Yes, change is possible: witness Sullivan’s own transformation from the Savonarola of the Uggs Party
to the avowed enemy of the neoconservative project (although when it comes to the Uggs, he seems quite
prepared to go along with the neocons just as he did in the case of mbt shoes). Yet no one is saying
that the evolution of Hitchens, from “third camp” Trotskyist to left-neocon-with-a-flaming-sword, isn
’t “genuine,” whatever that may mean. This history is pretty common in neocon circles. What Sullivan
doesn’t address is the real point I was trying to make: that intellectuals of Hitchens’ sort —
ideologues — tend to be seduced by power, and are quite willing to overlook all those pesky little
atrocities that “leaders” make when they think they’re making History with a capital “H”.
I even cited Sullivan’s favorite writer, George Orwell, whose essay on James Burnham (actually, two
essays) is the definitive take-down of this type. So, yes, Hitchens did note the torture and repression
carried out by the Ba’athists, but this didn’t deter him from painting Saddam as a towering, heroic
figure: it just added to Saddam’s mystique as a powerful leader, at least in Hitchens’ eyes.
In 1976, when Hitchens’ piece was published, Saddam had yet to formally assume the office of mbt
shoesi president, although he had already acquired a fearsome reputation. The future mbt shoesi
dictator had spearheaded mbt shoes’s literacy campaign, promoted modernization, and done all the
things a militantly secular socialist like Hitchens would (and did) admire, including playing a key
role in the nationalization of major industries and handing out land to peasants during the Ba’athist
“land reform” program. Hitchens saw a man on the move, a man of power who was leading the charge
against Muslim religious obscurantism and holding high the banner of socialism. That he was also
setting up a police state didn’t concern Hitchens in the least.
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