Thomas Friedman has written another op-ed about the Middle East. Frankly he should have retired his thoughts on the Middle East in 2002 when he gave up reason and supported the war in Iraq. But sadly, we still have to hear him get involved in that which he does not understand, or that which he would rather frame in a particular way, setting the stage for future American leaders to view the Middle East a particular way. He does so with this new op-ed. He writes:

The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president — but this cold war is with Iran.

That is the real umbrella story in the Middle East today — the struggle for influence across the region, with America and its Sunni Arab allies (and Israel) versus Iran, Syria and their non-state allies, Hamas and Hezbollah. As the May 11 editorial in the Iranian daily Kayhan put it, “In the power struggle in the Middle East, there are only two sides: Iran and the U.S.”

For now, Team America is losing on just about every front. How come? The short answer is that Iran is smart and ruthless, America is dumb and weak, and the Sunni Arab world is feckless and divided. Any other questions?

The outrage of the week is the Iranian-Syrian-Hezbollah attempt to take over Lebanon. Hezbollah thugs pushed into Sunni neighborhoods in West Beirut, focusing particular attention on crushing progressive news outlets like Future TV, so Hezbollah’s propaganda machine could dominate the airwaves. The Shiite militia Hezbollah emerged supposedly to protect Lebanon from Israel. Having done that, it has now turned around and sold Lebanon to Syria and Iran.

Note all the problems in this, the simplistic view of something complex, the easy labels, and so on. First comes the overall theme, the overall framing that Mr. Friedman wishes his readers to view America’s foreign policy vis-a-vis the Middle East: A Cold War. See, Americans are quite familiar with the term “Cold War,” or so Mr. Friedman thinks. But from our one and only example of a “Cold War” there sure isn’t any real comparison between the two examples. However, in both examples, one thing is very, very, sadly true: the United States misreads both opponents. The Soviet Union took over eastern Europe to set up a buffer zone between itself and Germany (after two betrayals who would be dumb enough NOT to?). Did the Soviet Union have plans to go into western Europe? Nope. But that was the fear in the United States. That, however, set up the confrontations in the rest of the world, where the Soviet Union felt it needed to expand to protect itself from the threat faced by the United States. We did the same, setting up bases in far off countries, delving into the internal affairs of far off nations we had no business messing around with.

In this op-ed, you can almost feel Mr. Friedman’s desire for this to be a reversion to the more simplistic life under the Cold War. So simple it was. Them = bad guys, Us = good guys. The United States, though, is a real fickle bitch. We used the Soviet Union to destroy Nazi Germany, only to turn around and use those same Germans to undermine the Russians. Most of the real saving battles of World War II on the European front occurred between Russia and Germany (as they had a generation previous in World War I). Without the Soviets, Germany would have overrun the entire western front and given the United States no ability to truly make a beachhead in France. In any case, this is a tangent.

So back to the main point, the situation in the Middle East today is not a Cold War. The troubles of the Middle East are unfortunately from our doing, not Iran’s. We are the ones who removed a democratically elected president of Iran back in the 1950s, installing the shah and bringing repression back to the Iranians, leading to their Revolution and to the situation we see today. We are the ones who installed the Ba’ath Party in Iraq, leading to Saddam Hussein and the rest of that sad story.

The second place that Mr. Friedman gets things wrong is in tying Iran, Syria and Hezbollah as basically one entity working in harmony on every little point. If something occurs that undermines our position, it surely must be because of that dastardly “Axis of Evil!” Surely there are no local politics involved. Surely Hezbollah has no local politics to deal with that has nothing at all to do with Iran. Hezbollah is a powerful entity within Lebanon even without Iran.

What Mr. Friedman cannot seem to understand is that this is truly different than the Cold War. Poland had little choice but to do what the Kremlin ordered. But Syria is really not under the control of Iran. I highly doubt we will ever see Iran send tanks to Damascus to breakup a revolution like Budapest, Hungary. But see, thinking all that is getting into complex situations, and Mr. Friedman doesn’t really want Americans to think more deeply about this situation. He would rather have us look simplistically at the Middle East. Them = bad guys, Us = good guys. End of story, as Mr. Friedman would like to frame it.

Mr. Friedman, it is best if you stick to talking about global warming or globalization or anything else that has nothing to do with the Middle East. You’ve put your foot in your mouth far too much vis-a-vis the Middle East. Let us not forget how you framed the war in Iraq.

