Thomas Friedman: Because We Can’t

December 2, 2009 at 8:16 am | Posted in American politics | Leave a comment

Surprise Surprise, Mr. Friedman is against Obama and his push in Afghanistan. Who would have thunk it. And what is his reason?

Let me start with the bottom line and then tell you how I got there: I can’t agree with President Obama’s decision to escalate in Afghanistan. I’d prefer a minimalist approach, working with tribal leaders the way we did to overthrow the Taliban regime in the first place. Given our need for nation-building at home right now, I am ready to live with a little less security and a little-less-perfect Afghanistan.

Huh? I guess gone are the days when he thinks we can because we can

FRIEDMAN: You don’t think, you know, we care about our open society. You think this bubble fantasy, we’re just going to let it grow? Well, suck on this, ok. That Charlie, is what this war was about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. Could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could. That’s the real truth.

We can’t just “hit them” anymore, can we Mr. Friedman. And look at what he says about Iraq:

To me, the most important reason for the Iraq war was never W.M.D. It was to see if we could partner with Iraqis to help them build something that does not exist in the modern Arab world: a state, a context, where the constituent communities — Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds — write their own social contract for how to live together without an iron fist from above.

That is of course not what he said in 2003. He said “We hit Iraq because we could. That’s the real truth.”

What do I believe? I believe Thomas Friedman should retire and stop talking about things he apparently no longer knows anything of value about. I think it is time for him to shut the hell up.