God is not Great - Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens has a new book out: God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion


He and his brother had an interesting chat about it the other morning:

BBC Radio 4
Today Program
19/06/07

08:20 We debate a new book "God is not Great" with it's author Christopher Hitchens and his brother Peter Hitchens

Listen (@ 19'20") | Permalink



And here is the old boy giving some of his views in an erudite discussion program about religion:

Start The Week
Radio 4
18/06/07

This week Andrew Marr is joined by Tina Brown, Christopher Hitchens, Douglas Hurd and Allan Leighton.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS is calling for what he calls a "New Enlightenment". He argues that religion is outdated, entitling his new book God is Not Great. He describes his personal encounters with religion including Anglicanism, the Greek Orthodox Church and Judaism, and his early dislike for compulsory prayers at school. He says he has been writing this book all his life and passionately believes that religion of all kinds is a form of self-delusion.

Why Israel Is The Victim - Horowitz

I've been inspired by the excellent potted history of Israel in the Peter Hitchens article that we've been discussing in this thread to post another article on Israel's history by David Horowitz.

It contains some top-class myth debunking (it's *not* about land, it's *not* about self-determination etc), and much the same content is available in the form of a 10 - 15 minute Flash movie that some of you may well want to email around.

Why Israel Is The Victim And The Arabs Are The Indefensible Aggressors In the Middle East
By David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com
January 9, 2002

Rushdie knighthood inflames Islamic world (surprise)

Am creating a separate thread for this story (first blogged here), because I think this might be another Danish cartoons episode, and also because the spineless Western response to the original Rushdie fatwah was a seminal moment for the Islamist movement, (rightly?) convincing them that the West had no appetite even for self-defence.

Two stories are below: gotta love the Sun headline, as well as the accusation that Rushdie is the one with blood on his hands. These Islamist sympathizers sure have Chutzpah. Meanwhile the Telegraph headline reminds us of the hopeless addiction of the Muslim world on the (infinitely flexible, utterly unrequitable) concept of 'honour'.


Pakistan orders smoked Salman
The Sun
June 19, 2007

A SICK Pakistani politician last night said Salman Rushdie’s knighthood justified suicide bombings against British targets — as mobs burned effigies of the author. Cabinet minister Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq said the gong for The Satanic Verses writer was to blame for fuelling al-Qaeda terrorism.

He told the Islamabad parliament: “This is an occasion for the world’s 1.5billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision. “The West always wonders about the cause of terrorism. Such actions are the root cause. "If someone commits a suicide bombing to protect the honour of the Prophet Mohammed, his act is justified.”

The comments from Pakistan’s religious affairs minister came as mobs demonstrated in the eastern city of Multan. About 100 students chanted, “Kill him! Kill him!” as they carried banners and set fire to images of Rushdie. Figures of the Queen were also torched. Pakistan’s lawmakers, meanwhile, passed a resolution demanding Britain withdraw the knighthood.

Another leading Pakistan politician, Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, branded Rushdie a “blasphemer”. In Britain, the first Muslim Peer fuelled the row by accusing Rushdie, 59, of having “blood on his hands”. Labour Lord Ahmed, 48, said Verses triggered “violence around the world”.

Prize-winning Rushdie was forced into hiding for ten years when Iran issued a fatwa against him in 1989. Lord Ahmed added: “Honouring a man who has blood on his hands goes too far.”

He told BBC Radio 4: “Two weeks ago the Prime Minister was calling for building relations between the Muslim world and Britain, then suddenly this knighthood is given to a man who has not only been abusive to Muslims but also to Christians — because he used abusive language towards Jesus Christ.”

Lord Ahmed said the decision had damaged British interests abroad and community relations in the UK.He went on: “This man not only provoked violence around the world because of his writings, but there were many people who were killed around the world.” Rushdie got the knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours on Saturday. Yesterday her Majesty was at the Order of the Garter service at Windsor Castle.

