Peter Hitchens

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

.@raymasseytweets I have spent 60 years being astonished by the ignorance of Western Europeans about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its outcomes. But it was the Communist Soviet Union, not Russia. *That* is why left-dominated western opinion ignored or minimised it. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

No — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

My column tomorrow: A real conservative leader should yearn to end the disaster of comprehensives, not boast about having gone to one: https://t.co/lkKkyZIS8Z via @mailplus — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

Or perhaps 1967. I honestly wasn't keeping a diary. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

.@janexrj I always enjoy discussions about what happened to German imperialism. You might learn a bit from this lecture I gave some years ago: https://t.co/XUA7hE4mkv — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

1968, I think. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'But to buttress a doubtful policy with the hope that it will turn out all right on the distant night is an odd way to manage the choices that Europe faces in the here and now. Micawber rules, OK?'https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'Western defence officials whisper what cannot be said aloud. Does Nato really have a future at all? Is enlargement really no more than a substitute for policy, the thrashing about of an organisation which has lost its raison d’etre?' https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'Even the most ambitious Russian Fuhrer would find it hard to recreate the old Soviet threat in Europe ... By the time Russia emerges from its current ... disarray the US will be far ahead in the military technologies of the computer age.' https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'Russians may not think that the approach to their borders of the world’s most powerful military alliance constitutes an actual military threat. But they certainly regard it as a humiliating exploitation of their country’s current weakness.' https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'Above all, the matter got caught up in US electoral politics. There are 20m Americans of central European origin, concentrated in states whose vote can swing a presidential election. Both candidates in the 1996 election favoured Nato enlargement.' https://t.co/p1MZFFxKoy — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'The Russians feel badly used. We should forgive them. If they had done the same to us, we would denounce them bitterly.' https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'Western politicians didn't give their verbal assurances in bad faith. They did not imagine-at the time they didn't need to imagine-that they might soon want to enlarge Nato to include the Soviet Union’s former allies, and even some of it component parts' https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'Gorbachev had little choice. Germany unconstrained was unacceptable; so was Nato enlargement. He acquiesced to the least of the possible evils: a united Germany in an unexpanded Nato.' https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'In 1990 the west wanted above all to persuade the Russians to accept Nato membership for a reunited Germany. Western statesmen did not plan to expand Nato further to the east, and they so assured the Soviet leaders more than once.' https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'Thucydides’s first law of international relations: “They that have odds of power exact as much as they can, and the weak yield to such conditions as they can get.” https://t.co/p1MZFFxKoy — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'The threat from the Soviet Union ended in 1991. But we have not yet worked out how to bring Russia into a new European settlement. Russia is too large to join Nato and the EU, and it is too powerful to be ignored.' https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

'Every one of the peoples of eastern Europe remembers its sufferings as if they had happened yesterday. Each sees itself as the victim of its neighbours and forgets what it did itself.' https://t.co/p1MZFFxKoy — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

I beg everyone to read this extraordinarily prescient , informed and thoughtful article about the problem of post-Soviet Russia, published 25 years ago and still fresh. https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

@GaryJon69378372 Who are you thinking of? Not many of them play nice all-American types, do they? British actors at least until recently played snobs, figures from the past or Roman autocrats. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

3/3 @ethan_odin. As this argument has turned very personal, I think I am entitled to know who and what you are before taking it further. Who are you? For whom do you work? — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

2/3 @ethan_odin What about my 'lack of support' for the other combatants? I desire peace. I think all parties should seek it. I am a believing Christian and so think that war is very rarely justified. I also think there are many ways of starting wars. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

1/3 @ethan_odin. Yes, to 'protect Libyan civilians'( who then died in large numbers in the resulting war). I never 'agree to disagree' except on matters which can't be resolved by fact and reason . If you don't like atrocities, my advice is 'Don't start wars or prolong them'. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

@jimpettman.Cameron & Sarkozy probably did as much damage with their Libya adventure as Blair/Bush did with Syria.The 'humanitarian' excuse is extremely thin. To supposedly stop an alleged approaching massacre in Benghazi, they turned the whole country into a continuous massacre. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

.@GaryJon69378372 In any case, American register and cadence are quite different from the English equivalents. My way of speaking and arguing seems archaic to most American ears. Of course, I could adapt, but in doing so would lose part of myself. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

Obviously it would have been good to reach the much wider US audience, @GaryJon69378372. But Fox is a Murdoch broadcaster, essentially neo-conservative, whereas I am social democratic at home and anti-war abroad. The difference is profound. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

Not very well @GaryJon69378372 because any more than a very small amount of alcohol makes me unpleasantly ill. But my colleagues, once they realised this, didn't expect me to join in. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

My pleasure @GaryJon69378372 .Your questions were original and interesting, unlike so many that I am asked. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

In your humble opinion, @ethan_odin The creation of Kosovo is the first post-1945 border change in Europe achieved by violence. The Libyan action triggered a vast migration crisis and left that country in lawless chaos. — PolitiTweet.org

Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah

@ethan_odin. Gosh, I never realised the problems of ex-Yugoslavia were so simple and one-sided. AS for Libya I have no idea why it was necessary to blow small children to bits with bombs, or what creating anarchy in that country achieved. Scroll down here https://t.co/fB09cWS2wr — PolitiTweet.org