"Thus, a huge number of American lives and an incalculable number of Vietnamese ones were thrown away to end the war on more shameful terms than had been on offer in the fall of 1968 (when Nixon had been in league with Kissinger and Nguyen to sabotage and oppose those very terms"

Contrast Hitchen's rant over Nixon's cynical engagement in Vietnam with his cheerleading for Bush's cynical invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Part of Bush's motivation was to gain political capital by playing commander-in-chief, allowing him to role over his political opponents, push through his agenda, and go down in history as a great president. Bush took us into war for his own glory.

But Hitchens liked that war. He prefers to save his outrage for the crusades of his youth - pretty much undercutting his moral posturing.

Yes, What moral outrage he has is stuck in the sixties. Now he is nothing but a reactionary right wing gadfly.

I honestly don't think President Bush, himself, was or is cynical at all about the war in Iraq. I think some Bush insiders (of whom Hitchens is an ideological compatriot) truly believe/d in the neoconservative ideal of using American power directly to "reform" the Middle East. For all his many faults, I think Bush in his second term wised up a lot in ridding himself of the abysmal Rumsfeld and getting Cheney out of his ear so much. And if I were to hazard a guess I have no business making, I believe Bush is lying to save face and troops' honor when he says that if he could go back, he would do it again.

Cheney, on the other hand, I do think was the ruthless cynic.

I too noticed that while Hitchens has considerable and well deserved disdain for the Vietnam War, yet he still supports the Iraq War even though he admits that almost all of his pre-war rationale was wrong.

Hitchens and Nixon share that rather rare quality where they love to complain about what is wrong with everyone else, yet at the same time they are incapable of admitting to anyone (including themselves) when they are wrong.

And by the way Hitchens, you may want to modify your article a bit because Chuck Colson did not become a really “pious Christian” until after his role in the Watergate affair was exposed.

Hitchens is fond of this un-necessary war (or at least was initially), because he thought it might be the first step in his wet dream of the forced de-Islamification of the Middle East. If things had gone smoothy in Iraq, I think he envisioned American and British soldiers sweeping through Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and Iran, ripping off burkhas and leveling the mosques and forcing everyone to become a snide, boozy Secular Humanist like Hitchens himself (mind you, there are plenty of Secular Humanists who are neither snide nor boozy, but CH is hardly a good advertisement for the sort). Mind you, if they were all made over in his likeness, there wouldn't be a drop of whiskey left on the planet and Conde Nast would go broke providing them all with expense accounts . . .