And He Got the Trains to Run On Time Too (Part 2)

Hitchens on Ramsey Clark:

He has now twice said in public that, given the war with the Shiite republic of Iran, Hussein was entitled to take stern measures. "He had this huge war going on, and you have to act firmly when you have an assassination attempt," he told the BBC.

To this he calmly added that he himself had more than once been shoved aside by Secret Service agents eager to defend the president of the United States (and of course one remembers the mass arrests, beatings and executions that followed the assassination attempts on presidents Ford and Reagan). It is as if Hussein had not started, by his illegal, blood-soaked invasion of Iran, the "huge war" that Clark cites as the excuse for Hussein then turning his guns on Iraqis.

[...]

Now, one of the best-known spokesmen for the antiwar cause(*) appears across the world's TV screens, openly saying that the Hussein system was justified all along in its aggression abroad and its fascism at home.

(*) Clark is the founder of ANSWER, the leading US anti-war grouping. More at Wikipedia, including the long list of defendants he's worked for.

EDIT: Via Marc Cooper's article "The Trouble with Ramsey", a quote from Jon "Daily Show" Stewart:

He needs a new business card. "Ramsey Clark - Defending Sick Fucks Since 1980."

Technorati tags: Ramsey Clark, Christopher Hitchens, Iraw.