What Do You Think of Peter Hitchens?

Yes lets serve our colonial masters well. We should have stayed out of Iraq and let the Americans bleed for their imperial possession, not a single drop of British blood should have been wasted in Afghanistan or Iraq.

You still don't get it.

Our interests are aligned with those of America's. We were fighting in our interests as much as in theirs. It was in the interests of the entire civilised world for an unpredictable Arab warlord to be removed from power and for a pliant, pro-Western government to be installed which would guarantee us a stable oil supply and more political influence in the Middle East, and would prevent any Arab country from getting WMDs.

I think that he is an insightful, intelligent and admirable human being. I am horrified when I read on the Internet people saying things like "The wrong brother died". Both Peter and Christopher have had great insights to contribute to humanity and they are both deserving of attention and respect.

However, I do believe him to be too much of a boring pessimist. This stems from his rather repugnant Christian morality, which gives him very little attachment to this earthy life and therefore gives him less motivation to do something positive in the here and now. Peter has quite simply given up on achieving his perfect society (a rejection of utopianism that stems, I believe, from his rejection of Marxism, which in that context is laudable), but as a result he has cast his gaze heavenward, which is preposterous as there is no heaven and nowhere worth living outside this earth (to our scientific knowledge, at least). As such he casts nothing but disparagement and derision on sociological and political developments occurring at the present time. His youth now over, I guess he feels that the exciting part of his life is over, and that there is no longer any point dedicating himself to a project of humanistic self-improvement, which is disappointing.

I believe that if he rejected this absurd, Christian, Platonic outlook on life and embraced a more positive, Nietzschean or Voltairean outlook, or a Weltanschauung similar to that of his brother, that he would feel more motivation to work towards the transformation of this degenerate species of ours. We might not achieve perfection, but that is besides the point, as perfection would give us nothing more to perfect. Life is flux, change and growth, and that is good and noble.

So yes, a bit less Burke and a bit more Nietzsche is what I would recommend.

Allowing a country to hold free and fair elections isn't imperialism. Despite plenty of mistakes the war in Iraq is a success that in the long run has made the world a better place. For instance see:,https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/iraq

And compare with 1999- although far from perfect progress is being made that I think would have been hugely unlikely had it been left to its own devices.

That said the cost has been staggering ($)

Yep the absolute **** hole that Iraq has turned into is far better because they score better in a 'freedom' report.
'Hey don't worry little Ahmed your whole family may have been killed by ISIS and your country is war ravaged, but hey these western liberals say you are more free yay!'

Can I ask you question?

Do you think it was right to go to war with Nazi Germany? Or do you think we should have them to it?

Also ISIS came from Syria which their own brutal dictator failed to crush. Now democratic Iraq is beating the crap out of them with our friends the Kurds.

Both world wars crippled the British Empire so no, we should have stayed out of both. WW2 left us bankrupt, crippled and indebted to the USA . Also we went to war apparently to stop a brutal dictator invading Poland...but oh wait we didn't attack the Soviet Union for doing the same thing.

Iraq is only beating ISIS due to western intervention, and the rebellion in Syria has only gone on for so long due to western help, back when ISIS were part of the moderates remember?

Fair enough. At least your reasoning is consistent and not part if the trendy faux left paradigm. (Which would also view the British empire as evil)



I'd be inclined to agree to an extant. That said Iraq and certainly the Kurds are becoming much more self sufficent. I'm actually inclined to agree with Trump Re foreign policy that said I think there has been a lot of merit to liberating Iraq which is making progress.

I view the British Empire as one of the greatest achievements in human history so no, I don't view it as evil.
I am not against war, I'm against war that is not done with the interests of the British nation at the forefront. I want ISIS annihilated, but the situation with ISIS wouldn't have arisen if we hadn't gone to war in Iraq in the first place. Once ISIS is annihilated what then? Continue to support the 'moderate' rebels against Assad? Help rebuild Iraq again? America is the world hegemon these are questions for them we shouldn't be involved.

I'm proud of the good that Empire did too, but so proud of it that you'd let the Holocaust go on uninterrupted in the hopes of squeezing another five years out of it? What?

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Yes? I also assume you advocated for invading the PRC and The USSR for the millions they killed? Also this is assuming the Nazis wouldn't just carry on deporting the Jews as they had been doing.

[video="youtube;IPD1YGghtDk"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPD1YGghtDk[/video]

If you don't appreciate this, then it can't be explained to you.

His brother's facial expression is hilarious.

Deportation and systematic extermination are worlds apart. And yes, I would have committed the British Army to the counter-revolutionaries in the Russian Civil War and thrown Lenin and Trotsky and into cells.

They weren't systematically exterminating them when we declared war. We didn't go into WW2 to save the Jews of Europe.

So would I, but I wouldn't have invaded the Soviet Union in the late 20s/30s where the Soviet regime was fully secure though, nor would I have advocated for the invasion of Red China when Mao was enacting his cultural revolution.

Dachau concentration camp was opened in 1933, we didn't declare war until six years later. Regardless of whether we went to war to save European Jewry, that alone is enough reason to justify the Second World War retrospectively.



I would have attempted to damage the regimes through espionage though.