PZMyers on Hitchens - Iraq War

This dialogue happens at around 10:06

PZ talks about the Iraq war and how it was problematic that Hitchens was this eloquent speaker that was advocating for it.

PZ talks about his personal experience of studying with Iraqi and Iranian students and how this makes it personal for him and interferes with this dogmatic racist tendency of sweeping of everybody into a category that you have to kill.

TS: I find Hitchens views on Iraq to be a little a little different than that but i don't know if this is worth debating...

PZ: Well... yeah...

TS: ...a deceased persons views on on the Iraq war because I know where he was coming from - this perspective that what Hussein was doing was so bad that it needed to be stopped

PZ: RIGHT

TS: And i think obviously we went about it the worst possible way

It seems to me that PZ wasn't necessarily calling Hitchen a racist - but he was talking about this general racist tendency amongst supporters of the Iraq War to see Iraqis as less than human.

Thomas states that he believes that Hitchens had humanitarian reasons for wanting to depose Hussain and PZ responds: RIGHT