Category Archives: Middle East

Thomas Friedman: Still Consistently Foolish About Everything After All These Years

Intellectualism, Iraq, Islam, Judaism & Jews, Middle East, Neoconservatism

Rolling Stone is hardly a place for profound ideas, but even they don’t take Thomas Friedman seriously.

I hoped I had heard the last of this fatuous, smug, celebrity journo when, superimposed upon the program of another “gem” of veracity and virtue, Fareed Zakaria Plagiarizer, Friedman could be heard venturing, recently, that ISIS appeals to young men because these are “young men who’ve never held power, a job or a girl’s hand and joined ISIS to get all three.”

For once I agree with John Maynard Keynes, who, in preparation for Bretton Woods, was known to have muttered something to the effect that (and I paraphrase), the Americans have all the money; we British have all the brains.

Friedman still persists in rejecting reality. The failed invasions he once cheered have brought this dolt no closer to the realization that, “Evil is part of the human condition, always has been, always will be; that it can’t be wished away, treated away, medicated away, legislated away,” or invaded away.

So many body bags later (ours; theirs), and Friedman is no closer to the intuitive understanding that young men need the anchor of a strong, muscular belief system for which they might consider dying. Why do America’s best and brightest sell their souls (and sacrifice lives and limbs) to Uncle Sam? Heroism (perceived or real) is in a man’s nature. You can’t tweak it out of him like an unsightly nose hair. And you can’t replace it, Mr. Friedman, with an iPad or a subscription to Match.com for Muslim singles. The spiritual nullity that is the West is no inspiration to Muslim men (and increasingly not to our own), many of whom want- and need to be engaged in epic battles.

The truly gifted Myron Robert Pauli quips, “Ah yes, I am going to BLOW MYSELF UP and take other people with me because, (1) my job is non-existent and/or sucks (roughly 95 percent of humanity), and (2) I am horny (roughly 95 percent of men). What brilliant insight into Muslim terrorists—as if atheists and Christians and Jews never have sucky jobs and get horny! Such deep thinking conjures movies like ‘Mars Needs Women,’ with the late Yvonne ‘Batman’ Craig.”

Here is our Friedman File spanning over a decade:

In “PUNDITS, HEAL THYSELVES!” (May 29, 2004), Thomas joined “Christopher Hitchens (who, unlike TF, was undeniably a writer of considerable flair and originality), George Will and Tucker Carlson (both of whom conveniently recanted at the eleventh hour), Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Mark Steyn, Max Boot, John Podhoretz, Andrew Sullivan – as they grab the Bush administration’s Iraq bluff and run with it showing their utter ignorance of geopolitical realities; insisting our soldiers would be greeted with blooms and bonbons and that an Iraqi democracy would rise from the torrid sands of Mesopotamia.

In “HIS RHETORIC, OUR REALITY,” Thomas is shown to have bastardized an important, modest principle of Judaism to better comport with his political ends (January 26, 2005). Top be fair, Friedman doesn’t know better.

In “Foul Tom Friedman,” Tom sticks to familiar territory: fouling up the meaning of capitalism.

And, in “Obama’s And Abdullah’s Plans for Israel,” Thomas Friedman joins that intellectual giant Wolf Blitzer in uproarious applause for Abdullah bin Abdulaziz’s suggestion that Israel beat a retreat to the pre-1967 borders.

“Mr. Friedman,” notes a reader (hat tip Allen Cogbill), in response to this post, “has such deep ideas that a couple of fellows actually wrote an op-ed generator that generates columns for him. They did a nice job”:

Who Employs More Unvettet Egyptians? TSA Or Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport?