Should anyone ever consider listening to YOUR opinion of what to do in the Middle East? Never.

This man endorses John McCain for president.

You have a choice to make this November, America. Publish peace or make war. It is your choice.

I wonder what Condi thinks of these developments in Lebanon.

I wonder if she realizes that her actions two years ago have led to this.

Nothing more to add.

Michael Gordon carries the water for the Bush administration yet again, unquestioningly passing along any information “American officials” wish to pass along to their best enabler, Mr. Gordon. This time is it the salacious news that Hezbollah (our mortal enemy) has been training Iraqis in Iran (duh duh duh!)!

There has been debate among experts about the extent to which Iran is responsible for instability in Iraq. But President Bush and other American officials, in public castigations of Iran, have said that Iran has been consistently meddlesome in Iraq and that the Iranians have long sought to arm and train Iraqi militias, which the American military has called “special groups.”

In a possible effort to be less obtrusive, it appears that Iran is now bringing small groups of Iraqi Shiite militants to camps in Iran, where they are taught how to do their own training, American officials say.

Because of course, “American officials” are, er…uh, never wrong. But just read those two paragraphs closely. Iran, responsible for instability in Iraq? Who is the biggest provider of weapons and training in Iraq of various militias and non-state actors? Why it is the United States! In a competition between the United States and Iran, which of the two nations has directly killed more civilians than the other? Uh, this should be a no brainer, but for those kool-aid drinking war supporters, the answer is the United States. It is the United States that is sowing instability in Iraq at a far greater rate than Iran could ever do.

Those dratted meddlesome Iranians. If it weren’t for those blasted kids and their dog!

Yes, I am going to take a break from blogging about politics for a month. That means (for snarkers out there) that I won’t post any new post here or on Council of Fifty for a month. I’ve got a story I want to start writing and I will focus on that. Plus, I’ve gotta get away from politics. Too divisive.

I really need to go read that book because we see in the news even more examples of how much the CIA has failed us. It is quite painful actually, because, well, Westerners were able to get into the highest levels of Al-Qaeda. Anyone remember John Walker Lindh? He did meet Bin Laden you know.

Not only does the CIA have no ability to actually do its job of intelligence into our real enemy, but they are effectively making it worse by torturing Al-Qaeda suspects. George Bush, the Idiot, made sure that the CIA was not liable by vetoing a law intended to prohibit torture by the CIA.

I think the Pentagon accidentally let the cat out of the bag, basically telling us just how many detainees they have and how many interrogations took place (both within the law, and both torture). Tens of thousands.

The officials said it appeared that only a small fraction of the tens of thousands of interrogations worldwide since 2001 had been recorded.

The only reason I care about this number is the same reason I care about the number of bullets apparently fired in Iraq since the war in Iraq began.

Don’t forget the small statistics, which are often the most striking. According to John Pike, the head of the research group GlobalSecurity.org, an estimated 250,000 bullets have been fired for every insurgent killed in Iraq. That’s not just a waste of ammunition; it’s also a reflection of how badly the country has been damaged and how indiscriminate some of the fighting has been.

250,000 bullets for every insurgent killed. Tens of thousands of interrogations of detainees and we’re still nowhere close to knocking out Al-Qaeda. Doesn’t this just seem rather inefficient and wasteful? You’d think after tens of thousands of interrogations we’d get that “Mosaic” that we’re so apparently desperate to view. You’d think after so many bullets fired we’d have killed all of the bad guys out there.

I’m talking about the media and George Bush. Just watch this video as George Bush makes fun of Katrina, of Scooter Libby, of Cheney and secret documents, of Saudi oil princes, etc. And just watch the media roaring it up in laughter.

Digby writes about it, and quotes Chris Matthews who said:

Well, that was quite a hoot. All that joking from the President about Brownie, that guy in charge of the New Orleans disaster, and of course Scooter Libby, the guy involved in the CIA coverup. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s reporters, the best of them, laughing at events and political acts that warrant anything, I mean, anything but laughter. There is nothing, nothing funny about Bush’s reference to Brownie, that disastrous appointment followed by that catastrophic handling of the Katrina horror in New Orleans. Nothing funny about a war fought for bad intelligence, and a top aide, Scooter Libby, who committed perjury and obstruction of justice to cover it up. Nothing funny about a President, who commuted that sentence to keep the coverup protected. Otherwise, I’m sure it was an enjoyable get-together between journalists and the people they’re charged with covering.

