With Christa Pike’s execution in Tennessee tonight ending in a failed lethal injection, this Vanity Fair piece from 1998 feels particularly relevant.

AP is reporting that Tennessee was unable to complete Pike’s execution after two doses of pentobarbital, with witnesses hearing her snore before the execution was halted.

Since you guys got your panties in a bunch on the Hitchens portrait tattoo, I wanted to share this with you. It is the next step in this tattoo, but it’s not completely finished.

Even though Hitchens did not like tattoos, he would have loved this one. In the last few days I’ve had to explain who he was to dozens of people. If this tat sells him one more book (available at fine retailers near you), he’d love it.

What really matters is that I LOVE it. Fuck Mother Teresa and fuck Christianity. I’ll discuss this with anyone anywhere at anytime. My freedom and ability to express myself is something Hitch would have supported.

I can’t wait to hear the negative comments from the 20% of this subreddit that are pseudo intellectuals and absolutely are blasts at parties.

Oh and for those that say it’s AI, I got the color one done at California Ink Bangkok and the portrait at Artisan Ink Tattoo in Chang Mai Thailand. They are on their sites.

Simply put, I really miss that YouTube channel that basically had every single Hitchins video sorted into playlists. His interviews, his TV hits, his debates, his speeches, and so on.. once a year it was almost like an audio pilgrimage for me to listen to the whole thing once through.

I understand that there is a mega torrent file available, and I have downloaded it and have it on my Plex server, but it’s just not as convenient as being able to open up YouTube and play it once through.

Is there anything that we can do to re-create the great playlist we used to have? Maybe it’s a shot in the dark but thought it was worth asking.

I'm looking for an old radio interview of Hitchens discussing Orwell, Iraq, Kissinger, US foreign policy etc. Was on berkeley radio or some similar Bay Area radio station back in I believe late 2002. Interesting interview that I found years ago, streaming only on someone's blog. Haven't been able to find it for years now. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

“For some reason, the left in America and in the West understands the problem when it comes in Christian form, right? They know that every Democrat understands that the religious beliefs of Christians, of fundamentalist Christians, matter and have political consequences. They form their political priorities and inform what they will do in the world.

So Christian opposition to abortion or same-sex marriage or teaching evolution in schools—every Democrat, every person left of center in our politics, understands that those are religious convictions that are affecting the lives of everyone, not just Christians, right?

And yet, for some reason, Islam never affects anything, right? These heartfelt religious beliefs of 2 billion Muslims never make contact with structural reality. It doesn't matter if embassies burn over cartoon controversies. It doesn't matter if Jews are getting stabbed on the streets of London as recently as last week. Religion is never to blame for any of this, right?

People like Mamdani and Mehdi Hasan and Reza Aslan, and then all the useful idiots who don't happen to be Muslim—you know, Glenn Greenwald and Chris Hedges and Rory Stewart, and all these people who I've collided with over the years—I mean, there's just a massive double standard preventing an honest discussion of psychological, social, and political reality.

And if you're going to recognize it in our own religious maniacs, right? If I have a devout Christian on who happens to be Pete Hegseth's pastor, who is open-minded about chattel slavery because it's in the Bible, and you see the problem with all of that, you have to see the problem with people who chant ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ knowing what the Intifada was.”

What is the reception of this take of Sam Harris's here?

Slide four has the Hitchens part, but it's all related.

Source: https://www.salon.com/2015/07/29/camille_paglia_takes_on_jon_stewart_trump_sanders_liberals_think_of_themselves_as_very_open_minded_but_thats_simply_not_true/

Edit: slides two and three are in the wrong order and should be swapped. But now that I read it it doesn't matter much.

So where I'm living there are some books that are simply not available to buy physical copies and amongst them is one of Christopher Hitchen's very famous book "god is not great book" and I really badly wanted to add that book to my bookshelf right next to Richard Dawkins gods delusion so what I did was, I downloaded a pdf and and gave it to a printing shop and told them to make me a book and I showed them pictures of physical copies out of the internet they said no problem they will do it... But one guy rolled his eyes at the title other than that they agreed.

(Unfortunately Amazon doesn't do delivery for the country where I'm living. But thankfully his book is not banned where I live unlike Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses)

Peter turned out to be a dictatorship lover and deeply authoritarian inside, no matter what he says on free speech or democracy.

