Friedman: the United States is ‘on the wrong track’ in Iraq .......

New York Times columnist tells Imus that the United States is ‘on the wrong track’
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

Updated: 12:55 p.m. ET Sept. 24, 2004NEW YORK - Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist for The New York Times, came down firmly on the side of war in Iraq in 2003. Of late, he says he has been keeping a lower profile, taking time to "sit back and listen" as what many thought would be a quick strike has turned into a grinding guerrilla war. Friedman joined Don Imus on Friday:

"I have had a chance to sit back and listen and not talk for these last three months and what I find is that people are torn between two emotions. One is that I think people really feel that we have real enemies out there. You don't have to tune in to too many videos of people sawing peoples heads off or see what is going on in Indonesia or Madrid to know that we have real enemies out there who we have to engage. I think people really feel that.

"I think the other thing people really feel is that we are really on the wrong track and that we do not have a policy that somehow is really confronting this thing without making it worse and doing it in a way that really has allies around the world. It is very hard to fight that kind of an enemy alone.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6090174/

This is the "give war a chance cheerleader" who NOW tells us of civil war possibilities.

:grr:

we have real enemies out there
that's correct

who we have to engage
that's not correct. We do not 'HAVE TO' engage them. As a matter of fact, if we pulled every soldier out of every country in the Middle East, they would very likely stop cutting people's heads off, even American heads.

They may not love Americans, but if our troops aren't occupying Iraq, and supporting a puppet govt, then civilian employees would be at considerably less risk, IMO.

he has his new "talking points"....encouraging civil war

Come back ONE YEAR!

(The Soup Nazi to Friedman)

If they are Islamic fundamentalists they may have objections to a non-fundie govt.

However, I think the primary purpose of the killings is to discourage anyone from helping the US maintain it's presence in Iraq.

There are Islamic extremists in LOTS of countries and you just don't see that kind of activity in Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan, and other secular Islamic countries. Just MHO.

I'll admit that like Friedman and others, I was pro-war and was willing to support the President even though I find him repulsive in general. I genuinely thought Saddam was a genocidal maniac and that if the world ignored such brutes, then we would never seen an end to such mass atrocities. I still basically feel that way.

But I also now realize that I was wrong that the US could go about it alone and I also now realize that in a war - and I'm talk about the post 9/11 war on terror - you have to choose your battles well. We did neither in Iraq and the war, in retrospect, has been a disasterous mistake. We cannot effectively wage the war on terror while we are bogged down in Iraq. We also cannot defeat murderous dictators unless we have the respect of the world and can act in a unified way in confronting these monsters. We no longer have this credibility due to our foolhardy Iraq policy.

I have a lot of sympathy for Friedman and a lot of respect for people who are mature enough to admit their doubts. They should be commended and the "I told you so's" or "I'll never trust you agains" doesn't help.

I liked his book "From Beruit to Jerusalem."

I haven't looked at the link yet. Does he sound like he's leaning Kerry's way now?

He knew that we would be welcomed as liberators. He knew that they are clamoring for democracy. He knew that they would welcome infidels to occupy their country.

I don't understand what people see in TommyBoy. I really don't. Academic facts, dates and figures is memorization....kinda like Condi's education. Having wisdom and knowledge about a culture and envisioning geo-political realities is a huge ingredient. Neiher one have ANY of that.

We all know that the world is full of brutish dictators. There are dozens who do harm to their people. Who should be next to be invaded and toppled?

And what do you do about international law? Starting a war pre-emptively. Doesn't that have any meaning in the context of war?

How was Smirk able to convince you that this was about WMD and SaddamBadMan as opposed to stealing the oil?

Dozens of my family members were murdered by another dictator sixty years ago. The world only got involved when that dictator started threatening his neighbors. The arguments we hear today about not interfering in the affairs of another country went on in this country before we went into that war (with the Republicans being the isolationist party) and I think history has shown that the choice to take on Hitler was the right one. Yes, preemptive wars can be justified in rare circumstances. I thought it was justified in this one and I was probably wrong. I say probably because maybe someone like a Gore or a Kerry could have gotten the world behind us and better managed this mess.

Who should be toppled? The cop out is to say that there are lots of genocidal maniacs and therefore we should do nothing since we can't go after them all at one time. But there really is a difference between being a dictator and committing genocide. That is rare and needs to be dealt with using extraordinary means when everything else is failing or the killing is happening so fast that there is no time for sanctions and other punitive measures to take effect. Do you think ignoring the two million people slaughtered in Rwanda 10 years ago was excusable? Do you think sanctions would have worked when it only took a few months for that madness to subside?

We also have to be realistic in not launching a preemptive war we cannot win or are not prepared to win. I was wrong - like a lot people in our party - in thinking this was just going to last a few months and we would be able to move on.

I still think pre-emptive strikes CAN be justified but they are much more likely to succeed when the world is behind you. And a President with decent diplomatic skills can achieve that. Clinton did it in Yugoslavia and a lot of people are alive today because he had a backbone.

I don't pretend to say that this is an easy decision. In the case of Iraq, Saddam murdered 10% of his own people. That qualifies as genocide and I do think intervention should be actively considered when that is happening and everything else is failing.

As for how Bush convinced me, keep in mind that about 80% of the public approved of Bush's performance as President when the war started. Kerry was right to give Bush the military option even if Bush mismanaged how we went to war and how it was managed.

As for the WMDs, I think a lot of people on this board would be reinventing their personal histories to say that we were not extremely nervous about chemical and biological weapons being used against our troops when the war started. In retrospect, we sure seem to have been duped by Bush. But the lie was believable.

By the way, the easiest way to lose this election is to condemn every person who backed the President on this war. They're the vast majority of the people in this country. Fortunately, the majority of the country - myself included - now thinks the decision was a mistake. So lighten up.

You thought this war was finite because Bush* and his warmongers led you to believe that, as people were led to believe all the lies about WMD's, chemicals, biologicals, etc., all having now proved to be false. Thanks for your analysis. As you can see, you will encounter negative know-it-alls, but you've seen the light and that's what's important!

Someone totally missed the boat on an issue as serious as invading another country and you say we should respect him now for "admitting his doubts?"

That's baloney. The deaths and the expense make that suggestion ludicrous. Plus, Friedman would make the same mistakes all over again--he'll learn nothing from this.

As for your position on the war, well, I'll hold my tongue. But I do suggest in the future you expend at least a little effort in research BEFORE you support such idiocy.

questioned Bush's intentions on going into Iraq, including J/E.

Hardly anyone came out against Bush on his policy before Dean.

The average Joe/citizen WANTS to believe their President and Bush was pretty skillfull in convincing almost everyone that we had to go to Iraq.

So, if someone sees the error of their ways, don't begrudgingly accept them back into the fold, ENTHUSIASTICALLY welcome them back into the fold. If you want to be mad at somebody TODAY about Iraq, you only have to look at OUR SENATORS and THE MEDIA.

I knew, like so many of you that Bush was lying and that by going into Iraq he was opening a Pandora's Box. I screamed at the T.V. as we were marched into the war. Our Senators sat on their hands when this happened and the media was negligent. THAT is where your grumbling should be - not the average joe citizen.

They did not have the access to the information that our senators and the media had access to. They had no excuse.

... while I have a little bit of sympathy for the idea that Joe/Citizen was conned, I have none, not an effing ounce for war cheerleaders like Friedman who, as a scholar of the region should have known better.

It just goes to show that ideology will win out over reason with a very large number of people. Freidman proved that it did for him once, I have no reason to think he's gotten any wiser.