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He has quite a few complete debates on Youtube that are equal parts informative and entertaining. I think the best is his opening statement and his arguments in

• keiferski 3y ago
  Informative is not a word I would use to describe anything Hitchens said or wrote. His arguments are uninformed at best and pretty much skip over the entirety of philosophical thought on religious matters. One would think that his strident support for the Iraq war should have been a red flag that something was not quite right about his views. He reminds me of a half-baked and far less eloquent version of H. L. Mencken, a popular journalist and polemicist from a century ago. Both were good writers but both made elementary factual mistakes constantly. Edit: apparently a lot of Hitchens’ fans seem to be unaware of this. Here is just one example of how ill-informed his typical book was: https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/xnt9gq/well_youre_not_that_great_yourself_mr_hitchens_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/xnt9gq/well_you... The man was an entertainer who made controversial statements to sell books, full stop.
  • mixmastamyk 3y ago
    > support for the Iraq war His support was always logical. He'd been to Kurdistan to see the devastation with his own eyes. Actually there—not simply another keyboard warrior throwing shade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_massacre Given that and a lot of other evidence, it was clear Hussein had ambitions to become Hitler Jr. and needed to be stopped. (Watch the Netflix series How to be a Dictator for more of the sobering scoop.) Hitchens support was perfectly consistent with left-wing ideology; fascism must be fought hard. That liberals rushed to Hussein's defense demonstrated their herding instinct and lack of understanding. Imagine them rushing to defend Hitler and you'll get an inkling. That I think the Iraq war was a total disaster today comes from the fact that the Bush administration was incapable of understanding the situation, and incompetent with its implementation—and not because Hitchens was "wrong" to call for it.
    • keiferski 3y ago
      Logical for his career, sure, which was built on the widespread anti-Islamic rhetoric being pushed by media outlets to justify the GWOT. Sam Harris owes even more of his career to this. How anyone could think the invasion of Iraq and the (fabricated) support for it were anything other than disasters is beyond me. It has nothing to do with the fact that Saddam was a “bad guy”, and everything to do with basic geopolitical realities. Unless you also think we should invade every country that has repressive leaders?
      • mixmastamyk 3y ago
        Right, Hitchens did it all just to further his career. That's why he went to Kurdistan... and climbed hills in Cuba, Yugoslavia, etc. Became a marxist/journalist rather than an investment banker. Reading his memoir Hitch22, I couldn't help think what a "greedy communist" he sounded like, throughout. If not obvious, this paragraph is sarcasm. It didn't actually further his career, it largely hurt it. You can call it anti-islamic rhetoric if you want. The reality is that religious nuts are a real problem, and Islam has its leading share. He was also anti-religion, which I respect to a point. > we should invade every country that has repressive leaders Not just repressive, combative to the whole region. Forgot WWII? It happened and worked twice. Why not this time? Well culture, history, and execution competence were totally different. Too many variables to consider, maybe in book form at the minimum. You're also conflating the Bush admins desire to use 9/11 for their own ends. That happened but has nothing to do with Hitchens. As everyone who cares knows now, it had nothing to do with Hussein either. No need to bring it up.
        • keiferski 3y ago
          All of those things happened before 9/11, which was a major turning point for Hitchens. After that, he became even more anti-religious, anti-Muslim, and pro-war. He was pretty supportive of the Bush administration and visited Iraq with Paul Wolfowitz. He certainly "had something to do with it." Let's not forget that his books sold millions and he certainly did well financially. He also wrote countless essays justifying the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Long_Short_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Long_Short_War As to the rest of your comment, I'm honestly not sure how to respond. What is your definition of combative to the whole region? Are you including Iran, Russia, or China in your definition? And so you'd support a global war to replace the leadership of those countries? After the debacle of the GWOT, the failure of the Iraq War and of the recent Afghanistan retreat, I genuinely don't understand how someone even slightly pragmatically-minded could have this opinion. I only included the Iraq mention off-handedly because I assumed it was nearly common sense that the war was a bad decision. My main criticisms of him are his sloppy arguments and lazy scholarship, which zero people in the academic fields of philosophy and philosophy of religion take seriously.