O brother, where art thou?
Peter Hitchens on why his brother Christopher and the rest of the anti-Zionist Left support this war
My left-wing big brother Christopher has astonished the world with what amounts to a prose version of the Battle Hymn of the American Republic. He reclassifies the White House, once the headquarters of reactionary evil in the eyes of all left-thinking people, as a hallowed emblem of anti-imperialism and anti-racism. He sweeps aside his former comrades as not worth listening to, with the Zlan of Leon Trotsky ordering an offensive along a 3,000-mile front. Meanwhile, quartered out here among the abandoned fortifications of the Cold War, I find myself becoming a sceptical warmonger, watching the troops march off towards the Taleban front with misgivings in my heart. I am concerned about what seems to me to be a dangerous retreat, as Washington sidelines and restrains democratic Israel, the world's foremost foe of terror, and cosies up to the United Nations and the Islamic world. But as I urge caution and spread doubt, Christopher brandishes the Star-Spangled Banner. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the new world order.
Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
Advertisement
Select an archive Spectator issue
Where is the Arthur Seldon for our own era?
Colin RobinsonColin Robinson, biographer of the sage who so influenced Thatcherism, says that Seldon has no counterpart now — the Tory party is no longer receptive to such challenging ideas
Sarkozy’s burqa ban panders to racism, not feminism
Rod LiddleRod Liddle says that the French President may be right about Islam’s ideological content but that his proposal is shockingly illiberal and wrong-headed
No more consensus: this time there is a choice
Irwin StelzerThe next election will present voters with two distinct futures, says Irwin Stelzer: Labour’s rising taxes and love of the EU, or the Tories’ spending cuts and plans for the ‘broken society’
A Yorkshire genius in love with his iPhone
Martin GayfordMartin Gayford talks to David Hockney about drawing on his mobile phone, life on the Yorkshire coast, and planning lunch around the blossoming of hawthorn
The secret Iraq deal that bought Mandelson’s loyalty to Brown
John KampfnerJohn Kampfner unveils the ignominious truth about Sir John Chilcot’s Iraq inquiry and reveals Peter Mandelson’s demand, when Brown’s future hung in the balance in early June, that the hearings be held in private. Even now Mandelson’s priority is to protect Brand Blair
