Thomas Friedman and Iraq: Suck on This!: UPDATED with Video
C&Ler Jonathan D emailed and told me that the Thomas Friedman "Suck on This" Iraq clip has been removed from Youtube. UPDATE: billw sent me the video!
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I guest hosted Richard Greene's show on Air America a little while ago and talked about Friedman:
Friedman: What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?" You don't think, you know we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna to let it grow? Well, Suck. On. This. That Charlie is what this war is about. We could of hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. Could of hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.
UPDATE: I saw this on Atrios when he first posted it way back when and he has a Sam Seder version up now...
Duncan has more: "Now he tells us"
What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.
And why are you posting this?
biggest grammatical pet peeve:
it's not "could of" done something... it's "could've" done something, as in "could have" done something... they should send you back to blogger college.
Friedman also just stated that he would like to see an Obama/Cheney ticket for 2008. He's seriously messed in the head!
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/NYT_columnist_wants_to_keep_Cheney_1119.html
Was he sticking his fingers in his ears and going "la la la la la la la la la" for the last four years?
Does this fellow value his diminished reputation so little?
"It could have been Saudi Arabia ...." "We did it because we could."
Why does the NYT employ this guy and what's his name, David Brooks? Neither has done, said or predicted anything correctly for the last four years.
OMG - of course he hit on Iraq because we could. Coward Cheney knew that Saddam didn't have WMD's so that's why coward Cheney thought that Iraq would be a walk in the park. We weren't going to attack Pakistan... Musharif has nukes and we weren't going to upset the Royalty in Saudia Arabia because that would cut off the oil pipeline. Friedman just admitted that the US attacked the weakest link in the Middle East, that's if you don't count Palestine.
Chill @ 3:
Waddya expect? Ol' Tom is totally fried man!!
Let me guess - just so long as it's not Friedman's (or any other neocons) boys or girls that have to go house to house over there.
Suck on what, his left thumb?
Coffins draped in flags @ 5:
Palestine doesn't have any oil.
Yes, good thing we didn't hit Saudi Arabia:
www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com
Wherever would we find the perpetual wave of suicide bombers attacking our troops in Iraq if we had?
They use to have mental institutions for people with these kinds of weird assed delusions.... Or maybe this was an early Huckabee political message without the fist behind the beard Chucky thing... On a serious note.. Yet, another example of why we're in the shitter seven years and counting after Chimpy and Dick stole power in 00 and started their 'excellent' and neverending clusterfuck......Whoa, that this guy even gets any airtime at all.....at any level... What an embarassment.....JD
little tommy 'the most overrated blowhard' friedman proves once again that he is a miltant neoliberal trying to disguise himself as a intelligent, unbiased, commentator.
friedman is an apologist and a cheerleader for the policies that have made america an international bully
this dumbass just admitted that Iraq was a war of choice...with no sound reason.
And not to belabor the obvious, but considering the fact that the overwhelming majority of both the 9/11 hijackers and those suicide bombers in Iraq all seem to come from the exact same place, it would appear that our brilliant plan to intimidate those most responsible for 9/11 by invading the wrong stinkin' country hasn't exactly panned out.
"Crazy" Dick Cheney says projecting weakness emboldens our enemies. But when you spend more than the rest of the world combined on defense spending, isn't stupidity and incompetence the only kind of weakness that counts?
Here's the link to the full hour interview at Charlie Rose's site
http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2003/05/30/1/an-hour-with-thomas-friedm...
goatsage @ 1:
I was wondering the same thing. Is C&L so short on the 'outrage points' that keep people reading the site that they have to try to rehash some years old controversy simply because some youtube video went down?
[Deleted. This and your one other post lead me to believe you are dissatisfied with the content here-Sitemonitor]
Of course it was a war of choice. Saudis were out cause of the Bush/Saud connection. The war was an oil grab, pure & simple. Re: Palestine, not a weak link in Mid-East. They have nukes, remember? And their neighbors remember too.
