On Listening: Friedman in NY Times

"There was a headline that grabbed me in The Times on Saturday. It said, "Cheney Lashes Out at Critics of Policy on Iraq."

"Wow," I thought, "that must have been an interesting encounter." Then I read the fine print. Mr. Cheney was speaking to 200 invited guests at the conservative Heritage Foundation — and even they were not allowed to ask any questions. Great. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein issue messages from their caves through Al Jazeera, and Mr. Cheney issues messages from his bunker through Fox. America is pushing democracy in Iraq, but our own leaders won't hold a real town hall meeting or a regular press conference."

--snip--

"To begin with, listening might actually force the Bush team to frame its vision of U.S. foreign policy and its rationale for the Iraq war on our hopes for the world, not just our fears of it. Every other word out of this administration's mouth now is "terror" or "terrorism." We have stopped exporting hope, the most important commodity America has. We now export only fear, so we end up importing everyone else's fears right back."

--snip--
"Unfortunately, in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza — where some really sick terrorists claimed three U.S. lives yesterday — the Bush team has decided to fall in behind Ariel Sharon's failed strategy of only listening to the terrorists and postponing any initiatives until they are all defeated. So the only voice we hear there is that of the terrorists. No alternative reality is being built to smother or counter them, and that's just what the terrorists want. "

(Moderators, hope I did this right-only used 4 paragraphs)

Read the rest at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/16/opinion/16FRIE.html?th

to anyone with a position different from their own???

I hope all those bridges Tommy is sucker enough into buying in Brooklyn isn't putting to much of a crimp in his wallet