Review: Hitchens at his best
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 16, 2011
I've been a big fan of Hitchens and have loved reading his articles on Slate.com. It hass been good to see that whatever toll his cancer is taking on him, his writing has not skipped a beat.Hitchens does a very erudite take down of Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, and his protectors in Pakistan. Hitchens gives a good biography of Bin Laden. I learned quite a bit that I hadn't known about his childhood and his time in Afghanistan. He compares Bin Laden's dream of an Islamic state to the desires of the Fascists in the 1940s and draws some very good comparisons. Hitchens, as always, doesn't pull any punches in condemning everyone alive or dead who had anything to do with the rise of Bin Laden or his place in the media as the face of Islamic extremism. He explains how the life and death of Bin Laden are actually small potatoes, compared to the fact that there are thousands that are of like mind that are still alive. Of course, another threat is that our politicians are completely unable to be up to the task of setting real priorities, or to speak in frank language about how people living in medieval Islamic kingdoms are not allowed to live lives as human beings and will live and die in slavery.The most gratifying part of this short is that Hitchens got to write the obituary for this pathetic wretch. It was a perfect half-hour read and well worth the time and pocket change it took to enjoy it. Keep well Mr. Hitchens and may you live to write the obituary of many more of these evil thugs.