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Honour 'justifies' suicide attack on Rushdie
Telegraph
19/06/2007

Sir Salman Rushdie, the author, was facing fresh threats to his life yesterday following his knighthood. A senior minister in the Pakistani government said that the decision was a justification for suicide bombing, after the parliament in Islamabad condemned the honour as "blasphemous and insulting" to the world's Muslims.

As Pakistani MPs issued a demand for the award to be immediately withdrawn, the religious affairs minister, Mohammad Ejaz-ul-Haq, said: "The West always wonders about the root cause of terrorism. Such actions [giving Sir Salman a knighthood] are the root cause of it. "If someone commits suicide bombing to protect the honour of the Prophet Mohammad, his act is justified." The parliament passed a unanimous resolution deploring the honour as an open insult to the feelings of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims.

Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, the minister for parliamentary affairs who tabled the motion, said that the knighthood was "a source of hurt for Muslims" and would encourage people to "commit blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammad".

Mr ul-Haq then called on Pakistan and all other Muslim states to "break off diplomatic relations with Britain" if the knighthood was not withdrawn. The minister was later forced to clarify his potentially highly inflammatory statement, saying that he was speaking about the wider causes of terrorism and not of Sir Salman specifically.

Pakistan's condemnation came after Iran expressed similar sentiments at the weekend and will again raise concerns for Sir Salman's safety almost 20 years after the publication of The Satanic Verses. Pakistan's religious parties ordered supporters on to the streets of two provincial cites yesterday. Effigies of both the Queen and Sir Salman were burned while some protesters chanted "Kill him! Kill him!"

Sir Salman, 59, who said he was "thrilled" to be knighted, was forced to live in hiding for nine years after Iran's late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill him for allegedly insulting Islam's holy Prophet in The Satanic Verses. It was not until 1998, when the Iranian government said that it would not support the outstanding fatwa, that the author took the decision to return to public life.

Last night British officials were waiting nervously for further reaction to the award at a time when Pakistani society is becoming increasingly radicalised. At the Multan protest, Asim Dahr, a student leader from the group Jamiat Turaba Arabia said that Sir Salman should face Islamic justice. "This Queen has made a mockery of Muslims by giving him a title of 'sir'.

Salman Rushdie was condemned by Imam Khomeni and he issued a decree about his death. He should be handed over to the Muslims so they can try him according to Islamic laws." Robert Brinkley, Britain's High Commissioner to Pakistan, said: "It is simply untrue to suggest that this in any way is an insult to Islam or the Prophet Mohammed, and we have enormous respect for Islam as a religion and for its intellectual and cultural achievements."

However, the Muslim peer, Labour's Lord Ahmed, told BBC Radio 4's PM that he was "appalled" to hear of a knighthood for "a man who has not only been abusive to Muslims, but also to Christians".

The greater threat to Israel

Peter Hitchens reports from Israel.

Which of these is the greater threat to Israel?

Could this be the way the Middle East conflict ends, not with a mushroom cloud or a peace deal but with the slow disappearance of the Jewish state? It seems a real possibility.

Israel must cope with two far deeper dangers than Iran’s amateur atom bomb, or even unending waves of suicide bombers.

Those perils come instead from maternity wards, where Arabs are slowly winning a long-distance population race with Jews – and from Israel’s own foolishly forgotten Arab people, finally beginning to pump up their political muscle.

The catastrophic decline in the quality of the British Civil Service

The British Civil Service was once a byword for efficiency as well as incorruptibility. I'm as fascinated as I am appalled by the extraordinary decline in our quality of government. Perhaps this thread can become a place where we explore what the reasons behind this may be.

Amateurs in charge of government business
Telegraph
05/06/2007

The Government's chronic inability to manage costly IT schemes effectively is well documented - indeed, it has become one of New Labour's trademarks. This morning's report from the Commons Public Accounts Committee helps to explain why Whitehall gets it so wrong, so often.

