Required Reading
December 9th, 2004 - 10:31 pm
Tom Friedman. Now.
Just do as you’re told, or Santa will add you to his naughty list.
And for my Jewish friends, I must add that if you don’t read it, we’re going to have to cancel the last five days of Chanukah. You’ve been warned.
Sovereignty handed over in the summer, disruption of said supply chains in the fall, and elections in the winter: methinks the links in supply chain will feel the strain as they begin to notice that things keep moving against them – despite how Arab and Western media paint a picture that they are winning.
The men, material, and know-how all need to be maintained (in an actual supply chain) for Friedman’s metaphorical supply chain to work. Disrupting the real supply chain, churning the established terror networks on the ground, training police and national guard units to fight back effectively, and establishing the beginnings of a (relatively) open and democratic government will win the day – even if that day is still many days away…
Democracy and Iraq
I think the above link lays out why I think democracy via the elections has a decent chance in Iraq. I think this in spite of the truth that Friedman wrote about recently.
“”"Just do as you’re told, or Santa will add you to his naughty list.”"”
Like I’ve ever been on any other list of his.
Then I went and read it.
One quibble:
“”"These deracinated, unemployed, humiliated Sunni Iraqi youth are our biggest problem today. Some clearly have become suicide bombers. We can’t say what percentage, because, unlike the Palestinians, the Iraqi suicide bombers don’t even bother to tell us their names or do a farewell video for mom. They not only are ready to commit suicide on demand, but they are ready to do it anonymously. That bespeaks a very high level of commitment or psychosis, or both.”"”
Ok, so 10 years of Saddam created these monster missles-with-human-brains.
Then:
“”"
Its organizers appear to use word of mouth, and the Internet, to recruit suicide bombers from Iraq and the wider Muslim world. These bombers are ferried down the supply chain to bomb makers in the field, who get them wired up and deploy them against U.S. and Iraqi targets tactically.
“”"
How did Saddam create these missiles OUTSIDE his area?
There’s some fuzzy thinging and comflating going on there.
He’s right about the intelligence reform, but then *nothing* ever changes in Washington.
Interesting enough article, but “people of mass destruction”? Coming up with silly and utterly derivative buzzwords like that is one reason why people make fun of pundits, and so they should.
Very amusing.
Thomas Friedman, in his corner office at the NYT, now feels comfortable enough to claim that secular-Saddam had the youth of Iraq whipped up into a jihadi-fever.
A couple months ago, any journalist who dared to write such a thing would have been painfully excoriated.
I wonder what has changed since then?
You see, we didn’t invade Iraq too soon. We actually invaded 10 years too late. -Friedman
I wonder how much flak he’s going to take for that.
The first step to soliving any problem…
…is to admit you have a problem. The second step is to actually identify the nature of the problem. Thomas Friedman may have identified a key component of the insurgency problem in Iraq. From his opinion column in The New…
I don’t remember Friedman writing about this process BEFORE the war.
Yet another example of coming up with excuses for Arab dysfunction.
–It’s Israel
–It’s America
–It’s Saddam
–It’s Humiliation
–It’s Oil
–It’s the Crusades
–It’s Sharon
–It’s Britney Spear’s belly-button
–It’s Bush’s arrogance
–It’s the neocons
With Friedman, it’s never about a pathologically dysfunctional culture that creates widespread misery and rage, which is then exploited by a extremists who want to destroy the world that has left them behind.
And it’s definitely never about a certain religion that we will leave nameless.
One of these days, he will connect the dots.
On the whole, fairly decent advice from Mr. Friedmans’ comfortable office.
He made a great point about the intell “reform” law, then went downhill. The Sunnis were the least affected under the last decade of Saddam’s regime. It’s the same mistake that Tom and his lefty friends make when they claim terrorism comes from poverty, all evidence to the contrary.
Friedman is a gifted writer. It blinds us to his solipcism.
HAPPY ARMED JEWS WEEK!!!!
Sorry Steve, but I don’t read Friedman anymore. His pattern is now 4 sillies to a single serious column. And that is only if you don’t count the serious column as silly when he makes complete reversals of course in it and doesn’t acknowledge them.
I can agree with much of this column. However, where does he fit in the Oil for Food program and what it did to the Iraqi people.
The article is fine as far as it goes. Friedman came very close to the answer he seeks when he noticed that Saddam propped up his regime by calling on Islam. Friedman now needs to be told that the magic recruitment takes place in mosques, whether in Iraq or elsewhere, and even in those in Britain and Germany: we know very well how this works. We even tapped into this power when we armed jihadis to fight in Afghanistan and allowed them to help in Bosnia. Wake up, Tom!