Admiral William Fallon resigns as CENTCOM commander. This is really important because he was the one who said that there will be no war with Iran on his watch.

In an admiring article on Fallon in Esquire, former Pentagon official Thomas P.M. Barnett writes that Fallon angered the White House by “brazenly challenging” Bush on his aggressive threat of war against Tehran. Barnett also cites “well-placed observers” as saying Bush may soon replace Fallon with a “more pliable” commander.

Barnett’s account, which quotes conversations with Fallon during the CENTCOM commander’s trips to the Middle East, shows that Fallon privately justified his statements contradicting the Bush policy of keeping the “option” of an unprovoked attack on Iran “on the table” as necessary to calm the fears of Egypt and other friendly Arab regimes of a U.S.-Iran war.

Barnett recalls that when Fallon was in Cairo in November, the lead story in that day’s edition of the English-language daily Egyptian Gazette carried the headline “U.S. Rules Out Strike against Iran” over a picture of Fallon meeting with President Hosni Mubarak.

That story, published Nov. 19 and not picked up by any U.S. news media, reported that Fallon had “ruled out a possible strike against Iran and said Washington was mulling non-military options instead.”

Later that day, according to Barnett, Fallon told him during a coffee break in a military meeting, “I’m in hot water again,” and then confirmed that his problems were directly with the White House.

That was the second time in less than a week and the third time in seven weeks that Fallon had publicly declared that there would be no war against Iran. In an interview with Al-Jazeera television in September, which Fallon himself had requested, according to a source at Al-Jazeera, he had said, “This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me which is not helpful and not useful”.

And only a week before the trip to Egypt, in an interview with Financial Times, Fallon had said, a military strike was not “in the offing”, adding, “Another war is just not where we want to go.”

These statements represented an extraordinary exercise of power by a combat commander, because it contradicted a central feature of the Bush-Cheney strategy on Iran. High-ranking Bush administration officials had been routinely repeating the administration’s line that no option had been taken “off the table” since early 2005.

At an Oct. 17 news conference, Bush said he had “told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”

Fallon’s public statements explicitly ruling out an attack on Iran thus undermined the Bush administration’s threat against Iran.

You ready America? A war with Iran is now closer at hand.

UPDATED: Here is the Esquire piece on Admiral Fallon that pretty much led to his removal. He was probably the last stumbling block on the Bush administration’s vile desires to war with Iran. Thomas P.M. Barnett’s abstract is ominous:

As head of U. S. Central Command, Admiral William “Fox” Fallon is in charge of American military strategy for the most troubled parts of the world. Now, as the White House has been escalating the war of words with Iran, and seeming ever more determined to strike militarily before the end of this presidency, the admiral has urged restraint and diplomacy. Who will prevail, the president or the admiral?

It seems the president has won and the world has lost.

Proposal Would Let U.S. Troops in South Korea Have Families With Them

WASHINGTON — The commander of American forces in South Korea is urging the Pentagon to allow thousands of troops stationed there to have spouses and children live with them during tours of duty.

The proposal by the commander, Gen. B. B. Bell, is a recognition that the military must do more to improve the quality of life for troops and their families. It would reverse decades of policy for South Korea, recognizing that an attack from the North has become unlikely given the enduring American presence as a deterrent and the growth in size and sophistication of the South Korean armed forces. In any case, American troops have been shifted away from the front lines. . . .
General Bell told of speaking with a young captain, the father of a 2 ½-year-old girl, who arrived alone in South Korea just five months after returning from more than a year in Iraq. The captain had spent less than eight months with his child in her life.

“You know, we can do better than that,” General Bell said he told the captain.

You’re right, General Bell. We can do better than that. The fact that 2000 families have moved to Seoul on their own to be near their family members in the service shows how important family is to our service members.

I remember being about 5 years old when my father was deployed to South Korea and Japan. My sister was something like 2 years old, and if I remember correctly, Mom’s disease was getting worse and she might have been pregnant with a third. We were told that we couldn’t go abroad with my father, and we were shipped off to New Jersey to live with my grandparents.

Life with grandma and grandpa was some of the best times of my life, but it was bittersweet because Daddy wasn’t around. I remember trying to share our life with him over cassette tapes, but it just wasn’t the same. He spoke on tapes and sent them to us and we would record others and send them back to him. It was tough for me to understand why Daddy couldn’t be there.
This separation caused more major issues that I won’t discuss here, but I will say that I truly hope that the US govt. does the right thing and makes moves to keep families together as much as possible, even when they are deployed across the globe in areas that are no longer war zones.

