Hitchens, Haditha and Viet Nam

While the murdering of 24 innocent Iraqi civilians by a frustrated Marines Platoon in November 2005, and its failed cover-up, is combated in Washington in the fist place with massive spin ("Weapons of Mass Distraction" as Michael Shaw of Bagnews calls it, and you'll find my post about it here), the Weekly Standard and Christopher Hitchens are having a try at a more demagogic style.

How? Guess once: It is all the fault of the "liberals".

Hitchens in Slate, Monday June 5, 2006:

Why Haditha isn't My Lai.

He explains the differences between Vietnam-1973 and Iraq-2005:

[I]n My Lai the United States was fighting the Vietcong. A recent article about the captured diary of a slain female Vietnamese militant (now a best seller in Vietnam) makes it plain that we were vainly attempting to defeat a peoples' army with a high morale and exalted standards.

Most Americans, and most other people, did not have to wait 33 years to discover, that the South Vietnamese Liberation Army was a people's army. But Hitchens needs a "recent" article about the "captured" diary of a "slain female Vietnamese militant" to learn us, that the whole Vietnam war was a "vain" attempt. Welcome to reality, Christopher! Yes, the whole American Vietnam campaign was a Vanity Affair.

And, between brackets, why has Hitchens suddenly seen the light? Is it,

• because of the "diary" (Anne Frank), or
  
• because of the "female" (Anne Frank again, and Ayaan Hirsi come to mind) , or
  
• because of the "slain" (Anne Frank anew, for dead people are more credible; and, slain by whom? Some rampaging marines again?), or
  
• is it because of the "bestseller" status of the diary?
  

- Anyhow, suddenly the South Vietnamese rebels (against an elected South Vietnamese government!) get a consecration of holiness from Hitchie.

Why? Listen:

I, for one, will not have them [the South Vietnamese "Vietcong", HR] insulted by any comparison to the forces of Zarqawi, the Fedayeen Saddam, and the criminal underworld now arrayed against us.

Hitchens needs a rosy image of the Vietcong, in order to mix up the Iraqi popular resistance against the US occupation and the US-controlled government, with extremist and racist Zarqawi and nostaligics of Saddam. Both are, if we may believe serious observers, but tiny fringes within the resistance. But this is, what colonial powers always do, when confronted with popular resistance: They complain that they are unjustly attacked by "criminals", "terrorists" and "underworld". That is, what Johnson and Nixon would have wanted the world opinion to believe about the Vietcong during the sixties and the seventies.

Hitchens: The American military in Iraq are not like the former British...:

... unwanted colonial occupiers in Burma, [no:] the coalition forces are—until further notice—the guests of Iraq's first-ever elected government and the executors of a U.N.-mandated plan for the salvage and reconstruction of the country.

Back to Vietnam in the sixties/seventies. What were the Americans and their partners then? There was a "first-ever elected South-Vietnamese democratic government", that had "invited" the US. The Vietcong were "stooges" and "criminals".

Will we have to wait another 33 years, before Hitchens or his successors will discover, that most popular resistance in Iraq comes from people "with a high morale and exalted standards", and that the "democratically elected government" does not represent much more than itself?

How many "female militants" have to be "slain" and their diaries "captured"?

• As usual, Sonic's "Hitchens Watch" deals with most other lies and anomalies in this Hitchens article. See: "Justifying Slaughter".

Bestürzende Neubauten 5.6.06 [DE]

Ich gehöre nicht zu den Leuten die sich automatisch sträuben gegen jede Grossbau, jedes monumentales städtisches Projekt. Maßstabsgerechte Vergrößerung ist unumgänglich, wenn Städte wachsen, wenn die Technologie effizientere Konzentrationen ermöglicht.

IKEA muss sein. Kleine Möbelverkäufer sollen, wenn sie klein und in der Nachbarschaft bleiben wollen, auf anderen Produkten umschalten müssen. Wenn man so etwas der Markt überlässt, entstehen öde und unterkommenen Kleinhandelscentren in der Stadt. Weil die Markt verlangt dass die Menschen mobiler sind als sie öfters können.

Gewandte Quartiersprojektmanager wissen, wie man so etwas unterfangen kann, und, mit Unterstützung von staatlichen und privaten Partnern, machen sie aus dergleichen Umwandlungsprozessen "win-win" Ergebnissen. Wenn man ihnen die Zeit und die Mittel dazu bereitstellt, natürlich.

