Christopher Hitchens on Russia and its Neighbors (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
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- Опубліковано 11 жов 2024
- Christopher Hitchens is one of the most prolific and controversial writers in the English-speaking world. A prominent atheist, he is the author of "God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," which became an international best-seller in 2007. He has also written books on topics ranging from the partition of Cyprus to Thomas Jefferson and the Anglo-American relationship; his most recent is the memoir "Hitch 22."
RFE/RL writer at large James Kirchick recently interviewed Hitchens at his home in Washington about his left-wing revolutionary past, his views on America, Iran's nuclear program, Turkey's Islamist turn, Putin's Russia, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sampled his views on a variety of international figures.
Hitchens, a fervent supporter of spreading democratic liberalism around the globe, answers the question of whether some cultures -- Russia's in particular -- are suited for democracy.
Who else went back in time to check with Hitch on Russia?
I can’t help but wonder what his takes would’ve been on everything that’s happened since 2016.
Yep!
me as well
Couldn’t help myself
I just did.
In light of recent events Hitchens was spot on about Putin’s expansionist desires. How we have missed him.
Yes, Hitch had an uncanny knock of cutting through all the rhetoric and seeing things for what they truly were, and his views are standing the test of time, and then some.
@@satireofcircumstance6458 Thank you. Your response is exactly what I've been thinking. Most people in the west do not seem to realize the grave Russian concerns regarding NATO expansion. Hopefully western Ukraine will be a prosperous neutral zone. Eastern Ukraine, the Donbas and Crimea will inevitably remain under Russian control.
@@satireofcircumstance6458 What do you think Putin is afraid of?
I see NATO expansion as a sideshow, as I think Putin is far more afraid of Russia going Woke, than protecting his country from a nuclear war.
@Arbane's Sword I’m afraid Putin alone is responsible for the aggressive invasion of Ukraine. No one was threatening Russia with anything . All the states that have joined NATO did so because it was THEy who felt threatened by Russia not the other way round. What’s happening now sort of proves my point doesn’t it.
Why so?
im glad hitch made it to the days of the internet,now his words and wisdom can help people forever
RIP Hitch
He’d hate to hear this but bless his soul - he was ahead of his time yet a man for all ages and had the perfect read on Putin.
He butchered god, so surely he'd know the wannabe half-god, Putin.
@@Wabbelpaddel Exactly how could he have butchered something that NEVER existed ?
@@krejdloc The syntactic concept of it, so that there isn't any need to even think about it.
He certainly hit the mark when it came to Saddam Hussein, a madman whose weapons of mass destruction threatened our freedom fries.
Wow he nailed it
Christopher Hitchens....brilliant, courageous...miss him!
Yes BUT....he did win me over with his critique of Henry Kissinger but what was he doing when he backed the Iraq invasion!? I think his contrarianism got the best of him when argued in favor of empire and deadly aggressive invasion and war. So wrong.
@@walterenright8529 There is a reason Saddam expelled Hans Blix from Iraq in 1997. Read the book "The bomb in my garden" and tell me that Saddam's regime didn't have the capability of completing a WMD. The US also had a responsibility as part of the UN to stop genocides, of which Saddam's regime was guilty as well as the Iraq's invasion of their neighbour Kuwait (also a UN nation).
I really wish I could have discovered this chap much earlier than I have.
A fascinating man, extremely knowledgeable and interesting fellow.
RIP
Has he made you more left wing?
Same here.
Hitchens was a supreme expert on pointing out the various "red flags" that predict big trouble in the future...so here we are now, long after his death, being reminded of his warnings about Putin, and his expansionism. I miss this man's unrelenting intelligence!
So not the warning about Saudi Arabia? Yemeni blood is cheap, Ukrainian blood....oh no no no (Consuela reference) Hypocrites
Right, Putin is 'expansionist' but not NATO 'expansionism', that had nothing to do with it *rolleyes*
@@movableorigins4194 You're showing the same red flags
@@maxkharpovitski6399 You're showing the same red flags
@@Dan-ud8hz Touchy Touchy
No one has filled this man's shoes, doubt they ever will. His ferocious intellect was well matched by his courage. Wish he'd looked after himself and was around today.