Homeland Security, Middle East, Terrorism

BREAKING: A CNN security or aviation analyst said something true, for once. The US is hypocritical to point fingers at Egyptian security at Sharm el Sheikh International Airport, from where a Russian Metrojet took off, and then crashed, last Saturday, killing 25 kids (The Adult Lives Don’t Matter). The (state-managed) security at America’s airport is a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Of course, CNN’s expert failed to finger the government home-grown terrorism (& cretinism) program known as the Transportation Security Administrator (TSA), which is probably as dangerous as anything the Egyptians operate and certainly employs as many unvetted Egyptians.

Perp Walk U.S. Central Command Leadership

Foreign Policy, Government, Law, Middle East, Military

Imagine a large private company that invests half a billion dollars in a training program for a large workforce only to find that the program has failed, and that only 4-5 of those that underwent the training are kind of prepared to do the job they were trained to do. Imagine, further, that the company’s CEO decides not to scrap the program and fire those that dreamt it up—but, rather, to retain the program and merely shift its focus.

The creditors or the shareholders would have a field day in the courts (is it a derivative action that shareholders bring to “redress harm to the corporation caused by management?”) There might even be a perp walk or two.

Via RT:

The US State Department did not have a straight answer for RT’s correspondent when asked about why the program to train and equip ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels had failed, or why it believes the new version that is said to solely equip the rebels would work.

The State Department said the US has dropped the training program and decided to focus on just the equipping part of the plan.

“There is a pause being put in place, while we focus more on the equipping side of those groups that are in Syria now and have proven competent against ISIL [Islamic State, ISIS/ISIL],” State Department spokesperson John Kirby told RT’s Gayane Chichakyan at a Friday briefing. …

MORE.

These sort of scandals are an every day occurrence. And nothing is done. No one pays. China is known to execute officials for lesser embezzlement.

The US government and military, in this case I think Central Command is responsible, is terribly corrupt. It never has to account for ongoing embezzlement and it makes no pretense about having a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers.

Unchanging Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy, libertarianism, Middle East, War

Why are we still at war in Afghanistan?

Why are we dropping bombs in Afghanistan?

Why have we been “helping” Afghanistan for 10 years or more?

Why is anyone giving the time of day to Carly Fiorina or armchair warrior Marco Rubio, when they’re both spoiling for fights that’ll dwarf the wars Obama has waged on Libya, in Syria and Afghanistan?

Why is Rand Paul the only one asking?

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE:

WOLF BLITZER: Let me get your reaction to what we just heard from the executive director of Doctors Without Borders, who doesn’t believe it was a mistake, that it was deliberate, that it was potentially a war crime. Your reaction?

PAUL: You know, there’s been a lot of confusion in the response. Was it an accident or was it done on purpose? It appears as if the coordinates were given to somebody, because they kept repeatedly bombing the same site. But I think it goes to a bigger question, and this is a question that President Obama should have to answer, why are we still at war in Afghanistan? What is the U.S. objective? What’s the U.S. mission? And why are we bombing anybody in Afghan?

I think we had a clear cut mission after 9/11, but that’s been long gone for many years now. And I think really that the Afghans need to step up and defend themselves. But there’s no reason for the U.S. to be involved there at all at this point. And tragic accidents will happen when you’re involved with war, but I don’t see why we’re still involved in Afghanistan.

BLITZER: Well, I’m going to get to that in a moment, but you’re a physician, you’re a doctor, do you agree with the executive director of Doctors Without Borders that in addition to the U.S. investigation, the NATO investigation, the Afghan investigation, there should also be an impartial outside international investigation?

PAUL: Yes, I don’t mind an outside international investigation, but somebody needs to step up and say, why are we there and what is the policy? Doctors and hospitals should never be targeted, and so that’s completely unacceptable. But if it’s an accident, it’s still a bad policy because why are we dropping bombs in Afghanistan. We’ve been helping them for 10 years or more. They should step up and they should be able to combat against any insurgency. And there is not a clear-cut U.S. role. And if we’re to be back at war in Afghanistan, the president should come to Congress and ask for permission, and we should say why we are at war and have a debate over that, but we shouldn’t be in perpetual war all around the globe.

