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Can Little Tommy Remember WHICH Army got slaughtered in Iraq?

Is Little Tommy STUPID enough to think that a conquered enemy is going to do what we ask?

I can't put my finger on why exactly he makes my skin crawl but he just does. Although it is probably not much help but I'm beginning to understand some of the visceral hatred that the radicals had for Turgenev in the 1870's (?) in Russia.

Although to be fair to the guy, this is one of his more sensible pieces. He can do it if he tries. But my guess is that he will regard this as too large a tack towards the left, so next week we should be in for something flesh-crawlingly repulsive.

who can't admit that he might be wrong or has been wrong about anything, and pretty much bends whichever way the wind is blowing.

being a Power Slut(TM) means that a lack of principle or historical insight are rewarding career traits just as long as people buy it.

I touched on this general idea in that Castro thread, but it seems that the real complaint here is just that the Iraqi army didn't kill people for US benefit. :shrug:

"Power slut" is just perfect as a description--not only of Friedman (but he definitely qualifies).

Also, there's a element of "he just doesn't get it" about Friedman. He often will report something someone said that is quite astute, and then draw all the wrong conclusions.

I don't remember if I heard it before used for this, though I doubt any originality on my part all the same.. doesn't sound quite as course as "media whore" and specifically refers to the fact that people like Friedman get their position because they propagate views that benefit state power itself, translating naked rubbish into acceptable terms to a particular audience, in Friedman's case statist liberals.

still demeaning to the real and proud whores & sluts everywhere, considering the caliber of characters it's applied to, but.. :)

for all of the people he apparently talks to I think Friedman "gets it" at some point, but his job doesn't require writing about anything treasonous and radical like "things as they are", but rather what is useful to the current war or the next war or the imperial economic structure in general. A real nasty semi-fascist on occasion also for all of his sometimes "liberal" nature, gets really hot & sweaty about killing & war stuff until it's his backyard that's the battlefield.

(from Eschaton, over at http://atrios.blogspot.com ....)


Friedman vs. Friedman

August 20, 2003, NYT
No Time to Lose in Iraq
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

"Everyone has advice now for the U.S.: bring in U.N.
peacekeepers, bring in the French. They're all wrong. There
are only two things we need: more Americans out back and
more Iraqis out front."

August 31, 2003, NYT
Policy Lobotomy Needed
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

"Our Iraq strategy needs an emergency policy lobotomy.
President Bush needs to shift to a more U.N.-friendly
approach, with more emphasis on the Iraqi Army (the only
force that can effectively protect religious sites in Iraq and
separate the parties), and with more input from Secretary of
State Colin Powell and less from the "we know everything
and everyone else is stupid" civilian team running the
Pentagon.

There is no question that we would benefit from a new U.N.
mandate that puts U.S. forces in Iraq under a stronger U.N.
umbrella."


I don't even know what this whole "lobotomy" metaphor means...

(thanks to antiphone)
-Atrios 11:58 PM

Comment (7)

and maybe I'm misreading it, but Friedman referred to chimpie as "Mr. Bush," instead of "President Bush." His last 3 or 4 columns have twisted to question our policy in Iraq, and he has spoken more disparagingly about our policy in the region.

His articles often make me think he wears blinkers, blinding his perception. I think he's getting close to blatantly stating he think's ShrubCo is screwing up. And, if he expresses that opinion publicly, it will carry some weight.

I'm curious to see what comes of this.

They refer to everyone, including bin Laden as "Mr.". It's kinda British, donchaknow.

and it always ends in tears.

You think they'd try to come up with something new after having been proved so wrong by the 20th Century.

Was so excited and cheering for the invasion and all the "benefits" it would confer on the entire mideast that he was pissing himself in public.

Now that its a clusterfuck, he has all these "great" ideas to help out the occupation force.


Tommy needs to lose his job and join the occupation force and get a clue.

It's amazing how an otherwise level-headed, sensible guy like Friedman has left common-sense behind, and has bought into/strongly advocated for Bush Administration's Iraq policy. It's almost as if everyone has collectively forgotten the lessons of Vietnam, and somehow thinks you can simply impose a system on a people who may or may not have any interest or enthusiasm for it. Hubris, simply hubris.

You simply cannot compare Iraq in 2003 with Japan or Germany in 1945. The ethnic and religious mix is completely different. Both the Japanese and German people understood to some degree: 1) their responsibility for actively supporting the previous regime; 2) that they were a defeated people. I don't think the Iraqis feel that way at all - and I don't think that the Shiites or the Kurds should feel that way. IMHO, nations and peoples have a right to grow and make their own mistakes, within reason, and not be dictated to by the likes of the Bush Administration.

as well all were in part but the ones with the most to loose are the most fearfull i would imagine, that includes him most other influential media personalities today.

and then they pass on their neurossis to us through their medium.

i can't imagine how we can turn it around without making peace with them and then educating them to our perspective without all the hate and foam that usually accompany a description of our perspective. :shrug:

clueless in america...

peace

9/11 had one helluva an impact on America, and IMHO we've gone mad. We've got a collective mental health problem and almost nobody is paying attention to it - but the Europeans see it, and call us on it. And we just get more defensive. We don't even go after the right bad guys, but we're very definitely empowering terrorist recuitment. Scary.

Have you seen his column of last December in the NYT titled: "Let's Give War a Chance"?

He is an imperialistic, PNACing, american empire building whacko of epic proportions.

His has a long track record of trying to understand the tensions in the middle east, and creating dialogue. I think he's spectacularly wrong here, but you can't dismiss a person's entire body of work because of one unfortunate period.

When was this, exactly? Which Friedman was the level headed & sensible one?--

"For globalization to work, America must not be afraid to act as the almighty superpower that it is ...the hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist--McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps."

"Blow up a different power station in Iraq every week, so no one knows when the lights will go off or who's in charge."

"Let's see what 12 weeks of less than surgical bombing does. Give war a chance."

"I was a critic of (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld before, but there's one thing ... that I do like about Rumsfeld. He's just a little bit crazy, OK? He's just a little bit crazy, and in this kind of war, they always count on being able to out-crazy us, and I'm glad we got some guy on our bench that our quarterback -- who's just a little bit crazy, not totally, but you never know what that guy's going to do, and I say that's my guy."

"It should be lights out in Belgrade: Every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted."

They are disturbing quotes. It'd be good to see the context in which they were made. Still, they don't paint a pretty picture. But the body of work I am describing is more the period before he became a columnist, and was covering the middle east.

"And that leads to the third point: we need to get the 25-person Iraqi Governing Council to do three things — now. It must name a cabinet, so Iraqis are running every ministry; announce a 300,000-person jobs program, so people see some tangible benefits delivered by their own government; and offer to immediately rehire any Iraqi Army soldier who wants to serve in the new army, as long as he was not involved in Saddam's crimes. It was a huge — huge — mistake to disband the Iraqi Army and put all those unemployed soldiers on the streets, without enough U.S. troops to take their place."

He's talking about jobs and the sense of common Iraqis that they don't have any stake in their country: "Most Iraqis still feel they are renting their own country — first from Saddam and now from us. They have to be given ownership."

In my opinion he doesn't go far enough. The US right now should be creating an Iraqi government and should turn the question of whether the US stays or goes over to voters in, say, two years. Friedman has his finger on the right issue.

And sure, he's pompous, but I don't find him as bad as many others. He's often wrong. But he's not locked into an agenda to the point where all he'll write is rigorously consistent and safe (eg. has Noam Chomsky ever been wrong about anything? No, this kind of analysis includes its own suit of armor...I'm not singling him out, this is more the rule for pundits and analysts).