Friedman still has his head in the sand.

[Merlin]

What to do? The first thing is to understand who these people are. There is this notion being peddled by Europeans, the Arab press and the antiwar left that "Iraq" is just Arabic for Vietnam, and we should expect these kinds of attacks from Iraqis wanting to "liberate" their country from "U.S. occupation." These attackers are the Iraqi Vietcong.

Hogwash. The people who mounted the attacks on the Red Cross are not the Iraqi Vietcong. They are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge — a murderous band of Saddam loyalists and Al Qaeda nihilists, who are not killing us so Iraqis can rule themselves. They are killing us so they can rule Iraqis.
...
The great irony is that the Baathists and Arab dictators are opposing the U.S. in Iraq because — unlike many leftists — they understand exactly what this war is about. They understand that U.S. power is not being used in Iraq for oil, or imperialism, or to shore up a corrupt status quo, as it was in Vietnam and elsewhere in the Arab world during the cold war. They understand that this is the most radical-liberal revolutionary war the U.S. has ever launched — a war of choice to install some democracy in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world.
...

<More>

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/30/opinion/30FRIE.html

Friedman is so f*cking sad. It's like he never lived thru Vietnam. He sounds exactly like columnists during that war. Same song, different beat.

We aren't empowering anybody except our own puppets.

He and others simply cannot understand that the Iraqi rebellion would fail without support of the local population which gives it willingly because PEOPLE HATE TO BE CONQUERED!

What will it take to wise these morons up? Oh, yeah. I remember. It will take another Vietnam. Well that's what we've got. Sorry Tom, you're dead wrong.

[JeebusH]

1. Tom was really forming at the mouth "writing" this garbage ...

used the word leftists twice in three paragraphs ... this piece (of shit) reads like Friedman is trying to convince himself that what he says it true

[regnaD kciN]

3. For me, the "pragmatic" Friedman lost ALL credibility...

...when he dismissed the Israeli/Palestinian peace efforts going on about a year-and-a-half ago, instead challenging the Arab world to make a sweeping offer of full peace for full withdrawal to the "green line." Tom claimed that he doubted that the Arab leaders had enough foresight to make such an offer, but, if they did, there was no way that Israel could ever reject it.

As it turns out, of course, far from making a suggestion to Arab leaders who probably weren't forward-thinking enough to adopt it, Friedman was merely serving as a mouthpiece for a plan developed by the Saudi rulers. Then, when (lo and behold!) said Saudis and the Arab league indeed adopted The Offer Israel Couldn't Refuse, Israel refused it...and it sank like a stone.

The mark of someone who claims to be "pragmatic" rather than "ideological" is whether his or her ideas and predictions really do work out in practice. With his endorsement of what became known as "the Saudi plan," Friedman showed that his opinions were no more valuable in practice than those of the purest idealist, including those he would scorn as dreamers.

[E_Zapata]

2. He didn't live through vietnam

He's about my age, and we were playing kickball and we may have noticed Dan Rather reporting from the fields, but that's about it.'

Khmer Rouge? WTF

Head in the sand? More like...up his buttcocks!

[edzontar]

9. Tom does not know from the Khmer Rouge

I am older than this mental midget of a man, and to even make the comparison is to insult the people of Cambodai, ot to mention the intelligence of every one of his readers.

It seems to me that the NYT Editorial Page has become a kind of lunatic asylum--what with Fiedman, Brooks, Safire, Dowd---Krugman excepted of course-- its a place where logic and consistency have no meaning.

[jrthin]

4. You're too kind. I'd say

his head is stuck up his rectum.

[KG]

5. why does this moron keep insisting that ameican style 'democracy'

will work in the ME? or that ME countries want or need it?

[Saudade]

6. Friedman

Friedman's irrelevant wishy-washy writing is the velvet glove that covers the iron fist.

[0007]

7. Friedman needs to read Paul Krugman's

"The Great Unravelling"

But a whore is a whore is a whore, 'eh?

[Beetwasher]

8. Hey Friedman, You Asshole, Chew on This!

"They understand that U.S. power is not being used in Iraq for oil, or imperialism, or to shore up a corrupt status quo..."

Oh yeah, you clueless douchebag whore? Explain this:

Halliburton Contract Extended in Iraq

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=509&e=15&u=/ap/halliburton_iraq

Reps: U.S. Overpaying Halliburton for Gas

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=14&u=/nm/iraq_gasoline_cheney_dc

Halliburton boosted by Iraq contracts

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1106&e=13&u=/ft/1066565473596

Democrats say Halliburton overcharging on Iraq contract

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&e=11&u=/afp/us_iraq_politics

US Army doubles size of Iraq oil rebuilding contracts

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&e=6&u=/afp/us_iraq_oil_contract

[edzontar]

10. Tom is a phony Middle East specialist...

Who apparently cannot even say "hello" in Arabic--i saw him on a show where he insisted on speaking English even in formal greetings at a confrence in the Arab world somewhere.

He is an idiot, a small mind, a dolt, and a darling of the Whore establishment because he tells them THEY ARE ALL SO F-ING GREAT!!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Well well what happened to the Thomans Friedman we

all knew?

He seems to have been infected by the White Man's Burden bug.

By the way there is a nugget of gold in there.

When he says that the Guerrillas have created their own moral universe and thrown all rules of civilized warfare to the side... whadya know Tommy is right. Let me take you back to that other war, yep that little scuffle called the American Revolution. I can almost see tommy writing in the London Times that those American Colonist have thrown the rules of civilized warfare to the side. After all them chaps have dared to use rifflemen, from covered positions, to snipe at Officers of His Majesty, and KILL THEM! The cowards! Yep all Revolutions do that... even ours.

the second nugget is that Tomy has detected one of the most likely than not, multiple groups fighting us.. but alas Tomy is trying to make the Ba'athist and Al Qaida into one (It is possible, the enemy of my enemy... but not very likely, at least not yet)

But yes I wonder who is writing his stuff? This is not the Thomas Friedman we all knew.

[rdfi-defi]

12. nice job nadski i like that breakdown

[dave29]

13. A "Liberal" War?

Umm, does this leave an unpleasant taste in anyone elses mouth? I guess more and more people are being liberated from their bodies.

You can't waltz into the middle east, bomb an entire country into submission, demand that they be just like us, support us, and then call it a Liberal Revolutionary War. I'm sorry, that's just BS. It is an occupation. Ask any Iraqi, and they will agree.

I'm all for Democracy, but I don't believe in killing innocent people to make it happen.