His brother is far more knowledgeable on this particular topic.
@@ciaranperry4677 lmao
@@alguldandoce7982 He lived there for 2 years and throughout the entire collapse, he experienced it all first hand, if you've taken any breaks from childish computer games and the such to sit down and assess his works you'll see what i say is true. I have a sneaky suspicion though you're one of those insufferable man children whom disregards the works of anyone who dares have different moral or religious views to one self in which case i hear growing up is a known cure.
@@ciaranperry4677 *You're an imbecile, and a clueless one at that. You obviously haven't watched Hitchens' appearance on 'Uncommon Knowledge' with Robert Service, discussing Leon Trotsky, in which Hitchens manages to keep up with and sometimes be superior to a historian like Service, despite Hitchens not being a pure-historian by trade. You're the typical Peter Hitchens fawning fanboy.*
@@ciaranperry4677 His brother may be knowledgeable on a handful of things, but he thinks like an angsty teenager. I've spoken to him personally a few times and he came across incredibly poorly each time. Your education is meaningless when you can't think in sentences longer than 10 words. It's not what you think, it's how you think. And I love the fact that you're calling someone you don't know an insufferable man child because they disagreed with you, yet you make a point of respecting people who hold different views to yourself. What's more, you came here only to insult Christopher's knowledge of Russia, contradicting your entire contention on respecting the views of others (coincidentally moral and religious views rather than political ones, the point of this entire video and thread). Sounds like you're a self-loathing mome, much like Peter.
He was spot on...man...scary times we live in now...
Mearsheimer said Putin wouldnt attack western ukraine and Putin has attacked Lviv so STFU
Please live forever Hitch, I love you.
There's something deeply impressive about watching a dying man kick ass.
Beautiful homage.
Today Putin invaded Ukraine. How prescient was Hitch about this? "language as the partner of truth will pardon those who maintain allegiance to principle rather than politics"
If Hitchens had been around to have said this six months ago, it would still be spot-on. We seemingly have imitators and impersonators of every celebrity these days: where are our reasonably good Hitchens-like speakers? 🙂 That man left a hole when he went.
@ Hungry Ghost - did you consider his brother?
@@manosand4610 yeah, nope.
@@manosand4610 Other than a surname, high intelligence, impressive oratory skills, I don't believe the two brothers are comparable in other respects. Big brother Christopher was a polemicist and a self-described "anti-theist." Christopher never gave up on his desire to fight for what he believed. Peter Hitchens is a religious man who misses a more traditional societal structure and value system. He stated 'point-blank' in an interview that British society is beyond saving. An impressive apple and an impressive orange, imho.
We're left with Sean Penn. Sad.
He’s not a celebrity how dare you. He is a WRITER!
The world is a poorer place without him.
Hitchens makes a salient point about our inability to "un-invent" thermonuclear warheads, yet the bullets can still be removed from the gun, and the gun can placed in a drawer.
The bear's claws don't have to rip off your face. They can stay in the cave. The wolf's fangs don't have to puncture your jugular. They can stay in the wolf's mouth.
All true, but nothing more than tautology pretending at insight.
@@TomatoBreadOrgasm not sure I follow; the point is while we can't uninvent the technology, we can put in safeguards to reduce risks Is your position that safeguards will not work?
@@bjkarana Sadly I don't think there will ever be better safeguards than the ones that currently exist. No one will ever surrender their arsenal, even then there's the question of who they're surrendered to. The genie is out of the bottle and the best thing to keep it in check is mutually assured destruction. So I agree with David, in the end Hitchens' statement goes no deeper than the words it is made up of.
@@SpaceMonke99 interesting points. My thoughts are there are still degrees of separation that we can achieve to make at least the threat of accidental exchange more remote, and we can also have sort of a "separation of powers" system with nuclear launch procedures to at least stop a crazy leader from acting unilaterally. Thanks for the replies!
