This second part to my PolySci readings essay is focused on Love, Poverty, and War by Christopher Hitchens.

Love, Poverty, and War is a collection of journeys and essays written by Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens reminds us of an antique saying, that I think was his basis for this collection of writings, in his introduction, ?a man?s life is incomplete unless or until he has tasted love, poverty, and war? (Hitchens, xi). Some have claimed, as Hitchens points out, that people say there is too little of the first ?condition? while the second and third have an over abundance. Hitchens then poses the awkward question ?Can one love a country?? (Hitchens, xiv), to which he answers that in his youth in England; this was something that didn?t have to be affirmed publicly. In a post September 11th America, Hitchens has become a defender of his adopted country.

I was more interested in the Poverty and War sections of this book, and those were the areas I focused in reading. In Hitchens? piece Against Rationalization he speaks of his time in the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier as the Red Army was being defeated. He has met his guide, and the faction he witnessed again, ?in one form or another, the people who leveled the World Trade Center are the same people who threw acid in the faces of unveiled women in Kabul and Karachi, who maimed and eviscerated two of the translators of The Satanic Verses and who machine-gunned architectural tourists at Luxor? (Hitchens, 411-412).

Hitchens suggests that ?now is as good a time as ever to revisit the history of the Crusades? (Hitchens, 413), as what ?the bombers of Manhattan abominate about ?The West,? to put it in a phrase, is not what Western liberals don?t like and can?t defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state? (Hitchens, 413).

Hitchens then goes on to dismantle ?human intelligence? as ?the very faculty in which our ruling class is most deficient? (Hitchens, 413). Stating the $43 million given to the Taliban for assistance of fundamentalism in the ?war on drugs?, ?missile defense? and ?Democrats who seek to occupy the void ?behind the president?(Hitchens, 413), are all failings of our leaders.

Even critical of his own fellow members of ?the left?, Hitchens takes on and debunks some of the myths and obvious omissions to the extremely popular film Fahrenheit 9/11 in his article Unfairenheit 9/11: The Lies of Michael Moore. He starts off the piece recalling his days at The Nation when he said ?How many times, in my old days at The Nation magazine, did I hear wistful and semienvious ruminations? Where was the radical Firing Line show? Who will be our Rush Limbaugh? I used privately to hope that the emphasis, if the comrades ever got around to it, would be on the first of those and not the second.? (Hitchens, 289). He then goes to say about the film itself, ?To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of discourse that would never again rise above the excremental.? (Hitchens, 289).

He goes on to debunk six listed points, as well as point out some of the glaring omissions by Moore as well as dissecting the rapid-fire delivery in which Moore attempts to confuse and hastily move the audience past the contradictions. ?Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not.? (Hitchens, 291). However, Hitchens? also compliments Moore?s film for the things it exposes the American audience to. ?I have already said that Moore?s film has the staunch courage to mock Bush for his verbal infelicity. Yet it?s much, much braver than that. From Fahrenheit 9/11 you can clean even more astounding and hidden disclosures, such as the capitalist nature of Ameircan society, the existence of Eisenhower?s ?military-industrial complex,? and the use of ?spin? in the presentation of our politicians. It?s high time someone had the nerve to point this out.? (Hitchens, 296).