Sunday, October 03, 2004
Thomas Friedman: Back And Still Clueless
Actually, more clueless, if that's possible.
So far, so good, you're probably saying to yourself. Who could disagree with those statements, other than Mr. Bush's base? But look what happens in the very next paragraph: Mr. Friedman asks, "What happened?" Presumably, he means, what happened while he was gone, because he goes on to specify that, tut tut, the Bush administration got its doctrines mixed up; instead of applying the Powell Doctrine to Iraq, you remember that doctrine, the one about overwhelming force ruthlessly applied, the Bushites applied it to the Kerry campaign; the Republican convention is appropriately disparged and Friedman mentions the ad blitz that didn't stop short of outright distortion. Meanwhile, in Iraq:
Good God! That's what's been missing from our policy toward Iraq - "brutal efficiency?" The fact is, this administration's message to Iraqis has been quite clear as well as unwavering - we're here to liberate you, we want you to be free, we want for you the blessings of democracy and the free market, we will not abandon you, we are resolute, be assured we will not leave your country until we're sure we've accomplished what we came here to accomplish: The problem has been that increasing numbers of Iraqis reject the message, in large measure because our promises have proved to be empty. What we have brought to Iraq with a brutal efficiency that is above reproach, if brutal efficiency is what you're after, is complete chaos, unrepresentative government, constant violence, destruction, and death. And in our blundering, we've managed to set the stage for an emerging civil war.
But Tom Friedman is as stalwart as the administration for which he shilled so continuously, before taking his book-writing sabbatical.
According to Tom, the reason is that in every situation where there was a choice to be made between doing what was best for our policy in Iraq vs the demands of the rightwing ideology of the Bush base, the Bush base won out. Specific examples presented are the failure to fire the evangelical Christian General spouting anti-Islam rhetoric, the failure to apologize to the UN for not finding WMD so we could convince them to join us in doing what we always meant to do, shape an Iraqi government to our liking, failure to impose a "Patriot" 50 cents gas tax to pay for the war, the failure to fire Rumsfeld to show the world how seriously we took what happened at Abu Ghraib, that type of thing.
But there's something that really gets Tom Friedman's goat.
Gee, Tom, what I resent so much is the way you exempt yourself from any errors of judgement in your own advocacy of this awful war and the administration whose "baby" it's always been. Maybe, Tom, the problem in your own thinking is crystallized in that bit about why it was/is so important to produce a different Iraq, because the only people on earth who can produce an Iraq that is still a geographical and national entity of any stripe are the people who live there - Kurds, Shia, Sunnis, rural, urban, fundamentalist, secularist, tribal and cosmopolitan. Could we have played a decent, limited role in helping along a free, independent, and democratic Iraq, an Iraq where human rights we valued and exercised? It's possible. In that case, though, instead of a clear message coming from us to the Iraqis, maybe what we needed to do was a little listening ourselves. Yunno, Tom, it's never too late to start, listening, that is, to Iraqis, and to observers on the ground, there, who aren't shilling for anyone. And what about your own contempt for "politics," and presumably for democracy.
What on earth does that mean? No "partisan" discussion of Iraq? Should we just call off the election, like we called off those first elections Jay Garner was planning to hold within weeks of our taking Baghdad?
The real problem here is not that we're discussing this issue in a political context, the problem is the constraints put on that discussion by writers like yourself, who refuse to take an honest look at the fundamental misconceptions upon which the invasion and occupation of Iraq were promulgated.
The idea that the Iraqi people could have been whipped into shape by a superior culture through the use of force was always destined for the wastebin of history. Would that its advocates were, too.
Sorry, I've been away writing a book. I'm back, so let's get right down to business: We're in trouble in Iraq.
I don't know what is salvagable there anymore. I hope it is something decent and I am certain we have to try our best to bring about elections and rebuild the Iraqi Army to give every chance for decency to emerge there. But here is the cold, hard truth: This war has been hugely mismanaged by this administration, in the face of clear advice to the contrary at every stage, and as a result the range of decent outcomes in Iraq has been narrowed and the tools we have to bring even those about are more limited than ever.