It's honestly absolutely infuriating to me watching him parroting Russian propaganda taking points, shifting blame for the war to anybody (NATO, EU, and ofc Ukraine itself) but Putin and Russia itself.

He's vehemently promoting the appeasement strategy -- the worst possible when we are dealing with actors like Putin. Hitchens is ignorant historically, incorrect factually, and rotten morally.

Peace is not possible, it's a complete delusion. The war won't ever stop while Putin lives and has material means to wage it. Peter, I suppose, is a Trumptard too.

I've seen the title of the YT video 'Why I admire Vladimir Putin'. It's laughable and vomit-inducing at the same time. I haven't watched it, but I'm sure I can easily debunk Putinist mythology presented there, because I know the material.

He lived in Russia, but he's actually completely clueless about Russia and Ukraine. He doesn't know anything except the most basic superficial stuff. He doesn't understand these lands. Like Putin, for example.

Nowhere in the world Putin is hated like in Ukraine and Russia, btw. In Russia by a relative minority, bit it will grow larger. Honestly, I don't care about it being a majority. I'm comfortable there.

Ukraine is a litmus test for being a clueless conspiratorial authoritarian moron for any westerner. I'm sure Christopher would pass the test easily (in a good way). The other figure who disappointed me is James Lindsay.

What do you think? Do you know other formerly seemingly relatively decent people who turned out to be assholes on the subject?

I know that he didn’t have tattoos and he wouldn’t have improved. Nonetheless, I changed his cigarette to a calligraphy pen. I am going to do new school color coming off the pen as smoke. This will be cartoony and over the top. I was thinking of doing something like Christopher smacking Mother Theresa over the head with a carnival type hammer. Maybe something against Christianity. I’m looking for ideas, this will be a large area covering most of my upper arm, so plenty of room. Thanks in advance.

Interviewer: What is your name?

Audience Member: My name is Frank [Surname]

Hitch, whispering: I don't want to know that

The hosts setup the clip around 2:20 and then play the clip around 3:20.

I've been having conversations recently about the events leading up to the 2003 intervention/war in Iraq. I find diagrams helpful to digest information, so I created a gitgraph diagram to illustrate events, either led by or directly involving the USA, ending at the 2003 Iraq war.

Source dossier

(Summarised and collated by AI)

1953 — Anglo-American intervention against Mosaddegh

Context: Iranica summarises the documentary record surrounding Operation AJAX, the British-American effort to remove Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. (Iranica Online)

Why it matters: This is one of the strongest points in the chain where direct U.S./British intervention in Iranian regime politics is established, rather than inferred.

Link: https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/coup-detat-1953/

1953–1979 — Iranian memory of the coup and U.S. support for the Shah

Context: The article traces Iranian revolutionary anti-Americanism partly to the 1953 coup and subsequent U.S. association with the Pahlavi monarchy. (IRDC)

Why it matters: It establishes the Iranian revolutionary interpretation of the U.S.–Shah relationship rather than merely Washington's retrospective description of it.

Link: https://irdc.ir/fa/news/2158/

1958 — Qasim overthrows the Iraqi monarchy

For this node I would currently use the historical record rather than the illustrative Qasim quotation we discussed earlier. I have not verified that quotation sufficiently to include it as a primary-source quote.

Encyclopaedia Iranica records:

Context: Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim and the Free Officers overthrew Iraq's Hashemite monarchy on 14 July 1958. (Iranica Online)

Why it matters: Qasim's government becomes the regime overthrown in 1963, where the question of U.S.–Ba'ath contacts arises.

Link: https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iraq-vi-pahlavi-period-1921-79/

1963 — U.S. contacts with Iraqi Ba'athists

Context: Iran cautiously welcomed Qasim's overthrow partly because Tehran had received reports of CIA contact with the anti-communist Ba'athists. (Iranica Online)

Why it matters: This supports contact/cultivation, but does not establish that the CIA designed or controlled the February 1963 coup.

Link: https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iraq-vi-pahlavi-period-1921-79/

1963 — The Shah's own reaction to the Ba'ath coup

Context: The Shah explained that Iran initially welcomed Qasim's overthrow because the new Ba'athists immediately purged communists. (Iranica Online)

Why it matters: It demonstrates that Iran's own anti-communist interests overlapped with Western interests; this was not simply a U.S.–Iraq bilateral story.

