Christopher Hitchens

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Interview: Christopher Hitchens

03 Oct 10:29am

Filed under: Christopher Hitchens, Religion

There is a tendency, in profiles of Christopher Hitchens, for the bestselling atheist and militant author to be defined solely in relation to his high-profile targets and the high-velocity force at which he hits them.

It's just as well he likes to talk about religion

Very rarely is it elucidated anywhere – except, of course, by Hitchens himself – precisely why he has gone after such perennial favourites of the general populace as Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, and Bill Clinton.

That he took exception to the first’s acceptance of money from the Haitian dictator “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the second’s support for thermonuclear testing in India, and the third’s opportunistic decision to authorise the execution of a mentally retarded death row inmate in the middle of the 1992 Presidential election campaign, well, none of this ever really gets a look-in.

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Andrew says:

07:00pm | 06/10/09

I think you’d find gay Iraqis would argue that their lives were comparatively freer under Saddam Husein, as would many women, Sunnis and secular Iraqis and the country’s religious minorities (Christians, the Peacock Angel worshiping Yazidis, Mandaeans), though obviously not the Shiites or the Kurds (regardless of faith). Saddam Husein… Read more »
Matthew Clayfield says:

02:30pm | 06/10/09

I have read Hitchens claim that experience for US troops was a beneficial side-effect of the war, Dan, but I haven’t read him claim it as a reason for invasion. Perhaps you could direct me to the piece where does so? (I’m not saying it doesn’t exist. Only that I… Read more »