I'm afraid it's reached the point that I read Hitchens's columns in much the same way that a voyeur surveys a car wreck: guiltily. The less coherent his screeds become with each passing week, the more I find myself inexorably drawn to them. They used to make me angry on occasion, but now the only emotion they evince is bemusement. To try a different metaphor, the Fighting Words column is the cage and every week or so I visit it to witness the relative instability of the frothing creature inside. This week he's rattling his bars mightily to no avail.

First off, I've never heard anyone argue that "the jihadists are responding only to those who "target" Muslims or who are "Islamophobic"". So kudos to you Mr. Hitchens for shooting down a ridiculous hypothetical argument of your own invention, as you are perpetually wont to do. While we're engaged in such enterprises, I'd like to put myself on record as wholeheartedly discrediting the idea that the jihadists are motivated primarily by a hatred of the color blue. Anyone who takes this position is sorely mistaken.

Anyone who has ever read any of Osama bin Laden's own statements, or who has undertaken even the most cursory study of al Qaeda's ideology knows that they are out to change the political and religious landscape of the Middle East, not just the West.

I certainly do not think that the United States is responsible in any way for the actions of al Qaeda. I do, however, think that the number of jihadists has grown over the past several years as a result of our occupation of Iraq. A point borne out by virtually every study our own government has undertaken recently on the subject.

If we had not gone into Iraq who is to say that the recent positive changes apparent in Anbar province, wherein the local populace turned against al Qaeda after they realized they were actually just a bunch of corrupt, holier-than-thou thugs, would not have happened on a larger scale throughout the Middle East? Who is to say that this fanaticism would not have simply fanned itself out as more and more people realized to what nihilistic ends it led?

We invaded Iraq, however, and played right into al Qaeda's hands. Arabs all over the Middle East could now see Muslims dead by the hands of the United States on their television sets every day. Those who previously may have been turned off by al Qaeda's rhetoric, now had to contend with the very real presence of the United States as a unilateral occupying force in a Muslim country.

Mr. Hitchen's is correct to write that "It is idle to think that "we" created this gruesome phenomenon." We most assuredly did not create it, but we have sustained it and made it appear as an attractive alternative to some faced with the prospect of a seeming indefinite Western occupation. If a person believes their very religion is under attack, better to side with the fanatics than the unbelievers. Such views may not be morally defensible, but they certainly are predictable.

What Mr. Hitchens is really attempting to accomplish in this piece is likewise predictable: Demonize critics of the Iraq War by attempting to link them morally to jihadists and terrorists. Indeed, this seems to be pretty much what he attempts to do in everything he's written over the past several years. It is his most common rhetorical weapon, yet his execution is becoming lazier and lazier. One hardly has to skim the surface of his writings today to find this common thread. No matter what the topic, the gist is always that he is the true moralist and that whoever disagrees with him is not just historically wrong, but immoral on a very basic level.

I'm no psychologist but I'm not sure you have to be one to figure out that a man making the same argument over and over again, wherein he is right and everyone else wrong, is really writing to convince an audience of only one: himself.

If you've read one Hitchen's column from the last few years, you've read them all. Thats as foolproof a test of irrelevancy as I can summon.

His irrational and desperate support of the Neocons and their war only illustrates his intense hatred for religion, and he won't go on record with that. For him, this war is only about murdering zealots.

Do you really need another reason?

He should be but his demagogury and rhtorical tricks are still effective with some. Excellent post.