At the heart of the problem is a slapdash approach to the management of high-value projects that would not be tolerated in the private sector. The fact that the Government spends rather more than £500 billion of taxpayers' cash each year seems to have inculcated a cavalier approach to value for money that is costing the country dear.

The committee highlights two specific areas of weakness in the management of complex IT programmes.

First, the high turnover rate among senior civil servants means there is little continuity in the running of schemes. The MPs found that half the senior civil servants in charge of IT projects are doing such work for the first time. In an area where expertise is invaluable, it seems - quite perversely - to be positively discouraged. This "lack of relevant experience, combined with a regular turnover of post-holders, adds unnecessary risk to the management of IT-enabled change", observes the PAC.

The committee is even more exercised by the stupefying level of neglect shown by government ministers. The prudent expenditure of public funds should be a priority for all ministers of the Crown. Yet the PAC has discovered that in many of the most sensitive IT schemes, the senior officials in charge had not held a single meeting with ministers to discuss progress. This unforgivable laxity was found in 20 per cent of all "mission critical and high risk" computer systems.

In a further 28 per cent of these projects, ministers held meetings with officials fewer than four times a year. That means almost half of these multi-billion-pound projects are being invigilated in the most cursory way. The PAC rightly insists that ministers have a duty to ensure they are briefed "fully and candidly" on risks, progress and cost escalation. The failure to do so has led to such well-documented disasters as the enormous cost and time overruns in the computerisation of NHS records and the multi-billion-pound fiasco of the introduction of tax credits.

It hardly augurs well for the introduction of identity cards.

These failings expose a deeper weakness in the way government does business. There is often an air of starry-eyed naivety about Whitehall's contract negotiations with private sector companies, many of which must be laughing all the way to the bank. The same mindset was in play in the disastrous renegotiation of GPs' and dentists' contracts.

The common factor in all these cases is the sheer amateurishness of the government machine when it comes to cutting a deal. If the men from the ministry are incapable of driving a hard bargain, they should get people in who can.

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Ministers lose grip on £14bn IT
Telegraph
05/06/2007

Ministers are failing to keep a grip on Government computer projects that cost the taxpayer up to £14 billion a year, a report by MPs warns today. Senior officials running many of Whitehall's most "mission critical" IT schemes have not even held a meeting with the minister responsible, the report discloses. The high turnover of civil servants running such projects, and their lack of experience, has led to damaging "discontinuity" and increased the risk of cost over runs and delays.

Today's report from the Commons public accounts select committee follows a catalogue of costly problems with Government IT projects, including new computer systems for the NHS and tax credit systems. Many have gone billions of pounds over budget and are years behind schedule. The MPs said that in one in five "mission critical and high-risk" computer schemes, senior officials had not met the minister responsible.

"For these major, high-risk undertakings to succeed, ministers need to be briefed fully and candidly at least quarterly on risks, progress and cost escalations," the report says. It found that 70 per cent of senior officials were concerned about the lack of "programme and project management skills" within their departments.

There was also a disturbing turnover of staff involved in such schemes. More than half of the senior officials in charge of IT projects were carrying out the role for the first time. "Lack of relevant experience, combined with a regular turnover of post-holders, adds unnecessary risk to the management of IT-enabled change," the report says.

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Hewitt admits defeat on doctors' job fiasco
Telegraph
17/05/2007

The slow fade of Fidel's Cuba

Excellent piece on Cuba in Prospect magazine. Journalist Bella Thomas, who has experienced Cuba first hand, presents a sober, unsentimental look at the country quite at odds with the romantic myth popularised by many westerners.

'This does not mean that those still in Cuba are acquiescent or happy. They are far poorer than their eastern European counterparts were in 1989: the average wage, at $20 a month, can barely feed a single person for a couple of weeks. You cannot spend any length of time in Havana without noticing the lack of food for the majority of Cubans. The mother of a friend, an old lady who lived in one tiny rotting room in a former brothel with her son, gets by selling matchboxes to her neighbours, having stolen them from the factory where she worked. Another acquaintance keeps pigs on her balcony and sells pork to a few locals. The luckier ones sell cigars or taxi rides to foreigners. An elite work in hotels.'

