A faction willing to take the risks of making war on the ossified status quo in the Middle East can be described as many things, but not as conservative.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that those willing to challenge entrenched power structures in the Middle East cannot be labeled as conservative.
Christopher Hitchens asserts that any group or faction that is prepared to engage in conflict against the established and rigid systems of power in the Middle East should not be classified as conservative. This suggests that true conservatism entails a desire to maintain the status quo rather than disrupt it, and therefore those advocating for significant change, even through warfare, are fundamentally aligned with more revolutionary ideals rather than conservative ones.
In practice
In a debate on foreign policy, one might quote Hitchens to argue against traditional conservative approaches to international relations.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way β because itβs had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But youβve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
The marginalized did not create identity politics: their identities have been forced on them by dominant groups, and politics is the most effective method of revolt.
For what were all these country patriots born? To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of corn?
Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions β everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.
If we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we've got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship.
The abortion cases produced an enormous amount of mail to my chambers, vastly more than to the other chambers, I am sure. I sometimes thought there wasn't a woman in the United States who didn't write me a letter on one side or the other of that issue.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.