Since the Friedman Unit didn't say “could’ve”, the transcript is closer to the "and um, we coulda" blather that the man actually said. Now if he had somewhere spelled "lose" as "loose", ( my biggest grammatical pet peeve), I would be all over it ;-)
mike @ 2:
Thanks for posting that. The transcriber should have their wrists slapped.
Friedman makes me think of the guy in A Beautiful Mind, writing his equations, figuring, calculating, analyzing, but in the end it's all jibberish.
Friedman also thinks that Dick Cheney should be retained as VP if Barak Obama gets elected... sheesh is this guy delusional or what?
Stop picking on poor Tommy. In another six months we'll really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really find out if Iraq has been successful or not.
why do we give this dickhead air time?
mike @ 2:
Uh listen to the audio-Friedman says 'Could ah' very close to 'could of' if he actually knew how to speak on the air...
And while we're at it, let's just send this chickshit mofo Friedman and his bobble-headed pals to Basra and have them kick down doors all the way to Baghdad. I mean this is HIS point. I NEED to see HIM make it. Not American troops. This for the most part wasn't their idea, until they were brainwashed. By the PNAC propaganda machine and CheneyBushCo.
parson9 @ 23:
How many F. Units have we been through already?
14 Bill in Chicago Says:
"“Crazy” Dick Cheney says projecting weakness emboldens our enemies"
that meme, that notion, that PR campaign is, imho, the most successful lie hoisted onto the american public. the public has bought into this lie, and repeats it in earnest as if it had any semblance of truth.
the two most effective, and deleterious, long-term, bald-faced lies are:
1) "they" hate us because of our freedom
2) "projecting weakness" emboldens our "enemies"
both are lies. both have been effective in keeping the american sheeple in their grazing pen. both are tacitly supported by both parties' leadership. both lead to HORREDOUS foreign policy decisions.
really, what these memes do is help to pad the federal budget to our permanent wargasm. they make it acceptable to have starving people in america, to have people unable to afford health care, to create HUGE deficits, etc. All in order to sacrifice social services so that the pentagon gets bbbillions of our tax money, and the corporatocracy that depends on military spending.
olevet69 @ 24:
Let him spew his wad.
we already control Saudi Arabia, if our troops left that country, the kingdom would fall
mike @ 2:
How do you know that Friedman wasn't speaking grammatically incorrectly? He could have been thinking "could of" when he was saying it. ;)
parson9 @ 23:
LOL!!!!!
tdizzle @ 17:
What? Your post here confuses me, Sitemonitor. I AM dissatisfied with posts like this. Usually, you guys do a good job, but when I have a question or comment about a certain post, I post it. Isn't that what the comments section is for?
[Your post here is off topic. Your assessment of the the post is off topic. Take a look at the commenting policy. Now do us a favor and get over it. Thanks-Sitemonitor]
Someone needs to burst Freidman's bubble of self-absorbed elitism. He lives in his own bubble of grotesque, unearned wealth and privilege (unless you consider marrying up earned income). I say tax the pants off his capital gains and tell him: Suck on this, Tom!
no question this mustache is neocon at heart.
lol I found the originals in like 10 minutes. analog filters never work unless you have human intervention.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3800770925110269212
http://www.youtube.com/v/slLzZmA3WvU&rel=1
he says the quote at about 4:40.
this guy's a douche
mike @ 2:
I'm glad your comment came up near the top.
Ah, the "WITH" trolls are here. That stands for: Why Is This Here?. They've been playing this stale troll tactic at Media Matters since its inception. Thanks for your deliberate obtuseness, now go away.
tdizzle @ 31:
I think the correlation is, if you don't like the content, don't come here.
And it's a losing proposition to argue with a Sitemonitor/mod ...
Friedman: homunculus in musth.
