Blaming the victims
The other day I showed this video of Tom Friedman's macho posturing on Iraq back from 2003.
Media Bloodhound looks at this op-ed Friedman wrote this week, on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary and Gen. Petraeus's testimony before Congress:
That he believes, or is simply promoting, this idea - the emptiness of Arab dictatorships is one of the "most troubling lessons of the Iraq invasion" - is not only chilling in both its inhumanity and disregard for the rule of domestic and international law (does he forget we illegally invaded a sovereign nation under false pretenses?), but also, contextually, all the more stunning in its willful obliviousness to what is undeniably one of the worst - if not the worst - American foreign policy decisions in our nation's history.
Yet this characteristically disingenuous Friedman narrative serves as the perfect moral blank check for the Bush administration, a timely tonic that encourages us to continue to shove "democracy" down the Iraqis' throats at the barrel of a gun while it simultaneously provides a rhetorical exit strategy if that just refuses to take: if only those Iraqis really wanted democracy, our illegal, unprovoked invasion of their country - which now accounts for nearly 4,000 deaths of American servicemen and women and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis - would be a success.
It's their fault. Not ours. We're Moses and the Iraqis are simply rejecting the Promised Land. The ingrates. Barbarians. Savages helpless to their own impulses. If only they would embrace the peaceful example with which we've so humanely provided them through "shock and awe" and unleashing the Pandora's box that every honest and knowledgeable person predicted (even Dick Cheney himself). And with such competence and attentiveness to their most basic needs - security, clean water, electricity - how could they doubt our intentions and our ability to help them forge a genuinely democratic state?
Blaming the victim is the only play in the cons playbook like "where were all the men" about the VA Tech shooting
I just got this in the "Word of the Day" from Yahoo brainage and thought it was apropos:
ra-ti-oc-i-na-tion
noun :: The process of exact thinking or reasoning.
"When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving conception of greatness." -- Leo Tolstoy
We might be seeing a lot of this word used to describe this administration.
Lord Chatham to the British Parliament in 1777: "If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms--never--never--never"!
Rachel Maddow did a very good one recently on the absurdity of the "blame the iraqis" strategy.
In her piece it is quite disheartening to see democrats falling for this oh-so-ethnocentric and frankly WRONG framing of the debate ...
Six months!
Well, what else are they there for?
Friedman is not worth talking about. He has been so ridiculed it's like kicking a dead dog.
But if a dead dog still barks I guess we should kick?
LongTooth @ 3:
Excellent quote. This is the what Friedman and those like him should be learning as every empire before has learned this same lesson, the hard way.
ysbaddaden @ 6:
To prevent us from getting our oil. See, those clever bastards stole our oil and buried it very deep underground... we're talking bedrock level here. It's so far down that we have to drill at it and use pressure to suck it out of the rock. What gives them the audacity to do something like that?!
And this guy works for the liberal New York Times?
Between this jerk and the other ass David Brooks the Times ain't so LIBERAL.
A racist contempt for Arab-Islamic civilization is at the core of everything TF writes about the Middle East. Everything else is just this week's decoration.
It amazes me that there are not more terrorists!
I'm sure they are using Fox news as a propaganda tool, this administration and all the other self righteous wing nuts talk about killing the enemy.
They know we invaded a country without reason( NO WMD and Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11). We wanted the oil and they know that.
This administration talks about preemptive war like we own the world.
We look like world wide bullies and we will pay for our actions.
Question Blog @ 7:
Because, unfortunately, this gasbag writes for the "prestigous, liberal, NY Times-The Paper of Record". Along with some of the other great "liberals" like David Brooks, Judith "Germs" Miller, who apparently got a lot of her inside information while boffing Scooter Libby. (a horrible mental image). This is the paper that cons claim is the bastion of liberalism, so unfortunately, it's in the spotlight.
Should we blame these civilians who just happened to be in the way when Blackwater opens fire?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/16/AR200709...
Blue Buddha @ 9:
Even as we speak Archer Daniel Midland's trying to figure out how to turn dead Iraqis into Soylent Green.