No surprise to anyone who was against the war from the start, but it is nice to see the Pentagon agreeing with us, that there really were no ties between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.

So let’s review the list of reasons for going into Iraq in the first place.

The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.

Oh, oops. Scratch that one off the list.

Truly astonishing.

I’ve talked before about how the war in Iraq is a waste, completely unnecessary, and a tragic loss of precious, valuable resources, both human and other. One writer has estimated that the war will cost $3 trillion dollars. Over at Crooked Timber, Daniel puts it in perspective:

* The cost of the Iraq War could have underwritten Social Security for fifty years. This brings home one of the points Max Sawicky always made in the SS debate (in general to a brick wall). Although the headline amounts associated with these problems are scary, they are actually not all that much as a percentage of GDP. The Iraq War is a horrific waste of money, but I don’t think anyone would actually try and claim that it literally can’t be afforded. Similarly with the Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security nexus of funding costs; it’s absolutely clear that the productive capacity of the US economy can pay for these things, it’s just a question of whether there is political will to do so, or whether the government would rather spend the money on killing hundreds of thousands of people overseas for no very obvious benefit.

* It’s not often that one gets to correct a Nobel Prize winner, so I will take the opportunity. Stiglitz is qutoed as saying that “Money spent on armaments is money poured down the drain”. This is actually the best case for armaments spending from an economic point of view. Most of the time, when armaments are used, they damage something valuable. If all the bullets fired in Iraq had been poured down the drain instead, the world economy would be massively better off, even allowing for the cost of cleaning up the pollution caused in the drain.

* Three trillion dollars really could have solved a lot of world problems. For example, it would have funded a once-and-for-all offer to the entire population of Gaza, the West Bank and the UNRWA refugee camps of half a million dollars each to slope off and stop bothering the Israelis. That’s the sort of money we’re talking about here.

Others have written about the cost of the war in perspective, but I just thought those were good points.

At some point Americans are going to have to decide to stop listening to the warmongers like Bill Kristol and the rest of his ilk. It is time to end this travesty.

Remember one thing about doing business with a bank. The bank will always make more money than you will off of the relationship. You will always come away with less than the bank will.

Because it sure looks like it based on the timing of these cases against terrorists held at Gitmo. Be ready everybody. You’re about to be bamboozled again.

Mitt Romney is stepping aside now from the race to the White House. The fact that he couldn’t win California, I think finally made it clear he could not be the nominee. Let’s see who he endorses. I can only hope he endorses Barack Obama, but that will be highly unlikely, seeing that he’s shifted to the right of McCain.

So what are conservative Christians going to do? Will they keep voting for Huckabee in the hopes that McCain takes him on as his VP?

That question just screams out at Mitch McConnell’s testimony yesterday in front of Congress.

Al Qaeda is gaining in strength from its refuge in Pakistan and is steadily improving its ability to recruit, train and position operatives capable of carrying out attacks inside the United States, the director of national intelligence told a Senate panel on Tuesday.

The director, Mike McConnell, told lawmakers that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, remained in control of the terrorist group and had promoted a new generation of lieutenants. He said Al Qaeda was also improving what he called “the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S.” — producing militants, including new Western recruits, capable of blending into American society and attacking domestic targets.

If this is the case, WHY THE HELL ARE WE NOT IN PAKISTAN TO STOP THEM!!!!!!!!!!!

Is it really that hard of a question to ask? Com’on Congressmen! Com’on journalists! Ask!

wow, this is pretty fascinating. Apparently a boat in the Mediterranean sliced some cable under the sea causing massive disruptions in the Middle East and Asia.

Now, I’m just curious, but, well, why would we set up half the world’s Internet on a wire that could be cut accidentally by a boat? That just don’t make no sense.

Numerous others are making their comments known, and I wanted to share mine too. I appreciate all that President Hinckley has done for the church. His efforts at public relations have cast the church in a much fairer and kinder light. He has pressed for more moderation and more mainstream acceptability. He has done much to show the world that we are regular people, not fringe extremists. His efforts will never be forgotten, not his 60 some odd years of service in the church. Few can claim to have served in the church for such great lengths of time. He loved the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he did all in his power to share that love of the Gospel. He radically increased the number of temples, including the designs of smaller temples for quicker construction and more access to these eternal and sacred buildings.

Thank you President Hinckley. Rest now from all your labors.