Reply #15: Friedman is contemptable [View All]

Yes, Friedman is endorsing lying about this war. He called it a war of choice all along. He has said all along (and continues to say it here) that the war is justified by Saddam's status as a brutal dictator alone.

Yet if war is a last resort and only a last resort, how can a "war of choice" ever be justified? It cannot.

I will agree that the fall of Saddam is a good outcome of this war. It is the only good outcome. Otherwise, Iraq was not a threat and the lives of thousands cannot be redeemed. The war was one of colonial piracy. Bush is intent on placing the mineral rights of the Iraqi people in hands of his campaign contributors.

No one in Iraq asked to be liberated. The overthrow of Saddam was the business and responsibility of the Iraqi people. Bush came in, as colonialists always do, stating that it is the white man's burden to show their little brown bothers how to go about the business of, in Friedman's words, "building a more decent Iraq (that) would help tilt the Middle East onto a more progressive political track." As if Arabs are incapable of tilting the Middle East onto a more progressive track. As if Geroge W. Bush, who stole the 2000 presidential election, turns a federal budget surplus over to those who foot the bill for his campaign, suppresses a two-centuries old tradition of civil liberties in America and lies about his reasons for going to war, could ever put any noation on a progressive political track.

Bush, Blair and their aides are war criminals. They should be treated as such. Friedman and those who give them cover with such intellectually dishonest arguments as Friedman makes here should be ashamed of themselves.