This is a dandy day to see how your news and information filters are working, too. If your favorite media is leading with the "OJ Arrested, No Bail" story, or you're swallowing the latest ladle of political stew about presidential wannbe politics first ("Clinton to offer health care plan" seems to echo forever, doesn't it?), then consider your reality filters set to 'denial/don't want to really know what's going on'.
A friend of mine made a very interesting comment the other day. He said this country really needs to get its ass kicked, so that people won't keep thinking that every conflict we get involed in is comparable to WWII. WWII was a singular event in world history that will never be repeated; it probably changed the world more than any other event in history. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq - none of these are comparable to WWII, so I wish these idiot neocons would finally go back to their caves and try to discover fire or something. And as far as an attack on Iran goes, I think it will be such a disaster that it will bring an end to the neocon movement and the conservative Republicans. Anyone who thinks the nation of Iran hasn't planned for an attack from the US is fooling themself. Do they honestly believe that carpet-bombing Iran is going to lead to an easy victory? If so, how come this strategy wasn't used in Iraq? It sure as hell isn't because we were worried about the loss of life among the Iraqi populace.
Not the lead story in LameStreamMedia, but "Britons withdraw Billions in Bank Run" should concern the hell out of you.
We can't have hedge funds blowing up, bank runs, the dollar caving in, and someone running around telling the truth, shouting the equivalent of "The theater is on fire!" without expecting something explosive.
i knew that Thomas Friedman dialogue reminded me of something. Wrestling!
http://punditfight.blogspot.com/2007/09/thomas-friedman.html
Dominic P. Lucarelli @ 17:
Gotta fight terror worldwide - it's our manifest destiny, ain't it? Besides, everyone who disagrees with us is a terrorist, right? Therefore, if you're not with us, you're against us!
I guess looking back in history by todays standards the Native American Indians would be labeled insurgents-terrorists also.
How Ironic
Ron @ 14:
The Iraqis have followed up on the threat to throw Blackwater out. I wonder if they can enforce it? If so, this could put another strain on our regular troops. BTW, Gates has recommended that the Senate veto the extended break between tours for the troops.
As to Friedman, he is the quintessential imperialist, racist propagandist.
"We could have hit Saudi Arabia"
Wha?
This is just ridiculous. We might as well have bombed Crawford. He needs a rabies shot. And THEN be put down. And the bubble has not been burst, Mr. Friedman. It's just that our family members have been sucked into it.
The blame-the-Iraqis meme has been spilling from the orophayryngeal sewers of the dead enders for many months. It still stinks "like a turd rolled in burnt hair" (ht to Ron Burgundy).
There have been several occaisions where I have found myself, being the resident of a rather overly conservative district, explaining with extreme predjudice, the Iraqis reactions, unkowingly paraphrasing Lord Chatham while bursting the oil coated bubble of the Friedman racists who infest our country. It gets quite messy sometimes.
L.A. Confidential @ 21:
And even further back, by friedman's reasoning, the colonists should have welcomed the British with open arms especially during the war of 1812.
Joe O. @ 23:
England is still trying to take the USA back and put it under their control.
ysbaddaden @ 15:
mmmm.... now with 10% more people!
I have the most "shut up" comment to all the republicans I know who start about bush and his spreading of democracy. I say" if bush believes in democracy so much how come he is a member of the Republic party?" And of course they have no answer.
Dominic,
We DID get our asses kicked. In Vietnam. To the tune of 58,000 US KIA's. But the neocons are too bent on world domination to worry about history. Human life means nothing to them. Not even the blood of their own proletariat. Now Vietnam is a trade partner, who BTW just returned some bomb grade uranium to Russia under a recently enforced non proliferation treaty. Some commies, huh?
But communism is passe. We have new boogeymen to chase, and the neocons will bankrupt us in their pursuit of a global empire.
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Che's Lounge @ 27:
Agreed. Friedman and the other Neocons just like past imperialists never consider the economic implications of their imperial crusades. All they see if their "visons" not the costs. This story has been played out time and time again through out history. Right now, gold is at roughly $725 an ounce, oil just under $80 a barrel and all commodities continue to climb. On the currency side I can only imagine the amount of short sellers that are out there, both foreign and domestic, just licking their chops at the thought of a Fed rate cut. All one has to do is look at the U.S. dollar compared to any other currency and you will see what I mean. Does anyone want to look like Zimbabwe right now? Listen to Friedman and the Neocons and what we are seeing in Zimbabwe could be what we will see here in the United States.