BLITZER: The argument is, if the U.S., the NATO allies, were to completely pull out, it would be a disaster. The Taliban, potentially, could take over and Afghanistan would be back to where it was before 9/11.

PAUL: Well, I guess my question would be, why? We’ve given them billions and billions of dollars. We’ve spent more in Afghanistan than we did in the Marshall Plan. Why can’t they defend themselves after a decade? Will we have to defend them in perpetuity? No, I don’t think we should have a perpetual war over there and I think often people will not stand up and defend themselves if we’re doing the defending. So they are doing more of the ground activity, but I think their entire defense, minus maybe some armaments and some support, but really we should not be at war in Afghanistan. They should be able, after a decade or more, to defend themselves.

BLITZER: What about the Russian involvement in Syria right now? If you were president of the United States, what would you do about that?

PAUL: Well, I think the first thing that’s very, very important is to have open lines of communication. We have some in the primary, Carly Fiorina mostly, who says she doesn’t want to talk to Putin and she’s ready to use force against the Russians. Well, man, are we lucky she wasn’t president during the Cold War because we did keep open lines of communication throughout the Cold War. We’re in very close proximity over there. and the last thing we need is an accident where we shoot down one of the Russians or vice versa. So I think we need to know where everyone is flying, what everyone’s role is and if we can find common ground with trying to destroy ISIS. And I’m very worried about an accident happening over there and I’m also very worried about some Republicans who want to have no dialogue, because that’s a recipe for a disaster.

[13:20:10] BLITZER: So you basically want — what you’ve described in the past to me as a noninterventionist policy. You’re not an isolationist, but you want to be really careful about the U.S. getting involved in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, other international hot spots?

PAUL: But the interesting thing, it’s kind of the opposite of isolationism. I’m for diplomatic engagement. The people like Carly Fiorina, they want to diplomatically isolate us and not have any discussions with Putin. I think that is very much a mistake. So I’m for diplomatic engagement. I am for being involved. And I am for saying, you know what, let’s be very careful that we don’t do something rash that might start world war three.

And let’s also realize from history how we got to this point. Saddam Hussein, once he was toppled, made Iran stronger. Iran and Iraq are now allies. They’re also allies with Syria. Now they’re allied with Russia. So I would argue that the Iraq War was a mistake and it actually enabled Russia to become stronger in the region, and that’s what we need to think about before we topple another dictator, what are the unintended consequences of toppling dictators in the Middle East?

BLITZER: If you were elected president, on a domestic issue, what, if anything, would you do to tighten up gun control issues in the United States?

PAUL: Well, I think it’s a terrible tragedy and, you know, my heart goes out to the families. I’ve got a couple kids in college and in high school, and I can’t imagine, you know, something like that happening in a school. But the thing is, they already have universal registration in Oregon. They have significant gun registration laws. And I just don’t think that more controls are the answer.

I do think that we should not preannounce to the public, to the potentially crazy and homicidal people out there that there are places they can go to shoot people. And that’s what we’ve done with our schools. We say, well, there are no armed guards, there are no armed teachers, there are no armed off duty policemen, and I think that’s a mistake. I think we should do the opposite. I think we should announce across America that there are not going to be gun-free zones where you can go and shoot people. And I think if we did, that there is some deterrent effect.

I believe the same for our commercial airliners. After 9/11, I was a big proponent of making sure our pilots were armed and I have bills now to try to facilitate that. I want every potential jihadists and terrorist in the world to know that our pilots are armed and that if you come into the cockpit, you will be shot. And so I think there is a deterrent effect from guns. There obviously is the destruction when a crazy people uses a gun, but there also can be deterrents from guns. And I saw an example yesterday. I think it was a vo-lock (ph) conspiracy website was talking about many instances where shooters have been stopped by having an armed person in the right place at the right time. BLITZER: Senator Paul, thanks very much for joining us.

Via CNN.