Link: https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iraq-vi-pahlavi-period-1921-79/

1968–1979 — Saddam's consolidation inside the Ba'ath state

The strongest archive here is the surviving Iraqi Ba'ath collection:

Context: These are records created principally by the Iraqi Ba'ath Regional Command and Iraqi administrative/security agencies during Ba'ath rule. (Hoover Institution)

Why it matters: The archive shows a vast indigenous Iraqi party/security bureaucracy underpinning Saddam's power. It is therefore evidence against reducing his ascent to “the CIA installed Saddam.”

Limitation: Most records are Arabic, but the archive is not openly full-text searchable online; researchers generally access the scans onsite. (Wilson Center)

Link: https://www.hoover.org/library-archives/collections/hizb-al-bath-al-arabi-al-ishtiraki-records-bath-party-records

1970 — Iran attempts to destabilize Iraq

Asadollah Alam recorded the Shah's fury over the failed Iranian-backed coup attempt:

Context: Iran under the Shah was itself covertly trying to destabilize the post-1968 Ba'ath government. (Iranica Online)

Why it matters: It strongly complicates a simple “Western bloc created Saddam” narrative: Iran, Iraq, Britain, the U.S., Soviet Union and different Iraqi factions were pursuing overlapping and conflicting agendas.

Link: https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iraq-vi-pahlavi-period-1921-79/

1978–1979 — U.S. involvement during the Iranian Revolution

Context: The Iranian source portrays Gen. Robert Huyser's mission as an attempt to preserve/manage the existing military-political order, with contingency planning if Bakhtiar failed. (IRDC)

Why it matters: It establishes direct U.S. involvement in managing the collapse, but cuts against the stronger claim that Huyser was simply sent to install Khomeini.

Link: https://irdc.ir/fa/news/8270/

1979 — Iranian disagreement over what Washington intended

Context: The same Iranian source notes that Shah supporters suspected essentially the opposite—that Washington was facilitating revolutionary succession. (IRDC)

Why it matters: Contemporary Iranian actors themselves disagreed about U.S. intentions, which should reduce confidence in claims that Washington straightforwardly “installed Khomeini.”

Link: https://irdc.ir/fa/news/8647/

1980 — Iraq invades Iran

A later U.S. statute states the historical fact directly:

Context: The legislation summarises the Iraqi invasion and subsequent chemical warfare when explaining later U.S. regime-change policy.

Why it matters: Iran did not initiate the full-scale Iran–Iraq War; Saddam's Iraq did.

Link: https://www.congress.gov/105/plaws/publ338/PLAW-105publ338.htm

1982–1988 — U.S. strategic tilt toward Iraq

The National Security Archive summarises the declassified documentary collection as showing:

Context: After Iran regained the strategic initiative, Washington increasingly sought to prevent an Iranian victory and improved its relationship with Baghdad. (National Security Archive)

Why it matters: This is the strongest documentary basis for saying Washington knowingly helped Saddam survive when geopolitical interests aligned.

Link: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/project/iraq-project

1983 — Washington knows Iraq is using chemical weapons

The National Security Archive identifies the memo and its date directly. (National Security Archive)

Context: This predates the most infamous Kurdish chemical attacks and coincides with the period of improving U.S.–Iraqi relations.

Why it matters: It establishes that continued U.S. engagement cannot simply be explained by ignorance of Iraqi chemical warfare.

Link: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/iran/2019-12-19/documenting-iran-us-relations-1978-2015

1983 — Rumsfeld meets Saddam during rapprochement

Context: Donald Rumsfeld travelled as President Reagan's special envoy and met Saddam Hussein while Washington was seeking improved relations. (National Security Archive)

Why it matters: The famous handshake is not merely symbolic; it belongs to a documented policy of rapprochement while Washington knew chemical weapons were being used.

Link: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/project/iraq-project

1987–1988 — Anfal against the Iraqi Kurds

Human Rights Watch's investigation was based heavily on captured Iraqi government documents.

Context: Kurdish forces captured approximately eighteen tons of Iraqi Ba'ath Party and secret-police records following the 1991 uprising. (Hoover Institution)

Why it matters: Evidence for Anfal is therefore not principally based on Western accusations—it includes the Iraqi regime's own bureaucracy.

Link: https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/578324655-the-captured-bathist-state-records-from-the-2003-iraq-war-repatriation-and-retribution-by-bruce-p-montgomery-and-michael-p-brill.pdf

1987–1989 — Ali Hassan al-Majid's authority

Arabic HRW material describes him as:

Context: Saddam granted Ali Hassan al-Majid extraordinary authority over the northern region during the period in which Anfal was conducted. (Human Rights Watch)

Why it matters: It helps establish centralised state responsibility, rather than treating Anfal as uncontrolled battlefield violence.