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What a line of crap This Friedman spews... And somewhere over the rainbow of an afterlife, the former King George... Now over 200 years dead... is quietly chuckling to himself...JD
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Exactly, dude. You are Nobody!
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Joe O. @ 30:
Shills like Friedman are the first to blame and the last to suffer. The imperialist elite in this country will cling to their profit margins despite a worldwide depression and famine that will further widen the class divide in this country, due also in part to the recent biofuel fraud. They will keep propping us up and bleeding us dry for as long as they can. And voting for Hillary won't change a thing.
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LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder @ 39:
who says anyone posting here belongs to any party?
that's your assumption, btw how about a real arguement, forget the talkin points we're way beyound those
And with such competence and attentiveness to their most basic needs - security, clean water, electricity - how could they doubt our intentions and our ability to help them forge a genuinely democratic state?
Apparently Friedman hasn't been to Iraq, because they(the Iraqis) have none of these from what I 've heard. Sadly nobody cares enough to see that they do.
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Again no real point just more name calling
[Actually, you've been doing nothing BUT name call since you got here. Every post-Sitemonitor]
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What was this thread about again?
Oh yeah, Friedman and our illegal war in Iraq.
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Do you even know how to debate a topic? [No dammit. It's a TROLL. It's not here to debate-Sitemonitor]
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when you pick up a rifle and actually go serve this country in time of war,as Tyree and myself have done ,there is no spelling test
The price of a barrel of oil took 60 years to reach $22.50/barrel. Since 2001 it has tripled. I'm sure the Saudis and the International oil companies are happy. Is that OK with you?
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Che's Lounge @ 61:
You know, I was thinking about this the other day. If you look at our foreign policy during the Bush admin, its really good for the Saudis. And I suppose that shouldnt come as a surprise. When Bush went to his daddy and said he was going to run for President but knew nothing about foreign policy, daddy send Prince Bandar to tutor him.
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Pissed-American @ 2:
The words rational/irrational derives from the word ratio. Pythagoras and his followers the Pythagoreans were mystics as well as mathemeticians. They believed that whole (rational) numbers were beautiful and perfect, as were 5 "perfect" solids, which they superstitiously associated with the elements of the Earth. The fifth solid was the dodecahedron, which they associated with the cosmos, and which common folk were to not be allowed knowledge of. They believed that intellect was the right and property of a select few. Upon discovering that the square root of 2 was an "irrational" (not a whole) number, they suppressed this knowledge because it was irrational, it did not fit their world-view. (from Carl Sagan's series Cosmos.)
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I always wonder how partitioning Iraq is considered to be a good option. I considered that at one time about 1.5 years ago, but then I realized that was Yugoslavia, before Tito's death. Once his strong arm disappeared internicine fighting between Serbs, Croats, and Kurds resulted, until Clinton's successful air intervention under Gen. Wesley Clark.
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First lets see, we took down a government. Honestly what would you do just leave? The argument that there were no WMD is irrelevant because we know for a fact he used them before. And yes, I do.
Oh I see, you just ignored Ritter. The bio weapons Saddam used (given by us) were dismantled in 1993. It was documented. The sanctions prevented any possibilty of those systems being reconstituted, much less preserved. The US controlled the flow of goods into and out of Iraq for ten years, yet you believe that he could manufacture bio weapons and, as C. Rice and D. Cheney TOLD us, develop a uranium enrichment program. They could not even get chlorine to purify their water. Yet they could build the bomb. You believe this as a fact?
Oh and LiberalismIsA...,
learn some reading comprehension skills. I didn't say you were insulting people by calling them liberals. I said you were making fun of liberals.
For example, you said:
"Its ok liberals are known to be ignorant and uninformed"
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Che's Lounge @ 82:
Actually, those programs were reconstituted. Weve learned since invading Iraq that Clinton's "Desert Fox" opperation took them out...and that due to sanctions Saddam finally thought it was a waste of limited resources because we would just bomb them if he got them running again. This is part of why Hillary said they did think Saddam had WMD's. He did have them, and Clinton took them out. We just didnt have the intel to verify it.