Urbanistische Grossinitiative können, oder besser: sollen, immer im Zusammenhang mit der urbanen Umgebung gesehen werden. Und, umgekehrt, Nachbarschaftserhaltung, Emanzipationsprozessen in ökonomisch und sozial schwächere Gemeinschaften, sollen die Chancen benützen, die räumlichen Umwandlungen, neue Arbeitsplätze in der Nähe, Gebietserweiterung durch Aufhebung alter Industrien, usw., schaffen.

 

 Die europäischen Kohesionsfonds werden verteilt auf grund der Arbeitslosigkeitsziffer, der benötigte Investitionsimpulsen und der Investitionsmöglichkeiten die regional und lokal bestehen. Oft geht das gut. Irland ist das Beweis. Aber manchmal auch haben die massive Impulse verkehrte Effekte. So etwa wie sich das oft ereignet in der Entwicklungshilfe in Afrika. Eisenbahnen von Nichts nach Nirgendwo. Staudämme die ganze Landstriche veröden.

Es geht nur gut, wenn man BEIDES macht, gleichzeitig. Die Menschen für wen diese Investitionen gemacht werden, sollen nicht deswegen aus ihren Häusern und aus ihren Arbeitsplätzen vertrieben werden, sondern davon profitieren.

So hätte das millionenschwere bremer Space Center im Einklang mit dem benachbarten Gröpelingen entwickelt werden sollen. Jetzt, als man anerkennen musste, dass die megalomane Ideen betreffs eines europäischen Menschenparks nicht wirkten, und das Center nach sechs Monaten seine Türe geschlossen hat, wird es umgestaltet zu einen Riesenkasino, wovon die Gröpelinger die Nebenwirkungen wie erhöhte Kriminalität geschenkt bekommen. Oder, das schon geschwächte kommerzielle Bestand der Nachbarschaften, wird weiter marginalisiert durch die Grossdetaillisten die auch in dem Center hereingeholt werden.

Wir waren 1. und 2. Juni in Barcelona für die Strukturfondskonferenz der Regionen und Städten. Das CCIB, das barcelonaer Kongress- und Ausstellungszentrum, liess mich die ganze Zeit das bremer Ungeheuer nicht aus den Gedanken. Allerdings ist das CCIB, urbanistisch gesehen, viel besser plaziert als das Space Center: Am Meer, bedient von der Bahn, am Ende einer langen und breiten Stadtavenue, U-bahn-Station, Hotel- und Parking-Anlagen. Aber auch hier ist jede organische Verbindung mit den angrenzenden Stadtteilen vernachlässigt. Trotz seines titanischen Umfangs, ist es unsichtbar, wirkt öde. Von Innen könnte es ebensogut ein Krankenhaus, ein Ministerium oder eine Gefängnis sein (Siehe Bild).

Verlangt das moderne fliegen mit Billigfirmen eine fast untermenschlichen Kurzbeinigkeit - die Riesenflächen des CCIB verlangen das Gegenteil: Die weite Felder der unübersichtlichen Aussen- und Innenräumen unterstellen eine übermenschlichen Langbeinigkeit. Sonst erreicht man die Sitzungen der Konferenz nur am Ende des Ereignisses.

Das bestürzendste ist wohl, dass es eine scharfe Grenze gibt zwischen den lebendigen, funktionsgemischten Stadtquartieren in der Nähe, und die eisige leere und monofunktionellen Ballung von blinden Neubauten. Diese Grenze macht das eine und das Andere unertragbar, unsustainable.

Was die Städte nicht brauchen, das sind objektive Verschwendungen, halbe und völlige Fehlinvestitionen. Es untergrabt die so kräftige Argumentierungen, dass es eben die Stadt, und niemand anderes ist, die die schwierige Verbindung zwischen Investitionsimpulse und sustainable communities machen kann.

Glücklicherweise, hat fast niemand von den europäischen Gästen die 100 M. zurückgelegt die zwischen der Betonidylle und das benachbarte Quartiersleben liegen. So bleibt die allgemeine und wahre Idee bestehen, dass es nur die Städte sind, die es können. Aber können ist nicht immer dasselbe als tun.

Auf der e-urban Webseite gibt es eine Bildergalerie ("IMAGES" Sektion > Rencontres Folder > Rencontres 2006Images 2006 [klicken!] > Barcelona, 1-2 June 2006: Which Growth?) mit mehr (29) Bilder vom Besuch und englischem Text. 