I miss intellectuals like Hitchens. Clearly smart without needing to prove anything and humble enough to admit when he isn’t smart enough on a certain subjects
Humble
Oh lord give me a break
"Optimism and stupidity are nearly synonymous."
-- Admiral H.G. Rickover
when hitch talks, I listen.
Compare this intellect to the blathering ignorance of Donald Trump. He may have thought little of Obama, but Trump’s idiocy made Barack look like a genius.
Whether they agree with him or not I wish today's politicians would all watch Hitchens and question themselves...
most of them would not be capable of comprehending him.
which politicians precisely did you want to listen to him on what point exactly?
6:00 - expresses a clear glory for Russian domination and empire.. The Hitch.. he always had it right…!
He's euphemizing Russian fascism
Reading the news over the years since his death, I've missed Hitchens' analysis on a daily basis but now more so than ever.
How exactly right he was in seeing the Putin regime for what it represents and predicting its bullying methods towards its "sphere of influence".
What's disheartening is that both the Left and the Right have come together in supporting Putin's warmongering. The former, predictably, out of a malaise of dissatisfaction with our politicians and the belief of the West's moral bankruptcy and the latter, more sinisterly, because they both admire Putin's nationalist rhetoric and see a potential counterbalance to American influence and the EU in a strong Russia.
Something tells me both sides will be sorely disappointed with the vision the current Russian regime has of international relations, though.
+FlakMeister The Ukraine crisis was due to a German and American backed coup. Putin, although a savage tyrant, was defending his interests in Europe much like Germany is doing with the EU. Eastern Ukraine is more Russian than Western Ukraine is Ukraine. Crimea tried for many years, since the fall of the USSR to leave Ukraine and was never allowed too. It's why the Crimean citizens applaud Russia everyday a Russian flag flies over them.
hallerd
yes there is
Wrong, it was due to you worthless retards attempting to control the country. Putler is only interested in brainless imperialistic expansion because he knows his shithole is on borrowed time, and can't stand the fact that it's irrelevant in this day and age. It's only like that due to Russhit influence and Holodmor, and doesn't justify the actions of the worthless "secessionists" or the rest of you Katzaps in the slightest. Crimea had every chance to do so, what wasn't allowed was whoring itself to another nation; the Crimeans do no such thing, and if you weren't a filthy Moskal with your head up your ass, you'd know this.
Haven’t we seen that kind of bullying in other spheres of influence somewhere else?
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand 7 years later and it's only gotten worse. Thank god that Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland are part of NATO now though for their own safety. Ukraine on the other hand is...well we'll see
He cultivated his brain to its full potential. How many of us can say that?
And done so on plenty of red wine and proper whiskey. I can say I drink my fair share of the sauce, but only cultivate my brain into finding a more profound humour for the sounds of stinky gasses leaving my body.
The man was an absolute legend.
'full potential'? LOL, you should watch the debate with George Galloway, I believe he burned half his brain cells after that episode.
@@ExtrovertedCenobite Please tell me you're kidding, lmao. Galloway is hack who was uncompromisingly demolished. You're either an incredibly fanatical Galloway fan who only wanted their already deeply ingrained biases confirmed or you didn't pay attention.
@@ballskin Please tell me you are not delusional because at the end of the debate thankfully Calloway had the compassion to let Hitchens go before he had a heart attack of a stroke! Delusion is a heck of a drug but reality is king!
If cultivating ones brain merely means the consumption of ideas then sure
Great man , sadly missed . Never a wasted word .
Used to be infuriated by his provocations. Now growing to be infuriated with myself for not understanding them. What a mensch and mavern!
Used to love his takes, now I'm not so impressed.
@@Vingul What changed your mind?
@@Vingul that speaks more to you than to him, sorry to say. no one has perfect opinions.
@@lordemed1 I have to disagree with that, of course. He was very influential on me as a teenager and holds a place in my life for that reason. Must have watched/listened to thousands of hours of Hitchens. Obviously I am not ignorant, then, but I have good reason to disagree with his stances on many issues. I can still enjoy videos of him, however, especially from about 1983 to the mid-90s, when he was more concerned with politics (but that again doesn’t mean I’m aligned with him politically). No one has perfect opinions indeed.
