The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Bill Steigerwald has a good Q&A with Christopher Hitchens on the future of Iraq and the general War on Terror. I particularly like Hitchen's argument in the following passage:
Q: Has the cost to America in blood, treasure and diminished domestic liberties been worth it?Thank goodness that Hitch is on our side.
A: Well, I think in a way that's the wrong question. Again, it suggests that there was the alternative of not doing anything. But of course, doing it does not mean you have to listen to people's telephone conversations. But that is not a product of the war in Iraq, by the way. That's a product of Sept. 11. ... My view is this: If an al-Qaida member knows something, I want to know it too. ... The main point is that we are engaged in a just war -- on the right side.
Q: To be successful in the long run, what has to happen in Iraq? Will it only work if it's federalized?
A: I hope it's federal, not completely devolved. Obviously, what was in the front of everyone's mind when they did the constitution was we're never again going to have a centralized fascism as we had before, so all the emphasis is on devolution.
Q: When should U.S. forces start coming out?
A: When the insurgency has been convincingly, militarily defeated. The stakes here are fantastically high. If we can prove that in a really major country, in the heart of the Arab and Muslim world, that al-Qaida can be met on the battlefield openly and isolated and discredited and defeated and destroyed, that's a prize really well-worth having. These people are our enemies. I don't believe the president is right in saying we fight them there rather than here, because that is a false antithesis. But I think we should fight them everywhere -- and we have no choice in the matter. The crucial thing is to press on to victory and make absolutely certain that the defeat is a humiliating one for them. ... When that's done, I think we should turn over the country to the Iraqis. The art and science of it is to be doing both things at the same time, because the point is, it's the Iraqis who are the victims of these people, not us.
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