Hitchens and Walker, the Betray Brothers?

When an unshaven, unkempt, hung-over Christopher Hitchens stumbled in front of the TV cameras to issue his Orwellian, convoluted excuse for betraying the confidence of his “friend” and “Jewish cousin.” Sidney Blumenthal, to the congressional Clinton tribunal humorist Harry Shearer remarked: “Hitchens looked he just rolled out of bed at a homeless shelter.”

Has anyone else noted the similarities between American Taliban John Walker and Hitchens?

And it’s not just the physical appearances that hits you.

There are also striking similarities in their attitudes, especially regarding the issue of “betrayal.” The main difference being that Walker is a 20-year-old upstart and can and should be forgiven for his alleged “betrayal.”

By the way, why is no one pointing out that Walker, like other members of the Islamic Internationale assembled by the U.S. government to defeat the secular pro-Soviet Government, might have assumed it was patriotic to fight with the U.S. created force?

But Hitchens continues to amaze. Hitchens once again flexes his betrayal muscles in Vanity Fair magazine in a silly salute to “patriotism.”

Here’s the same intellectual who wrote a seminal piece on the misuses of the loaded term “terrorism” implicitly betrays himself and former political allies by goose-stepping across the pages of Vanity Fair in a salute to his adopted fatherland.

Then in a recent column in The Nation Hitchens gloats: “This is the best news for a long time. It deserves to be said, also, that the feat was accomplished with no serious loss of civilian life, and with an almost pedantic policy of avoiding ‘collateral damage.'” This comes ontop of a report by Marc Herold, professor of economics and international relations at the University of New Hampshire, that more than ore than 3,500 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan by U.S. bombs.

Osama: Tale of the Tapes

Soon after Osama bin Laden released video tapes explaining why he’s at war with the U.S. the Bush administration successfully browbeat the U.S. media to quit airing Osama bin Ladens taped messages. A wink and/or a nod by our former Islamic comrade in arms could well be a signal to launch another attack on the U.S. Ari Fleisher warned.

Now the administration, curiously, wants to release its own “captured” video tape in which Bin Laden allegedly fesses up to pre-knowledge of the Sept.11 events. One pentagon official says off the record, that the video might well raise the issue of authenticity.

The question is will the media be brave enough to raise the question if it does appear that the tape is propaganda, and the person alleged to be Osama is a fake. I’ve seen one picture of the person purported to be Osama and must say it didn’t look the Saudi Smoothie.

At the risk of being called unpatriotic by Christopher Hitchens and the rest of the born again goosesteppers infatuated with “Americas New War”, and fingering disloyal dissidents, I say it’s probably a fake.

 

 

Jack McCarthy is a writer in Tallahassee, Florida. He can be reached at jackm32301@yahoo.com