[Deleted. Off topic. Nice of you to weigh in on tdizzle's behalf, Tony, from the same IP node, same city etc. So you two work in the same cube farm-Sitemonitor]
[Deleted. Off topic-Sitemonitor]
Chill @ 3:
Uhh, why do these maniacs get such a big platform?
Shadowgm @ 37:
I (heart) the Sitemonitor! :)
Thomas Friedman can eat the corn out of my shit.
I love site monitor too, Happy turkey day site monitor!
Tony @ 39:
We know C&L is being effective when the paid trolls come out. :)
friedman might possibly be coming to the realization that people KNOW he's an id10t shill. possibly.
I won't bet the farm.
goatsage @ 1:
Historical record keeping is important. These guys come out later and say, "I never said that." Just watch how they scrub the records, and many dumb Americans haven't a clue (and don't even care). That's how you got in this mess in the first place.
I go to YouTube for fun and interest, but there is little free or fair going on over there. Free speech-- HA!!!, that's a joke.
Just try to comment on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGvnZskX5Yc
Are site monitors into S&M?
Dr Seuss was.
“Which part of this sentence don’t you understand?”
I might suggest, they understood none of it, becasue it was spoken in "American", not Arabic. They might have been amused if Friedman himself went and they watched his facial expressions. (I remember the original video.) Some mime, with a rdidiculous moustache, appears at your door, and starts freakin'.
Nine Eleven did make this country stupid. What happened to the hunt for the U.S. Military Grade Anthrax Terrorist? Oh? What happened to the Hunt for Osama? OH! Nine 11 is a joke.
Why's Tommy wearing that slab of liver over his baldspot?
HEY FRIEDMAN you mother fucking piss ant!!! You think this corporate imperialism in the guise of freedom and democracy is a good thing do ya? Huh? Well do ya? you fucking piece of shit. One question for you fuckface: If it's so important to you then why aren't you there fighting for what you believe in? Huh? I didn't hear that.. what's that you said? Oh I see, you got better things to do like write your stinging commentaries that help keep us killing the bad guys, right?.. but just so long as it doesn't affect you or your family, right? You are one whiny cowardly piece of shit and I'm tired of seeing you defend American hegemony you worthless fuck.
Thomas Friedman = asshole
That is all.
It will all be decided in the next 6 months. :)
So he's saying in essence that because our leaders were too cowardly to do the right thing and go after the Saudis (the big kid will all the lunch money carrying a stick) so we went after Iraq (the weak kid who couldn't defend himself). makes you proud doesn't it?
Rick @ 53:
C-mon...everyone knows Republicans don't fight in wars...they are too scared...oh, I mean they ALL seem to have a medical condition that keeps them out of the service. They like to go to ware...just as long as THEY don't have to go to war!
I will leave his warped thinking out of it and just go with his point.
He says we needed to whip out our schlong and show those arabs who's boss. Warped thinking aside, we failed at that as well. We did fine while we were flying our giant mechanical dongs through the air and dropping bombs etc. But when it comes down to the "house to house" whipping out of our members, we have been shown up again and again. America has a great big "suck on this" piece of meat as long as we don't have to pull out the real thing. The real thing being a ground war house to house against a bunch of guerilla fighters. The insurgents have proven again and again that even the mighty USA can be beaten if not defeated. I am not saying that our military hasn't fought admirably. They have done well. But NO military could make a big showing against an enemy like this. Cheney knew it, the intelligence said this is how it would go, but they choose to go in anyway.
Friedman may have had a big cock in middle school, but it just didn't size up in the major leagues.
Friedman forgot to mention the fourth bubble: The dumb-ass political news commentator bubble. He may not realize this just yet, but HE is the beginning of THAT bubble being whacked out by informed progressives.
Unbelievable. I'm sure this one will be played all over the Middle East blogosphere by ... you know ... all the innocent civilians and other people who are just simply in the wrong place at the wrong time in history. I'm sure they'll really appreciate his "suck on this" comment. BTW, how do you translate "suck on this" into farsi?
