Christopher Hitchens was a contradictory character with some iffy politics, but among his best work were the attacks on the now late but very much lamented (by, among others, Tony Blair) Henry Kissinger. It's because this repugnant creature was never held to account for his crimes that today war crimes are committed with impunity by Netanyahu's government and the Israeli military. Who's going to hold them responsible for the needless death and destruction they have caused?
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Without wishing to indulge in whatabouterry, he is only really repugnant if he's held to a higher moral standard than all his peers. I won't speculate on the reasons for this specific double standard, I've made my views on this type of moral relativism clear elsewhere. Without wishing to sound amoral, a lot of the criticism comes out of facile anti-[Western] Imperialism schtick. 'Imperialism' never, ever, exists in a vacuum, it's always a contest between actors with agency. As morally ambiguous as he was he pursued the interests of his side, in the same way as his counterparts in the Soviet Empire, and the Chinese and all their various proxies and satellites did.
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