Christopher Hitchens Beaten by Syrian Nazi Types

Strange story from Ace of Spades:

I wasn't there. I was there, however, for the immediate after-action report, and have heard it told ten times by now, including most of it from Hitchens. Although I didn't really bother asking much, as I'd already heard it.

Hitch and two others were out on some or such errand. One guy was just telling Hitchens that the Syrian Nazi party had little support in the country but was paid by Syria to kill people, and that he'd been told they're the one party you don't fuck with.

So five minutes later they come across the poster for the Syrian Nazi Party on an abandoned bagel shop -- abandoned, if I had this right, after Hezballah had attacked it last year due to the overly Jewish connotations of bagelry.

So Hitchens immediately takes out a pen and writes "No, no, Fuck You" on the poster. I don't know if he'd digested the story and decided to fuck with them anyway, or else he was just reacting to the modified swastika on the poster.

Now, the Syrian Nazis are not popular and neighborhoods have tried to get their posters taken down. But then they threaten people and cause problems.

So the state leaves them up. To avoid getting their posters defaced or torn down, they post a paid Nazi watcher to keep an eye on their posters.

Well, when this Syrian Nazi goon saw Hitch do this, he confronted him and kinda-sorta attacked him. I say kinda sorta attacked, because what his main intent was was to delay Hitchens from leaving -- until the ten Nazi goons he had just texted on his cell phone could arrive.

There was some kicking and pulling and hitting. Hitch and the others attempted to get into a cab -- the Syrian Nazi goon got right in the cab with them, still hitting Hitchens. They could not force him out. Eventually they all exited, and attempted to get a fresh cab, but other cabbies were now hip to the fact the Syrian Nazis had been riled and wanted no business from them, so two cabs passed refusing their fare.

Now at this point the ten Nazi goons showed up (about five minutes into this-- they came quickly) and Hitch and the other two were probably going to get the crap beaten out of them, at best. However, they finally managed to get a cabbie who was either brave or didn't know the trouble he was getting into and got in, this time without the goon, and left the other ten behind.

Now, as far as the damage Hitch suffered, it wasn't much. He did get some lumps -- a knock on the leg, a scrape on the face. And also his writing hand had been stomped on. He'd been roughed up a bit, but didn't have "the shit beaten out of him." If I hadn't been told the story I wouldn't have known he'd been fucked with at all. Apart from a bit of pain walking and some more pain typing, he was fine.

So, that's the story. I was holding off on it until we were out of the country, but some rat we ran into apparently began blabbing it to his rat-like kin.

And to be honest, I'm personally kinda sick of hearing it myself, and it felt like gossip, but as the early reports are wrong in the details, I'll have a go.

It didn't happen in a bar. It happened mid-day on the street. It wasn't a drunken brawl. I have no idea if Hitchens had drank at all, but if he had, it was like his typical lunch-time bloody mary. (I'm not saying he didn't get drunk-- just not then.)

And no one had the shit beaten out of him. The lefty bloggers saying they've "confirmed" this are apparently talking to people not in a position to confirm it at all.