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Special Report

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Hitchens might pick up the old interviewing dodge of never answering a loaded question except with another loaded question. Sadly that's the only way to come out of these comedy interviews not smelling like a wet dog. Hitchens might begin by throwing the question back at the host: Why are we in Iraq? It seems to me we should be asking why aren't all the Western democracies in Iraq? Before the invasion the West had a simple choice to make: an Iraq under a dictator who attacked Israel in 1973, Iran in 1980, and Kuwait a decade later, while simultaneously gassing his own Kurdish population and butchering Iraqi Shiites, then tried to get his grubby hands on nuclear weapons while promoting terrorism across the region. The alternative was an Iraq with a freely elected democratic government that will no longer be a danger to anyone but the Democrats in the 2008 primary.

"Now, then, about my book."

Given time and a serious setting, Hitchens still makes the case for Saddam's removal better than anyone. It is not a task he has sought out, but since he still carries some cachet with the media from his days as a Trotskyite, and since the Bush team seems not up to the task, Hitchens takes on the cause with relish. On Sept. 14, Hitchens will appear in a debate with British MP and Islamo-fascist apologist George Galloway. The smart money is on Hitchens giving Gorgeous George a good spanking.

topics:
Islam, Iraq, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Oil