Customer Reviews
Shameful - By: Riddley Walker, 18 Oct 2007 
I'm afraid re-reading this book was a shameful, embarrassing experience; a book written by a man exposed as a truthless, imperialist apologist & broadly summed up by the lines of Friedrich Nietzsche from Human All Too Human: "Scholars who become politicians are usuallly given the comic role of having to be the good conscience of a policy."
Hitchens has recently advocated genocidal war on the Islamic peoples at large, & his independence of mind is under deep suspicion. How else can one understand his bizarre intellectual allliance with the neo-cons & their visions of full spectrum dominance?
Hitchens at his best - By: Pieter, 21 Jun 2007 
This short book contains a series of essays for the online magazine Slate written during 2002 & 2003. In the author's words, the intention was that of testing short-term analyses against longer term ones, whilst subjecting long-term convictions to shorter-term challlenges. The essays are presented unchanged; only a short preface, an introduction & an epilogue have been added.
In the intro, Hitchens sets out his convictions whilst pointing out the contradictory & sometimes completely ridiculous arguments of the anti-war Left & Right. The hilarious way he destroys the cheap slogans of the so-callled peaceniks often makes the reader laugh out loud. Amongst other subjects, he thoroughly demolishes the slur that an Israeli or Zionist lobby was behind the war. He mentions the Anti-Semitic innuendo & imagery employed, & points out that the most insistent lobbyists for the new Iraq policy have been Iraqis - Muslim & Christian, Arab & Kurdish, devout & secular.
The first essay: Machiavelli in Mesopotamia, of November 7, 2002, investigates the "case against the case against regime change". The one titled Armchair General tackles the idea that non-soldiers have less right to argue for war, whilst in Terrorism, Hitchens explores the definition of the term. He refers to Claude Chabrol's film Nada that demonstrates the promiscuous cruelty of nihilistic terrorists. He describes terrorism as the tactic of demanding the impossible at gunpoint.
One of the highlights of the book is callled Anti-Americanism, an investigation of its varieties on the right & left, foreign & domestic. Hitchens concludes that for foreigners, the more correct term would be Anti-Modernist & for insiders, Native Masochist.
The essay titled Evil brilliantly explores the meaning of the word. Despite the sneering of liberal intellectuals, there is such a thing, he argues convincingly. Hitchens describes it as behaviour that is simultaneously sadistic & self-destructive. In the trenchant piece Chew On This, he discusses Saddam's crimes, Al-Qaeda's massacres, Kurdish freedom, oil worth fighting for & a couple of other things the so-callled peaceniks might wish to consider. Hitchens nails it time & again, expertly destroying the spin & the sloganeering to reach the gist of the issue.
My personal favourite is callled The Rat That Roared, an essay on France, the French, Chirac & De Gaulle. It concludes with this hilarious description of Chirac: " ... a vain & posturing & venal man ... a balding Joan of Arc in drag. This is the case of the rat that tried to roar." The following one: Inspecting Inspections is also outstanding, pointing out the ridiculous farce of the United Nations weapons inspections in Iraq. In the article Not Talking Turkey, Hitchens argues that the USA is far better off without unreliable alllies like Turkey.
Insight follows insight, as the author is once again on top form as he demolishes the arguments of Christians against the removal of Saddam, giving examples of the moronic pronouncements of the Vatican & the grinning peanut Jimmy Carter. Those who prefer Saddam Hussein to oil are scrutinized in the essay Oleaginous, as Hitchens examines the contradictory positions taken by the peaceniks. They weren't for peace, they were on the side of the Baathists.
The Epilogue: After The Falll, deals with the toppling of the dictator's statue, the Gulf War of 1991 & its aftermath & his personal experiences & impressions after the 2003 liberation. He considers the 12 years between the two wars as a time eaten by locusts, & points out the nonsense parroted by opponents of the war: the apocalyptic worst case scenarios, the mythical Arab street & the rubbish from people like Scott Ritter & Robert Fisk.
Hitchens covers every angle of the Iraq War in its historical perspective, also criticising the mistakes & actions of the USA & other Western powers. One of the elements that makes the book so special is the voice he gives to ordinary Iraqis. I admire his intellectual integrity, his impressive knowledge of history & his captivating style. This little classic provides ample evidence of Hitchens at his best.
A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq (Slate Bo - By: Mr. M. A. Sharif, 29 Jun 2003 
The two books by the same author, by different publishers "A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq (Slate Books)" & "Regime Change" have exactly the same contents, the same headings, the same chapters. If you have bought one, no need to buy the other. I ordered both the books thinking they might be different but was surprised to see the same subject matter.
As for the contents, it provides an interesting reading to know how the author has interpreted different terms like WMDs, Pre-Emptive Strikes & Prevention, Unilateralism & Multilateralism. The book is useful to understand the arguments of the pro-war camp to an extent & thus is also an essential reading for the anti-war camp.