What an asshole!
sam @ 28:
I think we already control Saudi also. And more importantly, since they refuse to tell the world how much oil they still have, and were are grabbing Iraqs oil, they must be getting quite low....
Gee, too much distortion, I couldn't hear anything. Could you not try saying it again? Thanks!
This is our foreign policy. Friedman wants Iraq to "suck on this" and george w. bush wants to "kick some ass." Cheney wants everyone who disagrees with him to "go fuck themselves." Classy, isn't it?
Yet the GOP is still all in a twitter because Bill Clinton received fellatio by a conniving woman who sought work as an intern at the White House with the deliberate intention of getting her "presidential kneepads."
Umm.. what war is over??
Now I listened to the rest of this.
SO, next time someone bombs some americans, the moral answer is "suck on this"?
No interviewer ever mentions Tom marrying a billionaire. He always gets "average joe" billing to spout his idiocy on foreign policy and trade
"How were we to know which [Iraqi] who was innocent today, would be guilty tomorrow?"
-- Thomas Talat, NYT Turkish Bureau Special Correspondent
"So we genocided them, because we could. I especially like the racists we hired to pop the bubble of all those children's heads." -- Thomas "Paul" Bremer, Coalition of Paid Assholes
I don't see where this guy is coming from. At all.
What a lightweight.
I can't believe that I bought his book.
That will not happen again......fool me once............
Post American @ 51:
Indeed....
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QAoAMHRj3TA
mary schlein @ 17:
According to Debka, pipelines are currently being built that will direct Iraqi oil flow through/to Saudi Arabia as early as 2009. This will help mask the fact that the Saudi's are running out of oil.
That was one of the stupidest things I have ever heard.........and I've listened to a lot of Rush and Coulter. UNBELIEVABLE!!!!
Terrorism as a bubble? Methinks Freidman's brain is a bubble.
In essence, his argument is a variation on "they hate us for our freedoms." Again, those who discount the vast sweep of history are condemned to repeat it. As long as American foreign policy remains pernicious and vicious in its assault on global resources, then the people of the world, "the weak" as Freidman calls them, will lash out with whatever means they have at their disposal. But there is another bubble coming, it is called peak oil and with it wil whither the American way of life and I can't wait for that magic day when you are all stuck in your suburban houses with electronic gadgets galores, a car per person in the garage, and nowhere to go but to slowly starve.
Friedman is SUCH an asshole. He looks like the guy from "Lars and the Real Girl"
Somehow all of a sudden the Friedman's, Kristol's, Cheney's, Rushies are the brilliant ones to decide?
Is it they think that being born into wealth, flatuated into wealth by knowing someone or "sucking on that", just the one with 10cents more is the brightest and smartest amongst us?
This Friedman character and its followers is best described in John Dean's book, "Conservatives without conscience".
These liars will always say something completely contrdictory to themselves prior because the old fact is = a liar must remember his lies. It is not that they really believe what they shovel. The shoveled manure is for some of us to guilably accept from a authooritarian figure(a daddy). They just can't remember those lies. Truth is always easy to recall..........................
He really needs to up his dosage.
Friedman was always a complete piece of human filth but now he's going demonstrably insane. Time for the men in the white coats with the straight jacket. The next "Friedman unit" is going to be a ward in the loony bin.
I was the one who brought Thomas's infamous, mind boggling "suck on this" speech to the attention of Atrios, something I'm quite proud of. Many talked about the "Friedman units" (which, if you've noticed, he hasn't made any of those "the next six months are critical" speeches lately), but I found this to be much more offensive. I remember seeing this nimble minded moron on Rose say this (shortly after the statue of Saddam fell), and I was truly flabbergasted and enraged that a "Middle East expert" would so indulge in such awful dialogue that is more typical of 4th graders than middle aged adults. It was deeply embarrassing, and it still is.
