Worth a Thousand Words

[barb162]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/opinion/23friedman.html?th
Worth a Thousand Words
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: December 23, 2004

snip

As the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum so rightly pointed out to me, "These so-called insurgents in Iraq are the real fascists, the real colonialists, the real imperialists of our age." They are a tiny minority who want to rule Iraq by force and rip off its oil wealth for themselves. It's time we called them by their real names.

However this war started, however badly it has been managed, however much you wish we were not there, do not kid yourself that this is not what it is about: people who want to hold a free and fair election to determine their own future, opposed by a virulent nihilistic minority that wants to prevent that. That is all that the insurgents stand for.

Indeed, they haven't even bothered to tell us otherwise. They have counted on the fact that the Bush administration is so hated around the world that any opponents will be seen as having justice on their side. Well, they do not. They are murdering Iraqis every day for the sole purpose of preventing them from exercising that thing so many on the political left and so many Europeans have demanded for the Palestinians: "the right of self-determination."

snip

We may lose because of the defiantly wrong way that Donald Rumsfeld has managed this war and the cynical manner in which Dick Cheney, George Bush and - with some honorable exceptions - the whole Republican right have tolerated it. Many conservatives would rather fail in Iraq than give liberals the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Rumsfeld sacked. We may lose because our Arab allies won't lift a finger to support an election in Iraq - either because they fear they'll be next to face such pressures, or because the thought of democratically elected Shiites holding power in a country once led by Sunnis is anathema to them.

snip

(The article's first few paragraphs were on Friedman's total "disgust" about the photos (picture worth a thousand words) of the election workers being killed in broad daylight in Baghdad)

[autorank]

1. Friedman is such a goof ball. That's the only term he merits.

Me thinks he protests too much about "fascists." It isn't showing up anywhere except here and a few other places. He's not a DU reader, you can be sure. He's just an incredibly stupid guy who has a wonderful forum. He thinks he's bright because he has that forum which emboldens his stupidity.

I'm having trouble figuring out which paper is worse, the NYT or the Washington Post.

On edit: WELCOME TO DU. :hi:

[acmavm]

2. If you ever figure that out (which is worse) let me know. I'm not at all

sure myself. But one thing I do know is that Friedman is an idiot.

[autorank]

4. You made me think (not an easy task).

The Times published the Pentagon Papers
The Washington Post lead the Watergate inquiries.

Both equal heights for any newspaper at any time in history.

They are officially tied for worst news paper since they both fell from equal heights. If Tommy Boy would just publish on the Post OpEd page as well, it would make the tie more obvious. Just think about how far each paper has fallen.

[barb162]

5. The Times still has some great columnists like Paul Krugman,

Bob Herbert etal

[autorank]

8. And I love them. The Times also funded Judith Miller who, more than

any citizen outside the government, propagated the myth of WMD and thus the rationale for the Iraq war. I'm afraid, as much as I admire Krugman and Herbert, 1 Iraq War trumps 2 great columnists. But I get your point. The PentaPost has no equivalent columnists although Dione can be very good (he's not great yet but working on it).

[barb162]

13. Until about 2 years ago I believed every word Miller said, after all,

she was a big-time famous NY Times reporter who was always going back and forth to the Mideast.

[autorank]

15. She's something else. I heard someone on C-SPAN talking

about Pacifica and how she'd started there. Sweet Jeebus! What a consumate media whore. I expect she feels fully justified in every single thing she did. Ah well...where's Theodore Dreiser when we need him most (actually, I really like Eric Scholosser).

[barb162]

3. Sometimes I think Friedman is brilliant, sometimes totally off-base

and sometimes a combo like this. Here he is evidently against the shrub. He was totally grossed out by the films of the election workers being shot dead in the street; he said he actually enlarged (for the first time) the photos as he wanted to study the true evil of killing election workers. You have to admit he has a point there.

As to the NY Times or WP ...both have been such great papers in their long histories (if only Katherine Graham were still alive, where's Ben Bradlee????) but both have shifted right for whatever reasons the last few years as has just about everything else in the media

[Mike Niendorff]

6. re: "the real fascists, the real colonialists, the real imperialists"

Sounds to me like the critiques of the RW's policies are starting to get a little close for Mr. Friedman's comfort.

Also, I'd point out one big thing here that could almost slip by unnoticed: the "mainstream media" isn't giving voice -- ANY voice -- to even ONE of these criticisms. Yet Friedman is still clearly concerned that people are saying these things anyway. That's a BIG admission, however you look at it. First, it's an acknowledgement that the controlled press isn't accurately representing the dialogue that is taking place in the streets of America. Second, it's an acknowledgement that the RW is aware of and concerned about that fact. It is an admission that their strategy of controlling the dialogue by controlling the press *is failing*.

Keep hammering away at them, folks. The nation is catching on, and these liars getting *real* nervous.


MDN

[VioletLake]

9. I'm glad you pointed that out.

It's a lovely bit of logic worth committing to memory.

Cheers :toast:

[VioletLake]

7. LOL

They're using the same arguments against their enemies in Iraq that we use against them. "Real fascists?" "Virulent nihilistic minority?"

We may lose because of the defiantly wrong way that Donald Rumsfeld has managed this war and the cynical manner in which Dick Cheney, George Bush and - with some honorable exceptions - the whole Republican right have tolerated it.

It's all Rumsfeld's fault, and Cheney, Bush, and the Republican right are just cynical tolerators. :eyes:

On the one side you have people who desperately want to make the democratic process work, and want to have the same type of democratic freedoms other parts of the world enjoy...

Yes, of course, they're just so desperate to do good things. :eyes:

Interesting bit of propaganda...

Edit: paragraph formatting

[SeveneightyWhoa]

10. Enjoyed this column.

Especially this line:

"Many conservatives would rather fail in Iraq than give liberals the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Rumsfeld sacked."

[barb162]

12. Unfortunately I think this line is true.

[SeveneightyWhoa]

14. Of course its true!

Thats why I pointed it out..

[JohnOneillsMemory]

11. Hey, little Tommy Friedman! What words do these photos speak?

What words do you have to say about the US-killed corpse of an old man with a prosthetic limb partially eaten by dogs? Asshole...

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album28&page=1

http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/

http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_page1.htm

http://www.einswine.com/atrocities/pictures/?source=iraq&page=3

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/351/24/2476