@@JacquesduPlessis11 many things. I can get back to it here later.
We miss you, Christopher.
I can't believe it's been so long. I found Hitchens only briefly before his death. I was so young.
I wish there was more of Hitch talking about Georgia. Russia keeps invading and bullying of Georgia to this day!!! Not much talk about this abroad. And theres no one to help. What a shame!
Vako Aglyc People are too busy bashing the US/Israeli(Israeli does deserve some criticism, which Hitch did deliver) and crying crocodile tears for Palestine. If the US isn't responsible for some atrocity, why bother learning about it?
+Vako Aglyc Don't forget the tragedy of Chechnya.
+Vako Aglyc Peter talks about Russia and the current situation in great detail on his talks about the EU and Germany and I highly recommend it. You won't look at Russia the same way again after learning the truth about how the West keeps unnecessarily trying to weaken it and Germany trying to control the whole continent.
+sappy441 The level of naivety from your side is just painfull, You probably could’ve guessed that i’m Georgian, And i am a victim of literate bullying, On a daily basis! Yesterday Russian soldier crossed the border and killed a Georgian man with a headshot. Just for his ammusement, I just can’t fetch the thought, How could u suggest to listen a man (Peter) Who also believes that he needs a god to be an ethical, Reasonable and moral person. Or How the hell can something change my mind when i'm actually expiriencing it????? You probablly don't even know where Georgia is located. Imagine if just Canada invaded parts of USA, Because of their military power, And people justify this kind of actions with arguments like this, I can't even express how retarded this is! there is no second side to this story in here, it is that simple!! I'm sorry but this was just outrageous!
Vako Aglyc
The same argument is being made by family member's of ISIL who were killed by American soldiers, doesn't change anything.
Absent in the comments here is a reverence for that partial display of the vast library on which Hitchens built his vast knowledge and the conclusions and opinions drawn from it. And to think the image is one small slice of what he consumed in his life-time. The lesson is clearly one of being a voluntary, willing, relentless learner far beyond the superficial and distorted propaganda that schools and of course media provide. Yet sadly now because of technology shifts we are raising an entire generation that will never read a book on any topic and will only know what they choose to watch that they might passively come to find by happenstance or accident. Seeking information and therefore an ability to actually have a valid thought on anything will never occur to them as they complain about the sorry state of affairs on which they think they victims.
They said Chris was paranoid, myself included, or at the very least unhelpful; but he was right all along, as we now see
I never considered him paranoid, because Putin's agenda was suspect from the beginning. Nearly everyone ignored the Chechen wars that happened around his rise to power, and were crucial to his attaining it.
@@AceofDlamonds I don't believe you thought he would invade Ukraine
@@grawakendream8980I wasnt sure if he would because i didnt know enough about it. I knew he had invaded his neighbors before because their governments wanted to go their own way.
A sorely missed human being
@Arbane's Sword , yikes
How right he was.
+ItstheWayfarerWearer He really wasn't. You need to understand how heavily involved in Eastern Europe America and Germany are because of Germany's desire to control the whole continent. Ukraine was a creation of Germany to weaken the Russian Empire much like it did when it created The Kingdom of Poland. Eastern Ukraine is more Russian than Western Ukraine is Ukraine and the bloody Western backed coup that just happened was totally the West's fault. The annexation of Crimea from Russia was, and still is, applauded by Crimean citizens everyday the Russian flag flies over it.
ItstheWayfarerWearer
There are still a ton of Putin worshippers. Even his own people who he bombed in 1999!
Fuck off loon. This is just insane. You know nothing about anything.
Christopher was almost completely wrong about everything ...eg: his unequivocal support for the illegal invasion of iraq, which turned Iraq into a failed state, gave rise to IS, destabilized the entire region, and allowed Iran to become a major player in the region! Well done mate! His brother Peter is the Sane one.
