The Hitchman posted by Richard Seymour

That permanent revolutionary, Christopher Hitchens, enlightens us as to just how many more imperial interventions he expects of the US:

Christopher Hitchens: ... It's very important we find out and get better at response to failed state and rogue state combinations, because we're going to be doing this again. …

Tucker Carlson: Where are we doing this again?

Christopher Hitchens: Who knows? You're telling me this is not going to happen when the Assad family falls in Syria? There's a lot to go wrong in Syria, a great deal to go wrong in Iran, which is found to be cheating with its nukes and is run by the theocracy that has pushed the country into the ground. The ground we're gaining in Iraq, and one reason I support the war, is that the U.S. army is learning fantastically useful lessons in how to do this, as well as rebuilding. (Via Marc Mullholland )

So, its we now is it? After everything that Hitchens has said and done over the last two or three years, I still find myself shocked by this. Christopher Hitchens has seriously swallowed the neoconservative line, seriously accepts and actively promotes the notion of a vanguard America, defending democracy and preventing the rise of Islamist evil. The "fantastically useful lessons" currently accruing to US troops on the ground in Iraq are indeed multiple. One is, don't even think about it. The second is, go home now. The third is, don't ever listen to greasy charlatans filling your mind with head-rotting shite about you being a liberator again.

Less fanatical observers than Hitchens might be interested to know that June was a bloody month, one of the bloodiest so far in Iraq :

BAGHDAD - Nearly 400 Iraqis were killed and many more wounded last month as violence spiked ahead of Iraq regaining sovereignty, according health ministry figures released Thursday.

June saw 388 people killed and 1,680 wounded in attacks, military operations and armed clashes ahead of the June 28 handover of power, the ministry said.

Despite a brief lull in the bloodshed after the transfer, 120 Iraqis have been killed and 354 wounded in the past 10 days.