When referring to the Taliban as “the scum of the earth”, Christopher Hitchens omitted to note that the same Taliban were being feted by the US years before 9/11. This included the invitation of a Taliban delegation to Texas in 1997 and another visit to the US in March 2001. The US were courting the Taliban at the behest of the Unocal oil company who had been lobbying to construct an oil pipeline through Afghanistan. The Taliban had hired PR adviser Leila Helms, niece of ex-CIA head Richard Helms, to assist them.
Hitchens also, I believe, misrepresented Tariq Ramadan’s view on the Rushdie question, which, to my understanding from Ramadan’s recent Newsnight appearance, was more specifically to say that this shouldn’t be a key issue for the ‘Muslim world’. His main point was about appealing to Muslims to stay focused on more crucial matters.
Some bad words were coming to my minds. It seems bbc going to direction of treating it's audiances as stupid at a higer rate than it used to.
Scum of the earth? Yeah, you drunken buffoon. I guess, in old days, it was people like C Hitchens, who invaded Afghanistan countless times and failed! CH just made my conviction more stronger.
did george really say he was invited on to the show, that would have been brilliant, but they probably would have tried to ridicule him being the only leftist on the panel, lib dems seem to me just straight centre. It would have been the standard disregard for his views and emotional and irrational, the bbc have a duty to propogate establishment doctrine. I think thats maybe a factor in him refusing, also hitchens is not worth the time anymore, he used to right some brilliant stuff its unfortunate he's become like this!! I happened to agree with a lot of peter hitchens comments about the incompetency of the political class, and the deterioration of real debate between MStream parties to the extent that they've almost amalgamated in terms of their politics. Who was it that George had on his talksport show once over the phone.. was it peter of chris hitchens?
I'm pretty sure George never had Christopher Hitchens on his radio show, so if it was either it must have been Peter.
I was pretty shocked myself to be agreeing with some of the things Peter said - although if you've ever read his column in the Sunday Mail (which my mother buys ) you'll know what a dickhead he is, too.
nice one popinjay
I guess, in old days, it was people like C Hitchens, who invaded Afghanistan countless times and failed! CH just made my conviction more stronger.
) you'll know what a dickhead he is, too.