Freidman: The Humliation Factor

[La_Serpiente]

At least he gets it right. Let's hope his actions match his words.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/09/opinion/09FRIE.html

The Humiliation Factor

If President Bush wants to get a better handle on the problems he's facing in Iraq and the West Bank, I suggest he study the speech made Oct. 16 by Malaysia's departing prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, to a conclave of Muslim leaders. Most of that speech was a brutally frank look into the causes of the Muslim world's decline. Though it was also laced with shameful anti-Jewish slurs, it was still revealing. Five times he referred to Muslims as humiliated. If I've learned one thing covering world affairs, it's this: The single most underappreciated force in international relations is humiliation.

"I will not enumerate the instances of our humiliation," Mr. Mahathir said. "We are all Muslims. We are all oppressed. We are all being humiliated. . . . Today we, the whole Muslim , are treated with contempt and dishonor. . . . There is a feeling of hopelessness among the Muslim countries and their people. They feel that they can do nothing right." He added: "Our only reaction is to become more and more angry. Angry people cannot think properly."

One reason Yasir Arafat rejected the Clinton plan for a Palestinian state was that he and many followers didn't want a state handed to them by the U.S. or Israel. That would be "humiliating." They wanted to win it in blood and fire. Hezbollah TV had bombarded Palestinians with stories of how the Lebanese drove the Israelis out. Palestinian militants wanted the "dignity" of doing the same.

[alcuno]

1. Friedman is like the worm at the bottom of a bottle of Mexican tequila

[DUreader]

3. Friedman is like someone who drank the bottle and ate the worm

deluded

[lcordero]

4. He's more like the worm in a rotten apple

[Scott Lee]

2. Thomas Friedman is not only an asshole - he's a liar

And he makes no bones about his lies.

Allow me.

The reason that Arafat rejected the Camp David Barak plan is because it whittled a "Palestinian State" down into a whithered husk of the West Bank, breaking up the territories with impossible borders, interrupted tracts of Palestinian land, and no real sovereignty of their own for an indefinite period of time. Arafat, quite understandably, looked at Clinton at one point in the meetings and said "Mr. President, if I sign this, will you come to my funeral?"

Gawd I hate Friedman. What a waste of genes.

[charlie]

5. So Tommy's discovered the potency of pride

in Arab culture. Next week -- "Boy, These Guys Sure Take Their Religion Seriously"

Meanwhile, I wonder what he thinks the effect of his Bush apologia -- we went to war because we needed to kick Arab ass and we had the power do it, war for oil is A-OK, hey let's kidnap Iraqi scientists and "coerce" evidence of WMD out of them, y'know the ones that now I agree probably don't exist -- being published worldwide has in the mideast. Some of those Ay-rabs can read English, I've heard.

[salmonhorse]

6. They should stop paying Freidman by the inch...