Language Is the Warmonger’s First Victim

“Nonintervention” is a form of interference. ~Christopher Hitchens

One thing I will agree with is that non-intervention is a deliberate, alternative policy. It is not the absence of one. It is the refusal to shape the outcome of a conflict that has nothing to do with us. After dwelling at length at the start of his column on the misuse of words, Hitchens engages in far worse distortions of language in this one sentence than anything he criticizes. Non-intervention is the refusal to interfere. It is the refusal to make another country’s internal problems one’s own. Non-intervention in Libya means accepting that it doesn’t matter to the U.S. whether Gaddafi or the rebels win. This isn’t all that hard to accept, because it is true.