8 Christopher Hitchens Quotes on Policy

Christopher Hitchens quotes on policy

2. ...in fact, the war against Iraq is continuing. And it's continuing now by the means which the administration described as contemptible and useless, when they were put forth as an alternative to an actual all-out aerial bombardment. Namely, economic sanctions, which do have the effect of slowly starving and crippling the population of Iraq, while leaving the military cast of Saddam Hussein and his criminal Baath Party in charge. I was asked the other day ... why do you think the administration decided to spare Saddam Hussein ... and I said I think because they thought they might need him again...

39. 'Peace through Strength,' surely history's most exploded nostrum.

51. Many of the points made by the antiwar movement have been consciously assimilated by the Pentagon and its lawyers and advisers. Precision weaponry is good in itself, but its ability to discriminate is improving and will continue to improve. Cluster bombs are perhaps not good in themselves, but when they are dropped on identifiable concentrations of Taliban troops, they do have a heartening effect.

53. I don't think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.

64. There is no reason at all why there aren't enough people to guard New Orleans and to help stabilise Baghdad.

67. I don't think that the figure 2000 is an important milestone, in the first place. And in the second place, I don't think that this can be determined by public opinion. The righteousness of the war was not demonstrated by public support for it in the beginning, nor its wisdom altered by the evident decline in public support for it. I don't pay attention to the opinion polls, or indeed to the casualty figures, because I know that this is an inevitable war, a war that was going to have to happen - and was, in my opinion, both just and necessary.

76. Only the force of American arms, or the extremely credible threat of that force, can bring a fresh face to power. [7]

92. It pains me to hear that. He's gone back to nineteenth-century gunboat diplomacy -- go hit the wogs.