Caged in the Virgin Express 31.5.06

This blog is in the margin of e-urban. And it deals with marginal events. Europe-wide urban professionalisation entails so many marginal events that it seems hopeless to summarise them all. I am concentrating on travelling, the endless travelling, that we do. Travelling makes us meet ourselves. At conferences, workshops, meetings, excursions. But also in lonely and tired hotel rooms, at gas stations and on airports.

Within a few hours, I will board a Virgin Express plane from Brussels to Barcelona. For a net return-price of € 99,- (all included, some 200,-) we are invited to squeeze our material body between our own seat and the one before us. Like the Eurolines Bus that I took to Budapest, it supposes passengers with exceptionally short legs. For an extra € 18,-, one can buy some more room. No food or drinks are served on board. Plenty time to meet oneself in a caged position.

I think, I will not be able to forget the Caged Virgin, book by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, caged as I will be in the Virgin Express.

Update on 02-06-2006 by Huib

To be honest to Virgin Express: No, there were drinks, served with a gentle smile, no too expensive either (the coffee). And, as I had no people seated next to me, there was even space for the legs. This mall progress of civilisation is perhaps due to the fact that Virgin Express is now a company owned by SN Brussels Airlines: A.k.a: the former Belgian flag carrier Sabena, which was so shamefully parasited upon by SwissAir. Which, in its turn, fell under mismanagement charges afterwards.

More read about the Caged Virgin: My At Home in Europe and A Legal Alien in New York blogs.

If you read Dutch, even more on: De Lage Landen

Hitchens has been (too) well served by the Dutch Right

Yesterday, I wrote in my blog At Home in Europe: Hitchens has been (too) well served by the Dutch Right.

Here are some quotes:

My point of view was, and is, that Hitchens was preparing a new use for the 'Moor' Hirsi Ali ('The Moor has done his job, the Moor may dispose!' - Fr. Schiller, famous German author, friend of Goethe), after her uses had been exhausted by the Dutch VVD conservative party.

And I also foresaw a new element in the Hirsi-Ali exploitation, to be expected from the American neoconservatives: putting her forward as a witness for the European softness and dangerous appeasement leanings, concerning the Great Muslim Conspiracy, that is a mortal danger to this world.

Now, in his latest Slate column, 'Holland's latest insult to Ayaan Hirsi Ali', Hitchens cashes in his gains like a card player who won too early, too much:
The Dutch have served him all he hoped for, on a silver plate. He correctly feels, that, like in 'religious sects', or in prison (or, for that matter the Trotskyist sects, which he knows better), the leadership doesn't accept a voluntary good-bye: the dissenting and onerous member has to be evicted before he or she leaves freely. That is, what former prison warden immigration minister Rita Verdonk, cerberus hound against refugees and immigration, last Monday tried to do.
[...]
His only problem is, that he did not win where he intended to, i.e.: at the cost of the Dutch and European left. He won from another card-player, the Dutch (and European) populist and pro-Bush RIGHT.

Actually, those whom he (and Hirsi Ali for that matter) nails to the pillory as the willing collaborators of the Islam Conspiracy against the West, were the only ones, who timely and worthy protested against the methods and ways, the Dutch populist Right wanted to dispose of Hirsi Magan.
Look here:

"Opnieuw gedwongen te vluchten" (Forced anew to fly) - manifesto of Dutch personalities*) against the right's handling of Hirsi Ali, NRC-Handelsblad, May 16, 2006. Click on the image to see a less unreadable version.

On May 16, 2006, a group of Dutch LEFT-leaning intellectuals, writers, retired politicians, were the ONLY ones to come forward in an open letter in the most prestigious Dutch daily, NRC-Handelsblad, AGAINST driving out Ajaan Hirsi! This was published, BEFORE Parliament called minister Verdonk to order. At the same time, most of the political right was showing satisfaction at the disappearance of Hirsi Ali from the Dutch scene.How does Hitchens handle this embarrassing anomaly?He takes on the famous co-author Ian Buruma (professor in the US, of Dutch origin) of "Occidentalism", who wrote an Op-Ed in The New York Times about Holland and Hirsi Ali. Rather timidly, Buruma made some critical observations on the ways in which the Dutch right has manipulated Hirsi Ali during her participation in Dutch politics.

[...]

You're welcome at my European blog, to see all of my article.