Tom Friedman always seems to be a day late and a dollar short

[whistle]

...on his assessments of the facts. Friedman seems to vacillate between kissing up to the Bush administration policies and pounding them into to ground with criticism. Now Friedman agrees that the Iraq war is good because it makes the enemy look good when America appears to be loosing on the enemy's own turf. Yet he claims that if we bring the troops home, or pound the crap out of them in their backyards, then the Jihadists will make one last spectacular suicidal statement against America on our soil. Please! Give me a break.

There has been no terrorist attack on American soil since
9-11 because.....it would not be convenient for the neo-con fanatics and BushCo who want to install a Christian Military Theocracy government in this country. Friedman is just another smoke-up-our-ass blower journalist who seems to be too lazy or incompetent to dig for the truth in this matter.

<snip>
April 13, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Calm Before the Storm?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

So here's a question that I've been wrestling with lately: With all these reports about the bungling of U.S. intelligence, and the C.I.A.'s relying on bogus informants with names like "Curveball" or "Knucklehead" or whatever, why have there been no terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/11? I've got my own pet theory about what's produced this period of calm - and, more important, why it may be coming to an end.

<snip>
Despite all of that, I fear that we may now be entering the most dangerous period since 9/11. Why? Because I've always believed that one of the most important reasons there has been no new terrorist attack in America has to do with the U.S. invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not only that the Bush administration has taken the fight to the enemy, but that the enemy has welcomed that fight.

<snip>
I fear that when and if the Jihadists conclude that they have been defeated in the heart of their world, they will be sorely tempted to throw a Hail Mary pass. That is, they may want to launch a spectacular, headline-grabbing act of terrorism in America that tries to mask, and compensate for, just how defeated they have become at home.

In short, the more the Jihadists lose in Iraq, the more likely they are to use their rump forces to try something really crazy in America to make up for it. So let's stay the course in Iraq, but stay extra-vigilant at home.

<more>
<link> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/13/opinion/13friedman.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print&position=

[WalrusSlayer]

1. Where to begin...

First of all, to see the "bring the fight to the enemy" line being used with a straight face in the NYT is disheartening, to put it mildly. I have always thought this reasoning was completely bogus, and was under the impression that most thoughtful people would agree. Did I miss something somewhere?

Secondly, are they really becoming "defeated in the heart of their world"? That's not the sense I get, but how would I know?

Which brings me to my biggest concern: in this news and political environment, there's simply no way to know how well or badly things are going over there. Are we beating the jihadists or simply energizing them? If we are beating them, is that simply a short term victory that plants the seeds for a problem in the long term?

Even in the most favorable of climates, these are hard questions. In the current climate, we can't even get a baseline from which to start.

[whistle]

3. I agree with your points completely, and taking the editorial...

...babelings of an armchair journalist like Tom Friedman, who I doubt has been anywhere never the Jihadist hostilities anywhere in the world, let alone talked with anyone involved, is to relinquish all discretion of on who and from where one relies upon sound news reporting and interpretation. Friedman needs to stick to more theoretical subjects like economic theories from the last three centuries, stuff that is not likely to change radically from the time he thinks up what he will write about and when it gets published in the editorials of the NYT!

[Bob3]

2. Tom is still sniffing glue I see

If he bends over backwards to make the case for the Iraqi war any more he's gonna crack his damn spine. You have to wonder what the hell the color of the sky is in Tom's world. We're not winning in Iraq, we're not even close to breaking even in Iraq - Potemkin village elections notwithstanding. When Generals get kidnapped you are not winning, when you have to plant stories about how well the new Iraqi army (see ARVIN) is doing you're not winning. When you have to cover up the number of wounded, you're not winning. When nobody knows where millions of dollars went, you're not winning. When electric and water service still are not back to pre-war standards, you're not winning. When your allies look for excuses to pull their troops out of this rat hole, you're not winning. When thousands of people take to the streets and demand that you leave, you're not winning. When you have to destroy cities, you're not winning. Face it Tom we're not winning.

[whistle]

4. Right, but holy shit, where can Americans go to get the real...

...news about what you are saying? It seems to hit us almost by serendipity and the NYT by giving writers like Friedman valuable editorial space is not helping us in that regard.