In a brilliant essay on the death of Osama bin Laden, Christopher Hitchens insists that the necessity to resist the threat of theocratic fanaticism is by no means cancelled. Hitchens argues that bin Laden and his adherents represented the most serious and determined and bloodthirsty attempt to revive totalitarian and racist ideology since 1945. Further, that while the unending struggle for reason is entitled to take some especial comfort in his demise, the values of secularism, libertarianism, internationalism, and solidarity will always need to be defended and reaffirmed.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Celebrated polemicist Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, reflects upon the life and death of Osama bin Laden in The Enemy. This isn't the first time Hitchens has turned his barbed pen on a despot guilty of drinking too much of his own Kool-Aid. But "bin Ladenism," he argues, like other nihilistic movements, is ultimately doomed to fail. Lest you take any comfort from this assertion, he is then quick to remind us that "the war against superstition and the totalitarian mentality is an endless" one. It's a war Hitchens thinks is worth fighting, though, and this rousing Kindle Single serves as his call to arms. --Erin Kodicek
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
124 of 130 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I've been a big fan of Hitchens and have loved reading his articles on Slate.com. It hass been good to see that whatever toll his cancer is taking on him, his writing has not skipped a beat.
Hitchens does a very erudite take down of Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, and his protectors in Pakistan. Hitchens gives a good biography of Bin Laden. I learned quite a bit that I hadn't known about his childhood and his time in Afghanistan. He compares Bin Laden's dream of an Islamic state to the desires of the Fascists in the 1940s and draws some very good comparisons. Hitchens, as always, doesn't pull any punches in condemning everyone alive or dead who had anything to do with the rise of Bin Laden or his place in the media as the face of Islamic extremism. He explains how the life and death of Bin Laden are actually small potatoes, compared to the fact that there are thousands that are of like mind that are still alive. Of course, another threat is that our politicians are completely unable to be up to the task of setting real priorities, or to speak in frank language about how people living in medieval Islamic kingdoms are not allowed to live lives as human beings and will live and die in slavery.
The most gratifying part of this short is that Hitchens got to write the obituary for this pathetic wretch. It was a perfect half-hour read and well worth the time and pocket change it took to enjoy it. Keep well Mr. Hitchens and may you live to write the obituary of many more of these evil thugs.
Hitchens does a very erudite take down of Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, and his protectors in Pakistan. Hitchens gives a good biography of Bin Laden. I learned quite a bit that I hadn't known about his childhood and his time in Afghanistan. He compares Bin Laden's dream of an Islamic state to the desires of the Fascists in the 1940s and draws some very good comparisons. Hitchens, as always, doesn't pull any punches in condemning everyone alive or dead who had anything to do with the rise of Bin Laden or his place in the media as the face of Islamic extremism. He explains how the life and death of Bin Laden are actually small potatoes, compared to the fact that there are thousands that are of like mind that are still alive. Of course, another threat is that our politicians are completely unable to be up to the task of setting real priorities, or to speak in frank language about how people living in medieval Islamic kingdoms are not allowed to live lives as human beings and will live and die in slavery.
The most gratifying part of this short is that Hitchens got to write the obituary for this pathetic wretch. It was a perfect half-hour read and well worth the time and pocket change it took to enjoy it. Keep well Mr. Hitchens and may you live to write the obituary of many more of these evil thugs.
51 of 56 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Christopher Hitchens. Polemicist. Certainly an apt description of one of times most talented, erudite, and perplexing wordsmiths. Hitchens has an uncanny ability to annoy just about everyone, but always to the delight of everyone else. His world view is perplexing, defying any convenient label. In his obituary on Osama bin Laden he not only skewers those in the West who hold the late al-Qaeda leader as a sort of latter-day Che Guevara, but properly frames the conflict. In this, his argument is not far afield from that of Victor Davis Hanson. This is not a "war against terrorism", this is a battle to preserve the Western way of life. bin Ladenism, in Hitchens' view, has succeeded in the same way that Hitler and Nazi fascism thrived. In buoying the hopes of the disenfranchised he has helped perpetuate abject poverty, the treatment of women as chattel, and an extreme fundamentalist religion.
