Well, it looked like it would be a close contest, but in the end Hitch won this week's prize as easily as Padraig Harrington bagged his second British Open yesterday.
In his column for the Gray Lady, Hitch writes:

"If we had left Iraq according to the timetable of the anti-war movement the Iraqi people would now be tyrannised by the gloating sadists of Al Qaeda"

What a thoroughly dishonest piece of writing. There was no Al Qaeda presence in Iraq at all until Hitchens' 'liberators' moved into the country in 2003. Now he and his fellow neocons use the presence of Al Qaeda to justify continued military occupation of the country. It's a bit like me driving a bulldozer into your house and then saying I've got to stay in occupation of it because otherwise gangs of burglars and other ne'er do wells would come in and take over.

But that's not all the hogwash that Hitch is spouting this week. He also writes:
"Most people appear now to believe that it is quite wrong to mention Saddam Hussein even in the same breath as (a)WMD, or (b) state-sponsored terrorism. I happen to disagree".

Well, Hitch old son, the reason most people believe that Saddam should not be mentioned in the same breath as WMD or state-sponsored terrorism is that no evidence was produced to connect him with either.

The great irony is that when it comes to religion, Hitch is scathing about those who believe in things without producing evidence. But it seems that when it comes to neo-connery, the same rules of evidence don't apply.

Hitch is of course, the pin-up boy of trans-atlantic neoconservatism. But next time you read a neocon writer drooling over the great man's utterings and praising his principled and long-standing opposition to Baathist and Islamist tyranny, just remind them of the man who once wrote this:

"The Baghdad regime is the first oil-producing government to opt for 100-per-cent nationalisation, a process completed with the acquisition of foreign assets in Basrah last December. It was the first to call for the use of oil as a political weapon against Israel and her backers. It gives strong economic and political support to the ‘Rejection Front’ Palestinians who oppose Arafat’s conciliation and are currently trying to outface the Syrians in Beirut. And it has a leader — Saddam Hussain — who has sprung from being an underground revolutionary gunman to perhaps the first visionary Arab statesman since Nasser."


Yup, you have it: Christopher Hitchens, founder member of the Saddam Hussein Fan Club.

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