Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

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Why NYT's Friedman Should Resign

By Robert Parry
August 21, 2006

full text
http://consortiumnews.com/2006/082106.html


"New York Times foreign policy analyst Thomas L. Friedman finally has come to the conclusion that George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq – which Friedman enthusiastically supported with the clever slogan “give war a chance” – wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Noting that “it is now obvious that we are not midwifing democracy in Iraq. We are babysitting a civil war,” Friedman wrote, “that means ‘staying the course’ is pointless, and it’s time to start thinking about Plan B – how we might disengage with the least damage possible.” [NYT, Aug. 4, 2006]

Yet, despite this implicit admission that the war has unnecessarily killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and more than 2,600 U.S. soldiers, Friedman continues to slight Americans who resisted the rush to war in the first place.

Twelve days after his shift in position, Friedman demeaned Americans who opposed the Iraq War as “antiwar activists who haven’t thought a whit about the larger struggle we’re in,” presumably a reference to the threat from Islamic extremism. [NYT, Aug. 16, 2006]

In other words, according to Friedman, Americans who were right about the ill-fated invasion of Iraq are still airheads when it comes to the bigger picture, while the pundits and politicians who were dead wrong on Iraq deserve pats on the back for their wise analyses of the larger problem.

The Rabbit Hole

At times, it’s as if Official Washington has become a sinister version of Alice in Wonderland. Under the bizarre rules of Washington’s pundit society, the foreign policy “experts,” who acted like Cheshire Cats pointing the United States in wrong directions, get rewarded for their judgment and Americans who opposed going down the rabbit hole in the first place earn only derision.


......Many Iraq War critics, from former Vice President Al Gore to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who took to the streets in early 2003, proved they had a more reasonable strategy on Iraq – letting United Nations inspectors finish their search for Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction – than did Bush’s war council and his cheerleaders in the U.S. news media. [For an early warning of the Iraq disaster, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Bay of Pigs Meets Black Hawk Down.”


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Bay of Pigs Meets Black Hawk Down

By Robert Parry
March 30, 2003

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/033003a.html

"Whatever happens in the weeks ahead, George W. Bush has “lost” the war in Iraq. The only question now is how big a price America will pay, both in terms of battlefield casualties and political hatred swelling around the world..."

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.........But Friedman is not alone. Many major news organizations fill their opinion columns and their on-air commentary with well-paid pundits who also cheered on the Iraq War.

The Washington Post’s editorial section offers up nearly the same line-up of columnists who ran with the pro-war herd from 2002 through 2005. Some, like David Ignatius, have slowly begun to retreat from their enthusiasm for invading Iraq; others, like Charles Krauthammer, remain true believers in the neoconservative cause.

Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt stays ensconced, too, despite admitting that his pre-war editorials shouldn’t have treated the alleged threat from Iraq’s WMD as a “flat fact” instead of an allegation.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen – who like Friedman presents himself as a slightly left-of-center thinker – is another pundit who admitted misjudgments on Iraq without really accepting blame or showing remorse.

“Those of us who once advocated this war [in Iraq] are humbled,” Cohen wrote in a column on April 4, 2006. “It’s not just that we grossly underestimated the enemy. We vastly overestimated the Bush administration. …

“Victory in Iraq is now three years or so overdue and a bit over budget,” Cohen wrote. “Lives have been lost for no good reason – never mind the money – and now Bush suggests that his successor may still have to keep troops in Iraq.”

It may be positive news that the likes of Friedman and Cohen have finally acknowledged realities long apparent to many other Americans. Still, the halfhearted mea culpas – often combined with continued slights against those who were right – fall far short of the accountability that the deaths and maiming of so many people would seem to justify..."