El polémico

Christopher Hitchens en una entrevista principlamente dirigida a hablar sobre Irán, comenta sobre el paralelismo en cómo algunos medios británicos trataban la amenaza Nazi y los medios norteamericanos de hoy:

HH: Two minutes left. I'd like you to analyze the comparison between the American media today and the war, and the British media in the time of Baldwin and Chamberlain, particularly the Times of London, in their refusal to credit Churchill's warnings, and their allegiance. It's a little bit reverse, but I see that same ideological fervor in the media. Is that overstated?

CH: Yes, I'm afraid to say I think it is. I mean, the majority not just of the British, but also of the American media in that time believed that anything was better than war, which is of course a policy anyone's entitled to adopt at any time. And they essentially made the facts fit that idea.

HH: You don't think that's what's...

CH: I mean, the British press, the British conservative press, was much worse than that. It was much worse than pacifist or isolationist.

HH: Pro-German.

CH: In particular, the Times of London, yes, was openly pro-Nazi, or at the very least, pro-facist. I mean, it did believe that Hitler was the salvation of Germany, and had saved it from Communism, and might yet save Europe from Stalin. And so this was not, as what's often called, appeasement. I wrote a book about this, actually. It wasn't capitulation. The British ruling class is not pacifist. I can absolutely promise you it certainly wasn't then.

HH: Is the American ruling class now?

CH: It was infinitely worse. It wanted to make a military alliance with Hitler in order to preserve the British empire, and put down its rivals in Europe. I mean, it's far, far, far worse than blindness, or moral cowardice.