Hitchens Screed

Christopher Hitchens has an insulting article over at Slate, taking the New York Times to task for using the term 'insurgents' to describe fighters in Iraq. To Hitchens, everything in Iraq is either bin Ladenist (Zarqawi) or Baathist: black and white, no gray, no need for thought. To Hitchens, people who insist upon looking deeper into Iraqi politics must be fools.

One of the interesting things about Iraq is that many, perhaps most, of the fighters are neither associated with Zarqawi or Saddam's old regime. There are a number of fighters of all stripes (Muqtada al Sadr's cadre to start, plus various salafists). It's inexcusable for Hitchens to take such a thuggish attitude to anyone else who might want to spend more than five minutes trying to puzzle it all out. If the New York Times wants to use the fairly-bland overarching term 'insurgents,' it's fine with me: just don't use the unhelpful, overused, undescriptive term 'terrorists.'

When did Hitchens become such a jerk? Why does he mock Orwell, with his straw men arguments and jackboot mentality?