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Wow, there's a plethora of evidence here today proving the mental depravity of the right wingers.
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The civilian casualties are going to skyrocket if we pull out all of our troops now don’t you agree?
No, I do not. You have no data to back that claim. Just who are we protecting from getting killed at this point? Do you believe that we are actually preventing deaths in Iraq? The only skyrocketing of causualties that I have observed is during the sanctions period, due to the destruction of the infrastructure, and since our invasion.
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There's something around the area of 14 intelligence agencies in the US, and none of the could confirm any actual evidence of WMD's, primarily due to our dependency on spy satellites, and a lack of actual agents, nevermind any capable of reading and writing Arabic or Farsi. The few that knew these languages in the military were kicked out due to their being homosexual. The CIA kept trying to get boosh and company to water down their propaganda based on their agencies reports, which caused an internecine struggle between Rumsfield headed Pentagon's DIA against the Powell headed State Dept. CIA, the more traditional intelligence source.
He did have them, and Clinton took them out. We just didnt have the intel to verify it.
Then on what data do you base that claim?
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Sorry I won’t just sit back and be attacked
Then you should never have posted your first entry.
Oh yes the US has been in arrears with our UN dues since the Reagan years.
Che's Lounge @ 94:
We have it now. You know, post invasion. IE After interrogating all Saddam's people.
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The Iraqis will never find the will to form central national government over their militias, until they know we're not there either as a target or a referee.
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102 navyswan
This does seem reminiscent of "The White Man's Burden" of 19th century Western Europe's Colonial Imperialism.
You are saying that he had no weapons because the UN says so?
No, I'm saying that I believed our own ex marine captain who led the inspections for bio weapons. And I see you like to use the UN for your convenience:
Your comment at #67:
Actually, I was paying attention to the international policy that the U.N. had with Iraq. Countless warnings from the UN ignored for over a decade led to Saddam’s demise not 9/11.
Your comment at #87:
Honestly how can you believe they had no weapons when the UN is one of the weakest bodies ever put together?
Keep digging.
The Iraqis are more loyal to their religious sects and tribes because that's all they know. "Iraq" was created by Churchill drawing lines on a map. There's no national unity, and therefore no justification for the neocons' blindly willing there be a "democracy".
$12 BILLION per month for this fiasco?!! No more!!!!!!!
So tell us, LIAMD -- do you believe Busholini's repeated assertion that "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here?
Actually, I believe Tyree is a Korean War vet, I'm what they call a Cold War vet.
ysbaddaden @ 105:
Exactly.
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JW @ 98:
You need to supply links for that claim.
Che's Lounge @ 111:
Its in "Fiasco". Ill take a look if its out on the net too.
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We need to let them fight in the political arena not in the streets.
There's been an elected government in place for three years. We have done what Bush et al have told us we were there to do. The fighting is in the streets whether we are there or not. How do you suggest we proceed from here?
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The US could care less about the Iraqi people and their "government". We are trying to get their government to pass oil legislation that would sign away their oil. Under a system known as "production-sharing agreements", or PSAs, oil majors such as BP and Shell in Britain, and Exxon and Chevron in the US, would be able to sign deals of up to 30 years to extract Iraq's oil.
Not to mention the vatican-sized Embassy we have built. It is the biggest in the world. We are planning to stay no matter how the situation with the Iraqi people goes. Do you think if there was all of a sudden peace over there that we would up and leave? I don't think so. And the Iraqi people know this too. That is one of the reasons that the fighting will continue until we leave.
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JW @ 112:
This article is a bit more critical of "Operation Desert Fox" than the page it gets in "Fiasco", but it backs up what I said. Saddam dismantled his WMD programs after ODF. Apparently he intended to start them up again if sanctions were lifted, but, as we all know, they never were.
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/conversino.html
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The idea of blogging is not to “fit in”…and your being in a war doesn’t make you any more patriotic than me.
No one here said he was. Just quit dissing his grammar and show a bit of respect.
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Che's Lounge @ 128:
i was replying to this goober saying he just wanted to fit in here! as he said somewhere up above , pretty strage way of wanting to fit in insulting this bogs posters!
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For everyone that copied and pasted and fed this troll, I thank you for the extra work. Now I get to find and delete where every one of you answered this freeper. /Sarcasm-Sitemonitor.
