(SPECIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY)
"Obviously, @count18899. That is why he believed in WMD, when I didn't, and supported the Iraq war, when I didn't. No contest, really. Do you want to add that the wrong brother died (it's all included in the Twitter admission price), or are you quite done for the day?"
PETER HITCHENS TWITTER POST SATURDAY 1/28/2023 ABOUT HIS DIFFERENCES WITH HIS BROTHER THE LATE CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS OVER THE NOTION OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN IRAQ-LINK
In the aftermath of 9/11 it certainly made sense for US military to go after Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda organization in Afghanistan.
The two-decade campaign would cost billions and end up in a debacle as the Taliban forces that harbored bin Laden would return to power.
But another priority that quickly emerged from the Bush-Cheney Neoconservative policy makers was Iraq.
At the very least one could argue there was 'unfinished business" from the 1991 Gulf War but a bigger sales pitch was made on the basis of:
"Weapons of Mass Destruction"
being present in Iraq.
That was the pitch made to the people of the world and to the United Nations Security Council to justify military action in Iraq the war of 2003.
The Hitchens Brothers (Christopher and Peter) went their separate ways on this issue.
Both had left-wing backgrounds in their youth but Peter Hitchens decided to become a Christian who took Conservative positions on many issues while his brother Christopher kept his Leftist convictions to join the Neoconservative Crusade in the post-9/11 world.
Of course by the time the clock reached 2006 there were no WMD's to be found in Iraq but new stories found their way into the media indicating that Sadaam Hussein had shipped them to Syria.
In 2011 jihadists (the followers of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda) backed by Gulf Arab interests along with the UK and US began a war against the Assad government in Syria punctuated by constant concerns about the use of chemical weapons,
A one point an international effort was undertook to remove anything considered useful or associated with chemical weapons out of Syria a "compromise" as then President Barack Obama was pressured to take military action.
Once Donald Trump became President incidents (Khan Sheikoun 2017, Douma 2018) would happen which led to cruise missile strikes on Syria over the notion that chemical weapons had actually been used.
In September of 2018 with tensions high over the Douma Incident Peter Hitchens warned about a rush to war on the side of Sunni Muslim jihadist followers of bin Laden:
"The moralistic bloviation of Western leaders about Syria, Russia and Iran's parallel war against much the same sort of enemy as Russia and Assad face in Idlib is colossal hypocrisy...
Even more infuriating is their ridiculous insistence, (simply not backed by reliably researched facts, obtained through secure custody chains, a standard set for the OPCW by themselves) that the Assad state is guilty of previous chemical weapon use in Khan Sheikhoun and Douma"...
PART OF PETER HITCHENS BLOG ENTRY SEPTEMBER 11, 2018 (SCROLL DOWN AND CLICK OLDER POSTS TO GET TO SEPTEMBER 11, 2018 ENTRY ALSO NOTE ENTRIES SEPTEMBER 19-PAGE 1, SEPTEMBER 16 AND SEPTEMBER 15 ON PAGE 2 BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11 ENTRY)
OPCW stands for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons based in the Netherlands and following the 2018 Douma incident a probe was underway but it was clouded as was the probe into the earlier 2017 incident.
And after four plus years on Friday January 27th the OPCW is now claiming after the clouds over its chemical weapons probes in Syria that Syria's government was indeed responsible for the Douma incident which Syria vigorously maintains was staged by the jihadists and the British intelligence associated "White Helmets" Civil Defense group active during the Syrian Civil War...
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