So far, so good, you're probably saying to yourself. Who could disagree with those statements, other than Mr. Bush's base? But look what happens in the very next paragraph: Mr. Friedman asks, "What happened?" Presumably, he means, what happened while he was gone, because he goes on to specify that, tut tut, the Bush administration got its doctrines mixed up; instead of applying the Powell Doctrine to Iraq, you remember that doctrine, the one about overwhelming force ruthlessly applied, the Bushites applied it to the Kerry campaign; the Republican convention is appropriately disparged and Friedman mentions the ad blitz that didn't stop short of outright distortion. Meanwhile, in Iraq:
If only the Bush team had gone after the remnants of Saddam's army in the Sunni Triangle with the brutal efficiency it has gone after Senator Kerry in the Iowa-Ohio-Michigan triangle. If only the Bush team had spoken to Iraqis and Arabs with as clear a message as it did to the Republican base. No, alas, while the Bush people applied the Powell Doctrine in the Midwest, they applied the Rumsfeld Doctrine in the Middle East. And the Rumsfeld Doctrine is: "Just enough troops to lose."
Good God! That's what's been missing from our policy toward Iraq - "brutal efficiency?" The fact is, this administration's message to Iraqis has been quite clear as well as unwavering - we're here to liberate you, we want you to be free, we want for you the blessings of democracy and the free market, we will not abandon you, we are resolute, be assured we will not leave your country until we're sure we've accomplished what we came here to accomplish: The problem has been that increasing numbers of Iraqis reject the message, in large measure because our promises have proved to be empty. What we have brought to Iraq with a brutal efficiency that is above reproach, if brutal efficiency is what you're after, is complete chaos, unrepresentative government, constant violence, destruction, and death. And in our blundering, we've managed to set the stage for an emerging civil war.
But Tom Friedman is as stalwart as the administration for which he shilled so continuously, before taking his book-writing sabbatical.
Being away has not changed my belief one iota in the importance of producing a decent outcome in Iraq, to help move the Arab-Muslim world off its steady slide toward increased authoritarianism, unemployment, overpopulation, suicidal terrorism and religious obscurantism. But my time off has clarified for me, even more, that this Bush team can't get us there, and may have so messed things up that no one can. Why?
According to Tom, the reason is that in every situation where there was a choice to be made between doing what was best for our policy in Iraq vs the demands of the rightwing ideology of the Bush base, the Bush base won out. Specific examples presented are the failure to fire the evangelical Christian General spouting anti-Islam rhetoric, the failure to apologize to the UN for not finding WMD so we could convince them to join us in doing what we always meant to do, shape an Iraqi government to our liking, failure to impose a "Patriot" 50 cents gas tax to pay for the war, the failure to fire Rumsfeld to show the world how seriously we took what happened at Abu Ghraib, that type of thing.
But there's something that really gets Tom Friedman's goat.
What I resent so much is that some of us actually put our personal politics aside in thinking about this war and about why it is so important to produce a different Iraq. This administration never did. Mr. Kerry's own views on Iraq have been intensely political and for a long time not well thought through. But Mr. Kerry is a politician running for office. Mr. Bush is president, charged with protecting the national interest, and yet from the beginning he has run Iraq policy as an extension of his political campaign.
Gee, Tom, what I resent so much is the way you exempt yourself from any errors of judgement in your own advocacy of this awful war and the administration whose "baby" it's always been. Maybe, Tom, the problem in your own thinking is crystallized in that bit about why it was/is so important to produce a different Iraq, because the only people on earth who can produce an Iraq that is still a geographical and national entity of any stripe are the people who live there - Kurds, Shia, Sunnis, rural, urban, fundamentalist, secularist, tribal and cosmopolitan. Could we have played a decent, limited role in helping along a free, independent, and democratic Iraq, an Iraq where human rights we valued and exercised? It's possible. In that case, though, instead of a clear message coming from us to the Iraqis, maybe what we needed to do was a little listening ourselves. Yunno, Tom, it's never too late to start, listening, that is, to Iraqis, and to observers on the ground, there, who aren't shilling for anyone. And what about your own contempt for "politics," and presumably for democracy.
Friends, I return to where I started: We're in trouble in Iraq. We have to immediately get the Democratic and Republican politics out of this policy and start honestly reassessing what is the maximum we can still achieve there and what every American is going to have to do to make it happen. If we do not, we'll end up not only with a fractured Iraq, but with a fractured America, at war with itself and isolated from the world.
What on earth does that mean? No "partisan" discussion of Iraq? Should we just call off the election, like we called off those first elections Jay Garner was planning to hold within weeks of our taking Baghdad?
The real problem here is not that we're discussing this issue in a political context, the problem is the constraints put on that discussion by writers like yourself, who refuse to take an honest look at the fundamental misconceptions upon which the invasion and occupation of Iraq were promulgated.
The idea that the Iraqi people could have been whipped into shape by a superior culture through the use of force was always destined for the wastebin of history. Would that its advocates were, too.
