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Home Front: Culture Wars
Christopher Hitchens to become US citizen this month
2006-06-14
Welcome, Hitch. We're proud you've chosen us; any nation surely would be enriched by you. Hat tip to Mark in Mexico. There's a lot in this article, I cut it just to the citizen stuff but encourage you to read the rest:
...At 57, the Oxford grad with the brooding look of Richard Burton has spent nearly half his life in the United States on a green card (and has three American daughters to show for it). "This being the generous country that it is, I was quite prepared to go on as an Anglo-American. I don't particularly want to vote. But after September 11th, I thought I was cheating on my dues."

Unlike other expat legends—rock stars Bono and Neil ("Shock & Awe") Young come to mind—who fashion themselves as U.S. foreign policy experts while keeping their citizenship and their vote elsewhere, Mr. Hitchens had a change of heart after terrorists attacked New York and Washington. He watched the Pentagon burn from the rooftop of his apartment in northern Virginia and later lost a mailman to anthrax. So one day this month he will walk into a government office just outside Washington, pledge his allegiance to the United States of America, and become a citizen.

"I realized that when I was reading arguments after 9/11 that said there was the American view and there was the European view—that sort of tripe—that as far as I could tell the American view is the one that I took. I felt a much stronger identification than I had before," Mr. Hitchens tells WORLD. "Before I was ready to curse alone. I was an outsider in both countries. But it felt like, feels like, is a gesture of solidarity."

Solidarity with what, exactly, in a country cleanly divided over war in Iraq and led by a president whose policy toward terrorism has dropped his poll numbers into the dustbin?

"It's fallen on the United States to be the country that resists the renewal of barbarism, of religious barbarism in the world," Mr. Hitchens answers. "It doesn't particularly want the job, it doesn't do it terribly well—and I think would have escaped it if it could—but there's something about the United States that makes it both hated and antagonistic to this barbarism." He adds, "If one wants to defend the deployment of forces of fellow citizens, one probably ought to be a fellow citizen."

As a journalist Mr. Hitchens extensively covered the Bosnian war and the Gulf War, yet describes 9/11 as "an exhilarating moment" because it crystallized his views. "Everything I hate is on one side, and everything I love is on the other. I'm never going to get bored with this."
Posted by:Seafarious

#4  "Everything I hate is on one side, and everything I love is on the other.

I'll drink to that!
Posted by: Besoeker   2006-06-14 11:18  

#3  I'm pretty sure Hitch will celebrate his new status with a drink or two more than a regular day. And that's probably quite a few beverages.
Posted by: JAB   2006-06-14 11:14  

#2  well...ok Hitch. But if you really want to experience the American way - don't allow all of this puff piece press go mak'n you think that you are special. That's the real American way. Don't know if you can handle that aspect or not - but good luck to ya.
Posted by: 2b   2006-06-14 06:29  

#1  Stay West, young man.
Posted by: no mo uro   2006-06-14 06:14  

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