And his "Obama/Cheney" op-ed is just icing on the cake of his inanity.....
"Suck on this" -- Classy, Friedman. Just....classy.
Put down the Eminem lyrics and go read the 9/11 Commission Report. You'll find that the ones who attacked us don't give a fuck about our "Hummers"...
But hey you got your 15 Minutes of Soundbyte Fame--and one day it will come back to bite you in the ass. So enjoy it.
His "we have to go over there"...sounded like he didn't know we had been there before.
Friedman says we could have hit Saudi Arabia, I don't think so, that really would have started WWIII and the Iranians would have gotten there wish...Israel would have been wiped off the map probably by the Saudis with our weaponry that we sent them.
Who pays this clown to say the stupid shat he says? I mean, I'd could come up with some bullshat that makes as much, or even more sense than his bullshat does, and nobody's paying me for it.
I can't understand what made this racist SOB,such an expert on anything.The Neocon inbreds tried to sell him as the expert on the Middle East.I think he doesn't know his ass hole from a hole in the ground.Fuck him and the retards like him.
Dosn't the jerk know what he is discribing is called collective punishment? And that is a WAR CRIME.
I actually have been reading this guys OP-ED peices for a few years, and they always have brought me to anger. Not from what he says, but from what he actually is talking about.
Its a shame, a damn shame to think that what he is right about is so wrong. As idioitic as it is, the current cult of government is only concerned about how to use any means nessesary, not to defend democracy, but to enrich theselves. This was their oportinuty. All they cared about was stock options and hummers. Bu$h Lied, Iraqies died.
He is absolutly right about why Iraq was the target. A target of Suadi Arabia would have had more destablizing effects on the world economy, but the end resut, as it will happen will be about the same. Its all bringing us to the precipace of an abyss. Will greed or peace rule. Right now, greed is on both sides of the election, and peace is only an afterthought.
What a POS. Jesus help us.
"Suck on this." Does he get paid to come up with this tripe?
Friedman needs to be reminded that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. what an asshole
Friedman is a total asshole. He's fine sending "American girls and boys" door to door in Iraq to threaten them, straighten them out--just not his kids, who are safely ensconced in college or private schools. Total hypocrite.
This guy is such an asshole, I can barely believe my ears. Friedman, whoever he is, is totally and completely NUTS. What a CREEP! I feel dirty just looking at this skinless slimebag. My god. This clueless piece of shit is a leach of the lowest order. Ughughugh!
Unfortunately for Friedman, our boys AND girls were sent door to door on behalf of psychopathic warmongers to say "what part of this don't you understand?: suck on THIS".....
....to the wrong country.
....so basically we decided to proceed into a war with staggering ignorance, unforgivable negligence, and willfully blind to the consequences...
....because we could.
...because regional bigotry mean never having to apologize for one's own murderous incompetence. Goodness, we've come so far since the Crusades, haven't we.
Edwin @ 50:
Even if the scared looking Iraqi family spoke some American, they would say "No, no, Sir.., really, this is Iraq.., sorry, you in wrong country..America number 1.. If you need suck, also sorry.. you in wrong country.."
As usual, Friedman misses the mark....
You cannot stop someone from strapping a bomb to themselves
and blowing it off somewhere...
You have to make them want to stop.
Tom Friedman is an asshole.
cinnamon4550 @ 72:
BTW, that is how america on mass sounds to the rest of the world by the way.
Kald @ 64:
The war that the administration had with the very few in the US with spines that would stand up to them, they won that one a while ago.
Double btw ....... oh dear, why no edit button ! btw is the new wmd it seems ........
Man, he needs to be slapped with a rotten halibat. Here, here's even worse than Sean Hannity - who also should be slapped with rotten fish - but Friedman's essentially stealing Hannity's blustery, macho, stupid schtick. He writes for the New York Times and is talking to Charlie Rose, for god's sake. Friedman should know better. It's a perfect storm of ego and belligerent idiocy.
