Wednesdays With Charlie

Last week I attended the debate on the Iraq war between Seyla Benhabib and Charles "I was having lunch with Henry Kissinger" Hill. I took a bunch of notes and was all set to blog about the thing...but then work intervened. Now that we're several years removed from it in blog-time, I just want to commit a few observations to hyper-print.

First, as a friend said to me after the debate, "[Hill's] summary of middle Eastern history indicates a lack of education." He seems to think that the fall of the Ottoman Empire had an inexplicably destabilizing effect on the psyches of all people whose skin color ranges from taupe-41 to burnt sienna. Hill's theory of the Iraq war---that it had nothing to do with either humanitarian intervention or with pre-emption, but was merely an enforcement of UN resolutions---might sound unfamiliar, since it's completely detached from the arguments offered by the administration before the war. And even if we were to accept Hill's ex post facto revisionism (and we shouldn't), the relevant UN resolutions authorized the use of extreme measures pending Security Council acknowledgement that the previous resolutions had been violated in a manner justifying the use of force, not pending US/UK non-debatable determination that the use-of-force clause had been activated. Finally, it must be news to most of the president's supporters that the war had nothing to do with making 'Merica safer or with liberating the Eye-rak-ees, but with enforcing the rule of international law and the will of the UN.

The best line of the night, apropos of nothing to do with the debate, was another friend's estimate of his future career: "In 10 or 20 years, when it's socially acceptable, I'm going to be the rap critic for the Times Literary Supplement." It might be sooner than that.

Here's the Charles Hill drinking game:

• Whenever Hill says Dante, take a drink.
  
• Whenever Hill says Milton, take a drink.
• Whenever Hill refers to his work in the UN, take a shot.
• Whenever Hill refers to his work in the State Department, take a shot.
• Whenever Hill begins a speech by talking about the importance of the theoretical approach to foreign policy, and proceeds to make an argument on the basis of strung together self-glorifying anecdotes, take a shot of premium scotch.
• Whenever Hill refers to a program he worked on that turned out to be an abject failure, pound tequila until you boot.
• Whenever Hill talks about the (U.S.) presidents he knows, do a line of coke.
• Whenever Hill mentions Henry Kissinger, fellate the first semi-senescent war criminal you can find.