Pay attention: The UN has practically no army, with the exceptions of the big 3. We are the army. They can sanction all they want but unless we enforce the UN has no power.
You are incredibly uneducated on this topic. The UN does not raise armies. They form peacekeeping forces using international resources to enforce their resolutions. That is EXACTLY what is needed in Iraq to replace our military occupation forces. Yet folks like you and Friedman will not accept this. You will conveniently dismiss the UN as irrelevant and impotent (despite our major role) at your convenience. But now I'm moving ahead of you in your own thinking. Not too difficult under the circumstances.
the rest of the world wants to be us????
how delusional
let's see, we get to work many jobs
forget about our wounded war vets
pay out the nose for health care[that might not pay when it's needed]
start preemptive wars thru out the world
vote and not have it counted
eat food that's not inspected anymore
have our phone and computer communications monitored
basically be strip searched to get on a flight
put up with goon cops that do'nt even know the constitution
learn to speak spanish so we can communicate with the people who took our jobs
rally behind folks who got rid of habeaus corpus and like to torture
watch blathering gop apoligists on the supposed news
pay 3 dollars for a gal of gas, have our country fight against the global warming facts
fight to at least get some new enegy sources
etc. etc. etc!!!
ya everybody wants to be us , what a HOOT
i dont knock a man for not serveing in a war he doesnt believe in, but i think if your for a war ,and believes its worth others dieing for then you should be willing to join thoes doing the fighting and dieing , otherwise shut the fuck up and let the people who want the dieing to end do thier job!
bushisaliar @ 131:
Let's all get together for a few drinks at Hooters.
Sitemonitor,
That was really stupid. We had a pefectly good thread going here and you fucked it up.
[I know. I AM a meanie! :P Sitemonitor]
Wait for it, more freepers are going to show up and accuse C&L of censoring people.
[And they'll meet the same fate, if they are unable to post civilly or on topic, as the loser du jour did-Sitemonitor]
Darn, no more trolls. I'll have to go back to telling dirty jokes.
Blaming the victims
Then they shouldn't have been wearing those tight miniskirts with 100 dollar bills hanging out.
LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder @ 133:
Sarcasm, thy name is Sitemonitor. [Oh reeeeally? Sitemonitor]
Tom Friedman
Wait for it, more freepers are going to show up and accuse C&L of censoring people
And they will be absolutely right.
I had this guy hooked like a large mouth bass ready for the net and the sitemonitor cut my line.
I realize that the troll was just that, but he or she was not as caustic as they could have been. Maybe I'm just pissed off patricia that my 2 hours of posting went down the censor's drain, but many good points were being made in debating that individual. That was the value of the thread. It was STIMULATING the production of arguements that need to be shoved in their faces again, and agin, and AGAIN. There were many other observers who may have been learning something from the discussion. The sitemonitor was too harsh IMO, and now this site will (justifiabley IMO) be equated with the opposition's arbitrary censorship policies. The sitemonitor should have realized that. The sitemonitor is WRONG IMO.
Oh yeah: Friedman, Friedman, Friedman!
JW @ 127:
JW,
I perused the article and found NO references to solid evidence that the programs had been physically reconstituted. The closest it came (that I saw) was a reference by Butler that they estimated that 32K munitions were unaccounted for. This was the justification for Desert Fox? I still have seen no credible evidence that those questionable munitions were "fresh" and not holdovers from the 80's. It was all conjecture and insinuation, with no hard Humint (human intel) or imaging evidence. I have not yet read Fiasco so I cannot comment on that source. Either way, Iraqs WMD programs were at most a ghostly remnant of the programs built in the 80's. And most certianly (again) they wer of ZERO threat to us or our precious Israeli allies. It was all bullshit. I kew then. The administration knew it. it was all a pack of lies.
Tom Friedman...
ysbaddaden @ 143:
Oh reeeeally is Bill's last name.
Funny thing though is like Friedman's grasp of facts, but his analysis is as shaky as boosh at a kegger.
"...chilling in both its inhumanity and disregard for the rule of domestic and international law"
Funny, this is exactly how I view the USA. The country that claims to know better, and be better. The "indispensible nation." I'd like to dispense with it, about now.
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