Can we take all the stupid pundits and politicians and have them play paintball or something so they can prove their manhood without invading another country, please?
Batocchio @ 96:
Charlie Rose whose recent replay of Norman Mailer interviews he did in 2002 showed Rose grotesquely trying to sell Mailer, after Mailer said that some questions answer themselves, on the idea that the Iraqis would be grateful flower throwers who would embrace our soldiers as saviors. Rose was almost giggling he was so THRILLED at the idea of being their savior.
Mailer's response was "You honor, I rest my case."
Haven't a country that can't protect it's own citizens when it becomes obvious 'something' was going to happen... I think this war somewhat says, "that's okay." Because instead of pointing fingers at the lack of security, let's attack someone... let's not fix the problem of the chance that maybe our own citizen might do something like that.
It's not as if someone 'stole' the idea of having an explosive truck and try to blow up a big building from someone in this country or anythign...
Friedman is a baby, wimpy, JDL-wannabe, who has tapped into the US/zionist propaganda machine, probably by being the blow-job donor at AEI initiation ceremonies.
He thinks of himself as cosmic in importance, when in reality he is an unevolved mutant troglodyte, trapped in the sands of the Red Sea 'miracle' during the exodus.
Which is your cue, Friedman, it's time for you to exit, you've had your fifteen minutes.
This nut case has a stupid argument. If the idea was to protect a "open society" by bombing the shit out of a defenseless country to make the point, didn't work did it? The end result of this stupid war in Iraq has created our country's society to become less open and less cohesive than in my life time, including the Vietnam war and the civil rights movement. Keep in mind that the media did not have control of the airwaves back then and reporters reported the news.
Ah, Thomas Freakman, what a psychotic mess you are. Can anyone make any sense out of his "logic". And can anyone tell me why the fuck we listen to him? I mean, other than the fact that he likes killing brown people, or at least having his country's armed forces doing the killing for him. He sure likes himself some dead brown people. BTW, he is very proud to have his name associated with a period of time that roughly equates to at least 20K dead brown people. No joke, that's the way he thinks of it.
But let's get onto the "logic". Here's a small analogy. You are Freakman. You are the only sheriff in a small town so what you say is the law. For decades you have been sending your son down the street to terrorize the neighbors. He blows up their mailbox. He makes your dog crap on their lawn. He lets the air out of their tires. He cuts power and phone lines to their house. He eggs the front door. From time to time he beats the living shit out of the neighbor kid and steals his money.
Every time the neighbor comes to you and complains, you say, "I don't believe you. My son can do no wrong and anyway, I'm the sheriff, so shut up."
One day the neighbor can't take it any more and so he busts into your house and kills your gerbil. A small, part of your family, but part of your family none the less. To teach your neighbor a lesson, you pay a gang of guys to travel to a city 20 miles away where they burn the whole city to the ground and kill a bunch of the people. Then you say to your neighbor, "There! That should teach you a lesson!"
So sayeth the logic of Freakman.
Thomas Friedman is an idiot, The World Is Flat was absolute, pro-free trade, pro-globalization garbage. I can't believe he's considered a journalist, he sways with the wind and does no actual research outside of Wikipedia.
The blind (and dumb) leading the blind (and dumb) into the ditch. ‘What part of Fascism don’t you understand? -- What part of defending the Constitution and BEING a GOOD American do you NOT understand?’ When dumbed down fellow ‘Amerikans’ listen to such a blatant plagiarizer and intellectual midget as Thomas Friedman, who now faithfully serves the NWO, as their minions; then the end is close at hand... It doesn't have to be this way. Please wake up people... Please... Learn what our Founding Fathers did with traitors.
Three cheers for billw!!
I think Friedman should get a "geek of the new millennium" award, for this perforamnce.
He neglected to mention the current malaise, which is the BUSH BUBBLE.
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