WSWS: Thomas Friedman declares war on France

[Karmadillo]

That Friedman is considered a respected voice in the marketplace of ideas while people like Greg Palast labor in relative obscurity should give some indication of the truth value of most of the product excreted by the mainstream US media.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/sep2003/frie-s20.shtml

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For those who were most convinced that US military might would suffice in imposing Washington’s will upon the Middle East—the administration’s journalistic toadies—the crisis in Iraq has created extreme frustration and belligerence.

Such is the case with Thomas Friedman, the chief foreign affairs columnist of the New York Times. Those familiar with his writings will hardly be surprised that his latest piece consists of smug lies in service of a bellicose US foreign policy. That is his specialty. The title of his column, “Our War with France” does merit attention, however.

Friedman is a thug with a laptop. He has used his column to advocate the “pulverizing” of Belgrade, the smashing of Iraq and has proudly advanced the slogan “give war a chance.” Now, it would seem, he is pushing for the sacking of Paris. Having supported a war against a relatively defenseless Iraq, Friedman now uses the language of aggression against a major European power and erstwhile US ally.

The catastrophe in Iraq, according to Friedman, is the fault of the French. This is the case because, having opposed the US war, the French government has had the temerity of seeing its warnings about the calamity it would produce richly confirmed.

Not only that, Paris has balked at US demands that it and other countries fork over tens of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of troops, no questions asked, to bolster a US-run exercise in neocolonialism.

“If you watch how France is behaving today ... then there is only one conclusion one can draw: France wants America to fail in Iraq,” Friedman writes. “France wants America to sink in a quagmire there in the crazy hope that a weakened US will pave the way for France to assume its ‘rightful’ place as America’s equal...”

more...

[hadrons]

1. Friedman is an ass

one of the reasons I had to stop reading the Times

mediawhoresonline got the email address to the cowardly Thomas, it's [email protected]

[Jacobin]

5. Here's mine

Dear Mr. Friedman:

Your obsession with France in your columns merely highlights the fact that their position against the invasion of Iraq was without question correct.

Their refusal to join Mr. Bush in the PNAC quagmire is not only enlightened self-interest but will also have the effect of slowing down Mr. Bush's future attempts to conquer other oil-rich nations militarily, a goal which the world (and thinking Americans) can applaud. How is the merger between the Weekly Standard and the NYT going?

Please keep up your French bashing. The whining is rich and makes me grin from ear to ear.

[Flying_Pig]

2. Friedman = PNAC/AIPAC/Likud propagandist.....

And a slimy bastard at that, because he couches his propganda under a banner of liberalism. His columns read like they were scripted from the PNAC playbook, and why the N.Y. Times continues with his propaganda, is pretty apparent; they too, are tied to PNAC/AIPAC/Likud. The only people we should declare war on, are people like Friedman, and the PNAC/AIPAC/Likud alliance.

[liberalmuse]

3. Thank you for the e-mail address

Here is my letter:

"Our War with France"???

Sir, it is YOUR war with France. You may speak for yourself and the other Americans who share your utterly childish snit with France, but you do not speak for the majority of Americans who possess a mediocum of intelligence.

France was 100% right about continuing with the weapons inspections in Iraq, but since Mr. Bush and his dangerously corrupt and incompetent administration chose to go ahead with war anyway, you should have the courage to admit you were wrong to trumpet this foreign policy atrocity. Many who are now in the Bush administration have been planning this war since 1992, but of course we don't hear this from supposedly esteemed 'journalists' like yourself. Instead, you, a supposed 'expert' on foreign policy write this ridiculous article blaming our long time ally for essentially being right. Now I've read everything!

Instead of assuming France wants us to fail, why don't you point out that maybe they are wise enough not to sink their money and troops into the Bush quagmire. Bush wants cooperation on his terms only, and being that he has failed miserably in everything he has set out to accomplish in Iraq, it is hard to blame anyone for not wanting to risk their assets under the Bush administration's command.

I am so disgusted with 'journalists' in America, I could scream. The mainstream press seem to be nothing but brownshirts for the Bush administration. I'm tired of reading articles that serve only to show how far our press is willing to twist the truth in order to lick Bush's jackboots. I have to go to the foreign press to get any kind of accurate information these days. You are to Bush what Goebbels was to Hitler. To hell with you and your ilk. A democratic republic deserves better than a media that makes 1980's PRAVDA look respectable.

[Jacobin]

4. I like that one.

A lot. :-) Hope he reads it.

[HPLeft]

6. Tom Has Lost It

The last few years have not been kind to Mr. Friedman's mind.

[MasonJar]

7. liberalmuse, you are the man (or woman)

I also e-mailed Friedman my utter disgust with his absurd opinion. But yours was so perfect. No matter. We must all e-mail the b_____d.

[RichM]

8. This is a first-rate critique of what Friedman really represents. It

testifies to the decayed state of US journalism that a pseudo-intellectual like Friedman gets to spew forth dishonest nationalist propaganda on the NYT Op-Ed page, 2 or 3 times a week.

If he spent years trying, Friedman couldn't write an article of the quality of THIS particular WSWS piece which so accurately deconstructs him. Friedman gets his cushy job and his Pulitzer Prizes not primarily because of talent, but because he's so pliant - so eager & willing to place himself in the service of the reactionaries running our government.

If Friedman had more integrity than he does, he'd probably be out of a job. It's precisely his willing dishonesty that makes him so useful a tool of the US power structure.

---------------------------------

Here's a link to the NYT Letters-to-the-Editor about Friedman's declaration of war on France. One woman is ready to bomb Paris; the other 5 letters seem unconvinced. But none of them, of course, are given enough space to really give Friedman the pounding he deserves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/19/opinion/L19FRIE.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fLetters

[Brucey]

9. It's clear that when we speak of this man's mind,

we must now say Fried, man.

[RichM]

10. More people should take a look at this brilliant critique.

:kick:

[SOS]

11. Re Friedman

He not only writes columns. Recently he had a special on Discovery about terrorism. It was such a piece of biased nonsense that I could only sit through 20 miutes of it.
Thanks for the link in the original post. An excellent piece.