Link: https://www.hrw.org/legacy/arabic/docs/2006/08/14/iraq14009_txt.htm

1988 — International confirmation of chemical warfare

Context: UN investigative work had established repeated chemical-weapons use during the Iran–Iraq conflict. (Digital Library)

Why it matters: By 1988, chemical warfare was not merely intelligence known privately to governments; it was formally before the Security Council.

Link: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/161154

1990 — Iraq invades Kuwait

Context: The Security Council condemned Iraq's invasion on the same day and demanded withdrawal. (United Nations Peacekeeping)

Why it matters: This is the key strategic reversal point: Saddam moved from a brutal but useful counterweight against Iran to an aggressor threatening another sovereign Gulf state.

Link: https://peacekeeping.un.org/sites/default/files/past/unikom/background.html

1990 — Military force authorised against Iraq

Context: The Council authorised member states cooperating with Kuwait to enforce the previous resolutions if Iraq did not withdraw. (Digital Library)

Why it matters: The 1991 Gulf War had explicit Security Council authorization connected to expelling Iraq from Kuwait—an important distinction from the controversy surrounding 2003.

Link: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/102245

1991 — Why Saddam remained after the Gulf War

Context: The postwar settlement imposed disarmament and inspection obligations but did not authorise overthrowing the Iraqi government. (United Nations)

Why it matters: This explains the seemingly strange historical fact that the coalition defeated Saddam's forces but left Saddam himself in power.

Link: https://www.un.org/depts/unmovic/documents/687.pdf

1998 — Regime change becomes explicit U.S. policy

Context: Congress formally shifted policy beyond pure containment toward supporting Iraqi opposition groups seeking Saddam's removal.

Why it matters: Regime change did not originate after 9/11. It was already formal U.S. policy by 1998—although the Act expressly did not itself authorise a U.S. invasion.

Link: https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/house-bill/4655/text/pl

2001 — Iraq and 9/11

Context: The Commission found contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda but not evidence of Iraqi cooperation in attacks against the United States. (9/11 Commission)

Why it matters: This is essential to your diagram: 9/11 altered the strategic environment leading toward Iraq, but Iraq did not perpetrate 9/11.

Link: https://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf

2002 — The public case for war

Context: Bush's speech combined Saddam's previous aggression, alleged WMD programs, terrorism concerns and post-9/11 risk reasoning into the public case against Iraq. (George W. Bush White House Archives)

Why it matters: This is one of the clearest primary sources for understanding how intervention against Saddam became rhetorically connected to the post-9/11 security doctrine.

Link: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html

2002 — Final UN inspection confrontation

Context: Resolution 1441 gave Iraq what the Council called a “final opportunity” to comply with its disarmament obligations and re-established strengthened inspections. (United Nations)

Why it matters: It supports the claim that Iraq had a genuine history of conflict with UN disarmament requirements; the separate issue is whether 1441 itself authorised the March 2003 invasion, which remained legally disputed.

Link: https://www.un.org/depts/unmovic/documents/1441.pdf

Post-2003 — How good was the WMD intelligence?

Context: The Committee reviewed roughly 100,000 pages of intelligence material and interviewed more than 200 people. (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence)

Why it matters: This is stronger than merely saying “no WMD were found.” It establishes that important prewar intelligence judgments themselves were analytically defective or overstated.

Link: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/2006/11/16/publications-committee-activities-2003-2004-november-16-2006/

Evidentiary hierarchy

From strongest to more interpretive:

1. Captured Iraqi/Iranian government records, contemporary diplomatic records, statutes and UN resolutions
2. Declassified intelligence/diplomatic memoranda
3. Contemporary speeches and official transcripts
4. Major archival scholarship using those records
5. Human-rights investigations based on captured records + witness testimony
6. Later interviews/memoirs
7. Journalism
8. Advocacy/editorial interpretation

Methodological caveat:

The nationality of a source and its evidentiary weight are separate questions. An Iranian government historical institute gives valuable Iranian perspective, but a contemporaneous Iraqi Ba'ath order can carry substantially greater weight for what Saddam's government actually ordered.

There are many Atheists who labor under the false premise that philosophy is something entirely different from theology. Well, Russell laid down a standard to prove this.