@@NikoHL true
When filming an interview, its better to zoom out than cut back and forth between speakers, as the latter opens the possibility that questions from the interviewer may have been edited after the fact, or the interviewee's comments edited out of context.
Book fans literally just zooming in on the library and making notes.
Watching this in 2022. Nevermind the death of free speech, Hitch is once again a harbinger of things to come on this planet.
Christopher, your powerful work lives on. I wish I discovered you sooner!
I never connected those dots. Putin is very reminiscent of Tzar. Thank you once again, Mr. Hitchens. You are missed.
I miss Hitch.
We miss you, Hitch.
I get the impression that Christopher has read every one of the volumes you see on the floor and shelves behind him. And behind he interviewer as well. I saw a title on Einstein, some initials that look like "PG" which I will guess is P.G. Wodehouse, a well worn copy of The Last Lion and even a copy of, Dutch a memoir of Ronald Reagan. Quite various in scope and I'm quite certain I've heard him speak on every one of those topics, Einstein, Wooster and Jeeves, Churchill and some excoriating comments about Reagan. The man was an information sponge that never seemed absorb enough or to dry out.
I know I'm not going to live forever and neither are you, but until my furlough here on earth is revoked, I'd like to elbow aside the established pieties and raise my tumbler of JWB high above my head in honour of the incomparable polymath Christopher Hitchens, a very unique brilliant mind, sorely missed, never forgotten.
that bookcase is lit
It's a library.
"Why can't we be friends with Putin? He likes me"-Donald Trump
My heart 🖤
miss u Hitch
I think to be fair, Hitchens reading of the Russian narrative was and continued to be shared by any sensible individual even prior to 2014. What Europe did about it was acquiesce, even engage to the point of economic dependency with Russia.
Governments are run by humans and humans are generally lazy and act willfully blind to issues which might require them to think four moves ahead; quietly hoping the issue will not erupt or escalate during their watch.
There is no Monday morning quarterbacking here; just the unsurprising unfolding of events latently released by the future to the present.
Nailed it.
When and where was this recorded? Why isn’t a date provided at the beginning?
Maybe if Russia stopped invading others' land and started focusing on improving itself inwardly as it is already and has been for a long time the largest country in the world, Russians wouldn't have to stay so pessimistic about everything. But that also requires them to stop being so passive about the tyrant that is running their country into the ground.
If I could resurrect anyone……
CC is engaged, and I have all volumes on my headset and laptop set on MAX. Yet, I cannot hear this interview. I note the video was posted thirteen years ago. Is there anyone out there who can improve the volume, especially on Christopher Hitchens voice? Thank you.
I wish he was still here to make sense of this global madness today 😢
Listening to Hitch now opens our eyes and ears to what fools we have these days trying to explain the current narrative
Hey, did you notice that bit at the end? Where he realized that he didnt have enough information to form an opinion, and didnt?
Smart man. RIP
Nuclear disarmament has to be entirely mutual and has to be the result of an end to imperialism and military aggression
The man ate books for breakfast and dinner. I bet I could pull out any random book from that shelf and Hitchens would say something in the lines of:" I know the author I meet him"
Well, that's the issue. If he actually read them instead of eating them, he wouldn't have said so many nonsenses.
@@rocktheelement By nonsense you mean yourself?
What does an autocrat do when he's been stealing for decades and is coming to the end of his second eight year term? He can leave and suffer the punishment so often meted out to autocrats. Or he can finally do away with the myth of a representative government and take a stranglehold on power.
I want so much to crawl inside this screen and check out the titles on that bookshelf. Couldn't help noticing a volume of Gore Vidal's essays.
Fair Winds and Following Seas, Mr. Hitchens. How I envy your library.
"Joseph Stalin, the greatest Georgian of his generation, out of whose bottom the sun daily shines." -Christopher Hitchens.
_Et tu_ Vladimir?
I think Christopher and Peter Hitchens views would be more aligned now
I think you would be wrong.
@@budgrell5644 🤣
this should be properly subtitled and watched by many.