[...]

'Healthcare and education are supposed to be the redeeming graces of the regime, but this is questionable. There are a large number of doctors, but, according to most Cubans I know, many have left the country and the health system is in a ragged state—apart from those hospitals reserved for foreigners—and people often have to pay a bribe to get treated. Michael Moore, the American film director, who has recently been praising the system should take note of the real life stories beneath the statistics. I went into a couple of hospitals for locals on my latest visit. In the first, my friend told me not to say a word in case my accent was noticed, as foreigners are not allowed in these places. I was appalled by the hygiene and amazed at the antiquity of the building and some of the equipment. I was told that the vast majority of Cuban hospitals, apart from two in Havana, were built before the revolution. Which revolution, I wondered; this one seemed to date from the 1900s.

On another occasion, I saw a man in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck hurrying along the boulevard of Vedado, in west Havana. We struck up a conversation. He was on his way to the hospital around the corner. I asked him if he would take me there. He was charming and intelligent, and had that ease of communication that many Cubans possess: he wasn't at all taken aback by an unknown woman in dark glasses asking to accompany him to work. The doctor told me that I shouldn't be too shocked; the hospital was being "refurbished." The building certainly was in a state of filth and decrepitude. This was not a place one would want to be ill in.'

[...]

'I also took the risk of visiting a dissident who had been imprisoned in 1997 for five years for writing a ten-page document criticising the lack of a liberalisation programme. (Even so, he considers himself a socialist.) His house was supposed to be watched, and I decided to go for an early breakfast, judging that this might be a moment when the "neighbours" were otherwise engaged.

Unlike some dissidents, who can be rather hysterical, he was methodical and grave. We sat in his kitchen and discussed the state of the prisons, which he described in some detail. He also spoke of the healthcare system and echoed the view that the propaganda about it has been absurdly successful. Turning to the issue of regime change, he claimed that totalitarian governments can rarely be challenged from below. "In fact it has never happened before," he said forcefully. "When Stalin died, when Mao died, nothing happened. It takes movement from above, as with Gorbachev in Russia, or from outside, as with the exodus in east Germany, for change to emerge." There is no sign of either in Cuba so far.

When I told the same man that Ken Livingstone was preparing to organise a celebration in London for the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution in 2009, he asked how was it that such people turned a blind eye to the difficulties in these places? He shrugged and, with a measure of forced self-discipline, said, "Well, you are a democracy, I suppose," before changing the subject.

When I returned to London, I watched an edition of Newsnight in which the reporter claimed to be immensely impressed—after four days on the island—by the state of Cuban healthcare. I wondered where this man had been. Had he been to hospitals other than the ones his minders had taken him to? Why was it that Fidel Castro was treated by a Spanish doctor? "There's all kinds of things we could learn from this place," the reporter said, after his drive around Havana in an open-top 1950s Chevrolet, with a Cuban bolero playing in the background.

40th anniversary of the Six Day War

It's the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War.

How 1967 defined the Middle East
Jeremy Bowen
BBC Middle East editor
4/6/07

The Jewish state was only 19 years old and the youngest survivors of the Holocaust were barely in their 20s. Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser's radio station Voice of the Arabs fed their anxieties by broadcasting bloodcurdling threats.

Its chief announcer, Ahmed Said, had the best known voice in the Arab world in the 1960s after Nasser himself and the legendary diva, Umm Kulthum.

Said was famous for lines like this: "We have nothing for Israel except war - comprehensive war... marching against its gangs, destroying and putting an end to the whole Zionist existence... every one of the 100 million Arabs has been living for the past 19 years on one hope - to live to die on the day that Israel is liquidated."

No wonder many Israelis and their friends and relations abroad were scared stiff.