In typical Hitchens fashion he pulls no punches, landing hard blows simultaneously against "enhanced interrogation techniques" and the misogynistic views of fundamental Islam. In this brief, yet pungent article, Hitchens posits that we have made more of bin Laden than he deserves and that bin Laden himself, far from being an educated mastermind of terror, made the grievous error of waking the sleeping giant, a misstep that caused not only his death and those of his followers, but countless innocents, often at the hands of al-Qaeda itself.
Christopher Hitchens, who became an American citizen following the tragedy of September 11th, is simply an American treasure.
In typical Hitchens fashion he pulls no punches, landing hard blows simultaneously against "enhanced interrogation techniques" and the misogynistic views of fundamental Islam. In this brief, yet pungent article, Hitchens posits that we have made more of bin Laden than he deserves and that bin Laden himself, far from being an educated mastermind of terror, made the grievous error of waking the sleeping giant, a misstep that caused not only his death and those of his followers, but countless innocents, often at the hands of al-Qaeda itself.
Christopher Hitchens, who became an American citizen following the tragedy of September 11th, is simply an American treasure.
30 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This essay gives the late Osama Bin Laden exactly what he had coming: the contempt and anger of the civilized world. This is Hitchens in top form, and is one of the best things he has ever written.
Highly recommended!
Highly recommended!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Worth $2
I have a lot of love for Christopher Hitchens, not necessarily because I agree with everything he says, but because he was a smart man who always told the truth as he saw it. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Jamison E. Ousley
Brilliant, robust reminder of what bin Laden meant to the global...
Christopher Hitchens' well-honed and well-worn blade has been put to many individuals throughout his extensive (though, now we must realize, always too short) career, and now one... Read more
Published 4 months ago by R. Smith
Good overveiw
This read puts Bin Laden in an historical perpective. But there were few new facts in this reading that I did not already know. Read more
Published 10 months ago by G. NOME
Hitchens has not learned the lessons of September the 11th
In "The Enemy," Hitchens attempts to refute veteran CIA analyst Michael Scheuer's view that Osama bin Laden demonstrated `"patience, brilliant planning, managerial expertise, sound... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Bill Tidd
Enemy down
Kindle Singles are inexpensive novellas, stories, essays, and other short-form literary offerings available for a song in the Kindle Store. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Joseph P. Menta, Jr.
Excellent, but bring a dictionary
As others stated better than I would, it was a great read - but that's assuming you are well-read and have a pretty decent vocabulary. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Margolis
Atheists who believe the 911 fairy tale
Who would have thought it? There truly is a niche for everyone.
Here we have the rabid atheist joining with rabid Christians in spewing hatred for the fall guy for the... Read more
Here we have the rabid atheist joining with rabid Christians in spewing hatred for the fall guy for the... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Jack Of Alltrades
The last word
The last paragraph and indeed the very last sentence of this essay are worth reading over and over. The value well exceeds the price.
Published 12 months ago by R. Hotchkiss
A lucid assessment of Bin Laden's totalitarian project. Hitchens at...
Christopher Hitchens gives a lucid summary of Bin Laden's career: his totalitarian project, the nature of his personality, the effects of his murderous campaigns, the response the... Read more
Published 12 months ago by K-TRON
Christopher continues to excite!
It is so great to see Hitchens remain current and fluid in his thinking about current topics as well as his continuing crusade. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Dana Camp-Farber
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More About the Author
Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was the author of Letters to a Young Contrarian, and the bestseller No One Left to Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family. A regular contributor to Vanity Fair, The Atlantic Monthly and Slate, Hitchens also wrote for The Weekly Standard, The National Review, and The Independent, and appeared on The Daily Show, Charlie Rose, The Chris Matthew's Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, and C-Span's Washington Journal. He was named one of the world's "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Britain's Prospect.
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The war against superstition and the totalitarian mentality is an endless war.
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Osama bin Ladens writings and actions constitute a direct negation of human liberty, and vent an undisguised hatred and contempt for life itself.
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As Bertold Brechts character says over the corpse of the terrible Arturo Ui, the bitch that bore him is always in heat.
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