Hitchens: Does the left really want this?

As ever, when he is not ranting about religion, about which he simply…well…let’s generously say he’s got some issues, (never mind – I love Hitch!) there is no one brighter or more right-on than Christopher Hitchens, and today he wonders…does the left realllllly want us to lose in Iraq? Yes, they want to see Bush defeated any way and every way, but Hitchens asks:

Do they suppose that a defeat in Iraq would be a defeat only for the Bush administration?

The left, Hitchens maintains, is simply not thinking, and he is trying very hard to help them think:

The United States is awash in human rights groups, feminist organizations, ecological foundations, and committees for the rights of minorities. How come there is not a huge voluntary effort to help and to publicize the efforts to find the hundreds of thousands of “missing” Iraqis, to support Iraqi women’s battle against fundamentalists, to assist in the recuperation of the marsh Arab wetlands, and to underwrite the struggle of the Kurds, the largest stateless people in the Middle East? Is Abu Ghraib really the only subject that interests our humanitarians?

Why have several large American cities not already announced that they are going to become sister cities with Baghdad and help raise money and awareness to aid (Baghdad Mayor) Dr. Tamimi? When I put this question to a number of serious anti-war friends, their answer was to the effect that it’s the job of the administration to allocate the money, so that there’s little room or need for civic action. I find this difficult to credit: For day after day last month I could not escape the news of the gigantic “Live 8” enterprise, which urged governments to do more along existing lines by way of debt relief and aid for Africa. Isn’t there a single drop of solidarity and compassion left over for the people of Iraq, after three decades of tyranny, war, and sanctions and now an assault from the vilest movement on the face of the planet? Unless someone gives me a persuasive reason to think otherwise, my provisional conclusion is that the human rights and charitable “communities” have taken a pass on Iraq for political reasons that are not very creditable. And so we watch with detached curiosity, from dry land, to see whether the Iraqis will sink or swim. For shame.