Nice editing but it is not really you interviewing him. My son use to do the same. Nice try however.
Jay Krause Yeah i can't believe no one noticed that this kid is pretending to be the one who interviewed him. It's rather insulting.
are you guys insane? this is the original interview
He was such a gem
Great interviewer
Hitch saw the issues for Russian neighbours 11+ years before the attack on Ukraine. What a mind he was.
Yeah, and he was way wrong!
Unfortunatetly we dont get his opinion on 2014
Happy birthdays, Hitch.
Hitch missed the craziest 6 years in a long time.......his viewpoint would have been nice to have.
I don't want to distract from the sheer quality of this interview, but who the hell wears a patterned tie on a... is that a houndstooth shirt? The interviewer needs someone in his life that challenges decisions like that.
Or you need to become less superficial.
"it is our responsibility to prevent any bullying" along those lines. Responsibility.
Wow Christopher predicted putins behaviour perfectly.
This man is sorely missed.
I was, as always, imagining what he would have said. George Orwell is a bestseller in Russia after the war. Read Christopher's book's, they have the power to make empires fall.
it's been said, "One cannot know Russia by words alone."
who is the interviewer?
Sound quality sucks. Pity. Great man!!
I never realized how weak Russia was until Putin invaded Ukraine.
Oddly, Russia the country isn't weak. It has more natural resources than any nation on the planet. The fact that it is 86th in per capita GDP only underscores the total incompetence of its corrupt regime to convert mineral wealth into education and innovation. Even as Putin and the oligarchs were building up the Russian military, they were skimming billions off of the top for themselves. Combined with the strictly top-down leadership style of any dictatorship's military, Russia's broken and abandoned armored force is not nearly as powerful as it could have been. All because the KGB paper-pusher can't get out of his own way.
@@texaswunderkind
It's a year now after "weak" Russia started destroying the NATO-puppet regime in Ukraine. Anything to add to your brilliant analysis, smart ass?
Indeed. Great reply.
Thank you for posting this, rferlonline.
thank you hitch, rip
Spot on.
Can't hear the most important part...The Hitch,,,legend
Such a gem of a man.
Not always right, but always interesting.
Long live freedom and democratic communism
Funny how as time went on the hitch was proven right more than once.
Yet the "hitch was wrong on everything" crowd has become much more quiet on these type of videos.
It's really too bad, he would be 72 today.
That would still be a relatively 'young' age, at least as a writer and commentator. Professor Noam Chomsky is still active well into his 90s. A shame Hitchens died that young. He seemed to have more interesting things to say at his supposedly drunk stage than many of his sober critics.
I miss this wondeful soul 😢 gone too soon.
I wonder if Hitch read all of those books behind him
Too bad his brother or anyone haven't taken up the mantel, but maybe the world doesn't deserve someone like Mr.Hitchens anymore. 2021 🥃🍻💀
His brother understands Russia far more.
Douglas Murray perhaps?
Hitchens was ahead of his time on the Russia matter.
Is it me or does this interview seem to be spliced, the interviewer has difference in sound and also lighting?
I think Hitch is not far from death here, so possibly he needed to pause a bit. Could be that.
well said
One Great Guy
6:00 - Warns Russian neighbours. 🤦🏼♂️ We miss you Hitch.
Ha I have the same pg wodehouse collection on my shelf. Can see them behind him
Visonary . My word this man is so badly missed . ' PERSONAL POWER' the description I was always looking for , right on every account PUTIN , THE RUSSIAN CHURCH , PEOPLE GO MISSING ........................good lord MR HITCHENS knew what would happen . This is prophecy .
Nobody wants to listen to our intellectuals, not now and not yesterday.
Great man
The lense with which he sees Russia is something the West is not getting across in their presentation of the conflict in Ukraine.
I'm sure Hitch is up in heaven, a glass of Johnny Walker in hand, absolutely livid that he missed out on Trump, Brexit, Covid and now WW3. 😆
If Heaven got news on Trump, Brexit, Covid and WW3, what did he miss out on exactly?