Christopher Hitchens Smears Cindy Sheehan

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Here's the original Hitchen's piece -

Cindy Sheehan's Sinister Piffle
What's wrong with her Crawford protest.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Aug. 15, 2005, at 11:50 AM PT
"Sheehan has obviously taken a short course in the Michael Moore/Ramsey Clark school of Iraq analysis and has not succeeded in making it one atom more elegant or persuasive. . . Suppose I had lost a child in this war. Would any of my critics say that this gave me any extra authority?"
http://www.slate.com/id/2124500

I suppose Rosa Parks should not have had any 'extra authority' either, using this logic. Hitchens even provides a LINK to David Duke's support for Sheehan in a lowbrow effort to smear her for mentioning Israel.

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Christopher Hitchens Smears Cindy Sheehan
William Hughes
15 Aug 2005

Cindy Sheehan’s gallant anti-War vigil outside of the ranch of our half-demented President, George W. Bush, Jr., in Crawford Texas, is drawing massive support from around the country. It is also attracting pro-war snakes, like that former “Nation” magazine ranter, Christopher Hitchens. A Brit, who comes across as an insufferable Tory, he accused Sheehan of trying to “ventriloquize the dead” and of spouting off “sinister piffle.”

“I distrust anyone who claims to speak for the fallen,” wrote Christopher Hitchens, a bitter hatchet man for the warmongering Neocons. 1) He was referring to the heroic Cindy Sheehan and her attempts to speak with President George W. Bush([search]), Jr. about the true reasons why her soldier/son, Army Specialist, Casey Sheehan, age 24, was killed in Iraq([search]), on April 4, 2004, in Baghdad’s Sadr City.

Sheehan’s “Anti-War” encampment, now known as “Camp Casey,” outside of Crawford, Texas, near where Bush’s ranch is located, is literally driving the Neocons/Right Wing types crazy. She is getting all kinds of publicity out of it and drawing the attention of more and more Americans to the damnable disaster that is the Iraqi War. Sheehan, age 48, has told the media repeatedly, “I want Bush to stop using my son’s sacrifice to justify the killing.” The national TV networks have featured her on their news programs on a number of occasions, as have the cable networks, including CNN and Fox News. Sheehan is telling the nation the truth and it is having a positive effect on the American people. Recent polls now show that about 60 percent believe Bush is “mismanaging” the war. Different U.S. cities, like Baltimore, MD, are planning demonstrations to support Sheehan’s gallant efforts at peacemaking. (2)

Here is what Sheehan said in a letter to ABC’s “Nightline” on March 15, 2005, that helped to spin the British-born Hitchens into a wild tizzy. “Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the army to protect America not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full well that my son, my family, this nation and this world were betrayed by George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedom and democracy... not for the real reason, because the Arab Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy,” she wrote.

The slippery War Hawk Hitchens, who used to write regularly for the liberal magazine, “The Nation,” is part of the hawkish clique, which includes Richard Perle, the “Mother of All Neocons,” that has rabidly supported the Iraqi war. (3) There is really little or no difference between Hitchens, Perle, and Mortimer Zuckerman, a militant Zionist and media mogul. Zuckerman and Perle, at least, have been out in the open about their warmongering, while Hitchens, I suspect, is the kind of character that likes to blind side an opponent! I’m confident the real reason he attacked Sheehan is found in this line that he penned in his ugly rant for Slate: “Are we so sure that he (Casey) wanted to see his mother (Cindy) acquiring a knack for P.R., and announcing that he was killed in a war for a Jewish cabal?” I expect, too, that Hitchens will continue his mean-spirited campaign of Sheehan-bashing and that he will be seen soon on that boring “Charlie Rose Show” belaboring ad nauseam his lame arguments. (4)

Hitchens, a lackey for the Bush-Cheney Gang, continued with his anti-Sheehan spiel, “The president has compromised by sending his national-security adviser, Stephen Hadley, down that Crawford Road to meet the PR-knackish Cindy...What dreary sentimental nonsense this all is, and how much space has been wasted on it, “he whined. But, Hitchens wasn't done, he continued in that same sarcastic-like vein, “Most irritating is the snide idea that the president is ‘on vacation’ and thus idly ignoring his suffering subjects, when the truth is that members of the media-not known for their immunity to the charms of Martha’s Vineyard or Cape Cod in the month of August-are themselves lazing away the season with a soft-centered nonstory that practically, as we like to say in the trade, ‘writes itself.’ Anyway Sheehan now says she will ‘follow’ the president ‘to Washington,’ so I don’t think the holiday sneer has much life left in it,” Hitchens roared.

Only a snobbish Brit ignorant of our history would refer to the American people as “subjects.” Wrong, Hitchens! We’re citizens of a Republic that was created by kicking your pompous ancestors out of here 222 years ago. In fact, if there was one thing, one single thing, that sparked that glorious revolution against the grasping British Crown, it was that insulting and condescending attitude of superiority that the Brits had towards the American colonists. It p..... off a lot of the American Rebels, particularly the ones who knew how to fight, such as George Washington of Virginia! (5) Hitchens comes off as an insufferable Tory and smart aleck.

Hitchens wasn’t finished with his vicious tirade against Sheehan. He said she was trying to “ventriloquize the dead.” He then insulted his readers, too, by attempting to instruct them about their rights and privileges, with respect to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Since Hitchens has just scribbled a poorly received book on the legendary Thomas Jefferson, I suppose he now thinks of himself an expert on the founding of our Republic, its laws and traditions. What an arrogant man Hitchens is. He also ridiculed Sheehan for taking a “short course in the Michael Moore/Ramsey Clark school of Iraq analysis” and said that she was just “spouting sinister piffle.”

Finally, I think Cindy Sheehan is continuing to do a tremendous service for the cause of peace, whether she is standing up at a podium in Lafayette Park, across from the White House in Washington, DC, blasting a mostly cowardly U.S. Congress and the Bush-Cheney Gang over the Iraqi War (6), and/or on holding a vigil for peace on a dusty road outside the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. As a result of her effectiveness in making her anti-war position clear, however, Sheehan is not only moving the Movement forward but also bringing a lot of the pro-war snakes out into the open. Christopher Hitchens is just one of those slimy reptiles! (7) Unfortunately, there are many more like him hiding out under the rocks. They want to send off, for various causes besides Zionist Israel, (8) more of America’s sons and daughters to be slaughtered in Iraq based on a rotten pack of lies concocted by the Bush-Cheney Gang and its cronies. (9)

Notes:

1. http://www.slate.com/id/2124500/
2. baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/10883/index.php
3. batr.net/neoconwatch/
4. http://www.counterpunch.org/mccarthy1022.html
5. “General George Washington: A Military Life,” by Edward G. Lengel.
6. homepage.mac.com/bhughes2/iMovieTheater138.html
7. Check out this brilliant analysis of Christopher Hitchens by author, essayist and educator, Norman Finkelstein, at: http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=4&ar=6
8. “The Sorrows of Empire,” by Chalmers Johnson.
9. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/

© William Hughes 2005.

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘’No’ to the War Party” (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes (at) comcast.net.