The great debate

As President Bush all but declared war on Iraq, journalists Christopher Hitchens and Mark Danner thrashed out the big issues that the country should have months ago.

GARY KAMIYA    FRIDAY, JAN 31, 2003

Will invading Iraq make America a safer or a more dangerous place? Can inspections and sanctions contain Saddam? Will the Arab and Muslim world respect an invading America for showing resolve, or react with violent rage?

These questions became at once more urgent and perhaps more irrelevant around 6:45 p.m. Tuesday, when President Bush set Feb. 5 as the day when the countdown to an invasion of Iraq will officially begin. It was somehow appropriate, in these peculiarly disconnected and weightless days running up to an unreal-feeling war, that an important public debate over the looming conflict took place just a few minutes after that war apparently became inevitable.

The subject of the debate was “How Should We Use Our Power? Iraq and the War on Terror.” The opponents were New Yorker magazine writer Mark Danner, author of “Massacre at El Mozote” and a professor at the UC-Berkeley journalism school, andChristopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair writer and former Nation columnist, whose latest book is “Why Orwell Matters.” The audience at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall heard out both speakers respectfully, leading one to wonder if any left-wing rowdies who might have been tempted to heckle the pro-war Hitchens were intimidated by his legendarily box-cutter-like wit. (One irrepressible Jacobite did interrupt the expat Brit with a cry of “Bullshit!” leading the moderator, J-School dean Orville Schell, to admonish the audience against such outbursts. To which Hitchens, who probably has an entire case of these verbal stilettos sharpened and ready to hand in his mental cupboard, calmly remarked, “I don’t seek protection from people who make animal noises.”) Judging by the applause, Danner’s dovish position was more popular, but the audience seemed surprisingly receptive to Hitchens’ arguments......................

http://www.salon.com/2003/01/30/debate_41/