"Hitchens is a disgusting entity. Perhaps the whisky is how Hitchens helps hide that ugly truth from himself."

Let's assume that everything you said about Christopher Hitchens is perfectly accurate. In what sense do you retain any moral or intellectual superiority after that screed? Or is it sufficient for you to do no more than remain at moral parity with your enemies? You ascribe a certain sort of faux-intellectualism to Hitchens, suggesting that you are privileged to a special truth - that Hitchens is some kind of crypto-idiot, hiding his simpering boorish jingoism behind a veneer of 'fancy words'... and if that's true, what then are you, who don't even have fancy words to hide behind?

Do you consider yourself to be Chomsky's bulldog? A liberal-progressive version of Rush Limbaugh's 'dittoheads'? Did you honestly cite Fisk as an intellectual? Is then your criteria that one must be famous and agree with you to be brilliant? Are you really so illiterate that you think that Cockburn or Monbiot are anything but intellectual transients? By no means am I saying they're not clever, but they will never leave the impression on thought and culture that say Locke, Goethe, Wittgenstein, or Bacon did... and to make yourself seem even less educated, you have to suggest that these one-note songbirds are multi-faceted? Please, familiarize yourself with Bertrand Russell.

Honestly, the worst part is that if you'd actually read some of Cockburn's work on Wittgenstein or Spinoza, you'd know that even Cockburn wouldn't have put himself in your list.

Thank you, efraker: You make one (only one) fair point – that my use of the word ‘intellectual’ was loose, perhaps inappropriate.

The word is normally applied, and understood to apply, to the type of people you cite (Locke, Russell, etc), and Chomsky is the only one on my list who can un-controversially be labelled ‘intellectual’ (in the usual refined sense of the word).

(Of course, if the likes of Cockburn et al don’t merit the label ‘intellectual’, then that certainly applies even more so to Hitchens.)

Two out of five of my casual list (I concede that I gave little thought to compiling a list worthy of the label ‘intellectual’) are Americans, Noam Chomsky and Chalmers Johnson, so the list is not particularly UK-biased, like you suggest; moreover, I live in the UK myself, so it’s only natural that I would be more aware of the output of UK commentators.

You ask whether I consider myself to be “Chomsky’s bulldog”. My answer is, No, but clearly you do!

Here is the most revealing part of your post:

“Let's assume that everything you said about Christopher Hitchens is perfectly accurate. In what sense do you retain any moral or intellectual superiority after that screed?”

The first sentence makes a mockery of the second. If ‘everything I said about Hitchens is perfectly accurate’, then: Hitchens is indeed a supporter of unprovoked aggression (the supreme war-crime according to international law); he is a coward who offers his fatuous perspective from the comfort of home, unlike Fisk and others; he is intellectually dishonest for not addressing the question of the way forward in Iraq now, and who is culpable (perhaps because he’s one of them) for the mass- pain, death, chaos – he prefers instead his masturbatory fixation on Galloway; intellectually dishonest for focusing on Galloway’s alleged ‘support’ for Saddam while not condemning Rumsfeld’s (and the Reagan administration’s) actual, and documented, support for Saddam (all Galloway could kindly offer Saddam was friendly words; whereas Rumsfeld kindly sold Saddam weapons which, Rumsfeld well knew, Saddam was going to use to commit more mass-murder).

So the answer to your ridiculous question is: The ‘sense in which I retain moral & intellectual superiority over Hitchens’ is that you cannot say any of those things about me. Your most ‘damning’ criticism of me is that I indulged in a ‘screed’. On the other hand, if you efraker support Hitchens’ position on Iraq and if you were to rail against lefties like me with the kind of vitriol I have used, the least of my concerns would be your rudeness; I would only be concerned that you support bombing campaigns on civilian populations in defence of a pack of lies. Calling someone (eg Hitchens) a disgusting sack of shit for that – such rudeness – hardly equates morally to that person giving his support to war-crimes (the attack itself, the outlawed weapons used – cluster bombs, white phosphorous, ... ), however politely they might do it.

I say (above) that that was the most revealing part of your post because it reveals your priorities in this discussion – your indignation at my use of unpleasant words. Incidentally, Hitchens would probably concur with me, not you, on this – that there is no alternative but to use such language when you wish to convey how disgusting something is – because Hitchens too feels compelled to do just that (eg “prostitute”, “thug”, “charlatan”, “crook” - when describing, say, Galloway, Mr Theresa, Kissinger). I merely differ from Hitchens in that I know that he is disgusting, but he does not (probably due to his daily frequent sense-dulling habits).

Moreover, your focus on the academic question of who can/cannot rightly be labelled ‘intellectual’, rather than the moral questions – regarding Iraq – of who is guilty and what should now be done, also reveals a difference in priorities between us. Indeed, this is one of my criticisms of Hitchens (“fancy words” etc) – that Iraq is simply another point-scoring (school-boy) debating competition to him. He does not treat it as a question of morality, perhaps because he knows, in his sober moments, that he very publicly sided with a bunch of gangsters; but his juvenile ego would not allow him to admit being wrong, and his narcissistic personality precludes him from the honourable course of humility and silence (someone who has got it so wrong ought simply to shut the f** up).

You make a few valid points about Hitchens. At the same time, despite Hitchens' ferocity in pursuing the Iraq issue, declaration as a single issue voter (not that he was even able to vote in the last election anyhow); Hitchens has advocated numerous issues in the past. He has frequently been damning in his remarks about ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and its ongoing disgusting settlement project (he did after all co-edit a book with Edward Said on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) and he has been a vocal advocate towards the abolition of the death penalty, among other issues.

Hitchens has even gone so far as to claim, in a Vanity Fair article, that despite his support for the Bush Administration, he believes that the 2004 presidential election was stolen. (http://www.vanityfair.com/pol­itics/features/2005/03/hitchen­s200503)

Despite his failures at self criticism and his stabs at self aggrandizement, Hitchens remains interesting to read because he generally is right on certain issues. His recent tendency to frame issues in black and white, such as his most recent religion vs secularism screeds is frightening in a way, at the same time, religion is so ridiculous and a concept and has been so destructive to then ongoing development and evolution of human society; perhaps Hitchens is correct to so viciously oppose it.