All these extracts together reveal that this man is a pompous windbag who should be studiously ignored.
What struck me is how much "truth" there is in at least some of these excerpts. The problem is Friedman must have been too busy primping for his next appearance to read his own columns. One of the most troubling things about the last six years is how consistently people seem to have overestimated George Bush. In 2001 I wrote to a friend that I wouldn't trust Bush to mow my lawn without at least three adults supervising him. Even then I wouldn't let him near a power mower. All along it has seemed obvious that Bush wouldn't do Iraq (or anything else) "right." Yet, five years later with Bush's record of incompetence intact, the N.Y. Times is still writing editorials that seem to exist in a universe where "this time" Bush will do it -- something/anything -- right.
Friedman should have taken his own warnings more seriously. That he didn't makes me think the caveats were more for future ass-covering purposes than for anything else.
I will say it again. Truely Astonishing.
I had stopped reading Friedman when he started his war cheerleading. I wish I hadn't, because then these excerpts would not have shocked and sickened me so. I would have been better prepared to read them than I was tonight.
Notice how many of Friedman's arguments got rolled into the neocon talking points after no weapons were found.
By the way, Glenn, you have the December 22 excerpt listed twice.
But thank you so much. You are a better man than I, for I am unable to wade in the filth that has seeped into the Washington punditry, let alone the right-wing blog sewage.
You read them so I don't have to.
We could all learn alot from you, Mr Greenwald. Keep up the brilliant work on these topics.
Friends:
But, in the final analysis, how much weight should we really expect the moral scales of a celebrated New York Times columnist to give to the lives of tens- or even hundreds-of-millions of people?
Thomas Friedman still has his career with which to concern himself, after all.
David Peterson
Chicago, USA
Good summary of Friedman's most recent emissions, Glenn. But it actually goes back way further than that. David North has dug up a choice selection of Friedman's articles demanding an invasion since the 1990s:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/200.../frie-
o27.shtml
Sickening, ain't it.
Thanks for extracting this garbage. I stumbled on this by googling this joker. Unfortunately, this buzzword machine is THE main source of vocabulary in my 'flat world' corporation. In the interest of trying to understand what all the company drones are talking about, I just wasted several hours of my time trying to read his horrible "World is Flat" sack of poo. I can't for the life of me figure out why or how anyone with half a brain could spend their time reading the garbage that comes from this guy. I'm even more amazed that anyone with a brain could take him seriously.
I can understand why he writes it. It sells. Intellectual McDonald's. Blech.
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There is such a thing as "humanitarian war." It is where you go to war to stop genocide or other such activities.
Many people thought that Saddam was the sort of monster who had to be stopped. Many people also thought that the middle east was in a quagmire... that it needed to be helped. Lots of kingdoms and dictatorships, no democracies, etc. We can transform the middle east... etc.
Unfortunately, the operative part of "humanitarian war" is "war." "War" implies killing of innocents and destroying of infrastructure.
In the same way, war implies rebuilding post-war.
Like many others, Friedman assumed that Bush was competent, and had considered the ramifications of his actions. Friedman's writings are not filth; they are useful historical documents to be pulled out whenever someone gets the crazy idea in the future that "humanitarian war" is going to be easy.
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