"the most morally hideous and deeply racist column"

http://www.counterpunch.com/floyd12012006.html


Hideous Kinky
Thomas Friedman Comes Undone


You would think that by now we would have "supp'd full with horrors" on the New York Times op-ed pages. What could be worse than the atrocities that have filled those gray columns in the past few years, the loud brays for war, the convoluted excuses for presidential tyranny, the steady murmur of chin-stroking bullshit meant to comfort the comfortable elite and confirm them -- at all times, at any cost -- in their well-wadded self-righteousness? Surely, you would think, we have seen the worst.

If this was your thought, then alas, alas, alack the day, you were bitterly mistaken, my friend. Comes now before us the portly, fur-lipped figure of Thomas Friedman, Esq., who today has penned what must be the most morally hideous and deeply racist column ever to appear in those rarefied journalistic precincts: "Ten Months or Ten Years."

It seems that this very enthusiastic promoter of the unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq - which he proudly called "a war of choice," apparently not realizing that he was parroting the propagandists of the Nazi regime that killed millions of his ethnic kindred -- has now discovered that Iraqi Arabs are hopeless, worthless barbarians, broken by "1,000 years of Arab-Muslim authoritarianism" and can only be held together by an "iron fist." (He got all this from reading a new book, apparently. Well, a little literacy, like a little learning, is a dangerous thing, I reckon -- and as anyone who has ever exposed themselves to the dull, flat buzz of Friedman's prose can attest, his literacy is little indeed.)

In fact, the only thing America did wrong in its "effort to bring progressive politics or democracy to this region" was not coming down hard enough on this darky riff-raff: "Had we properly occupied the country, and begun political therapy, it is possible an American iron fist could have held Iraq together long enough to put it on a new course. But instead we created a vacuum by not deploying enough troops." Instead, we took it easy on them -- I mean, Jesus H. Jiminy Cricket Walker Christ, we only killed 600,000 of them; what kind of pussyfooting around is that? -- and look what happened. A Sunni insurgency sprang up, whose only goal -- whose ONLY goal, mind you -- was to make America look bad: "America must fail in its effort to bring progressive, etc., etc. America must fail ­ no matter how many Iraqis have to be killed, America must fail." What was their "only one goal" again, Tom? Oh yeah: America must fail. Not a single ding-dang one of them ornery critters ever had any other motive whatsoever to take up arms against an army of foreigners who had invaded and occupied their country.

-long snip ending with the following-

How many more people will have to die to keep the warmongers from colliding with the enormity of their crimes? What child will be ripped to shreds tonight -- and tomorrow night -- and every night afterward, for "ten months or ten years," to keep Thomas Friedman snug and cozy in the gilded palace of his endless self-regard?
-----------------

another gold star for Chris Floyd

I thought the vast majority of the 600,000 dead died as a result of the civil war, not American actions--the civil war which largely sprang from the actions of Shi'a militias, which were originally formed because of the Iraqi belief that the Americans were unable and/or unwilling to protect them.

Edit: just under a third of the dead came at Coalition hands. An additional 50k dead from poor living conditions. Saying "we killed 250k Iraqis" would have made the point just as well without being intellectually dishonest. We can win the war of ideas without lying, guys.

as a result of no power, clean water, access to medication and other situations created by our military. They may not have taken a bullet, but our military killed them none the less.

And blame for the horrible living conditions should, as in all wars, be attributed to all responsible parties. The insurgents who blew up Shi'a construction crews and militias who kidnapped Sunni construction crews are just as to blame as the Americans who bombed power plants and failed to protect the reconstruction efforts.

in an 'illegal war'. Bushco is ultimately responsible for every death in Iraq.

other posts in this thread?

have you forgotten the constant bombing the US does every day? have you forgotten there is little medical help for Iraqis because of us? etc., etc.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/

Add our share (I'll be generous to the Iraqis and blame us for half) of the 53k who died of poor living conditions, and the majority of the dead still died at Iraqi hands. Saying "225k" would have made his point just as well without being dishonest.

those 655,000 people would still be alive.

But when the argument is that the 655k dead are proof that we had enough soldiers, that's irrelevent. When the majority of those died as a result of the chaos in Iraq, the numbers don't automatically support saying "we had too strong a presence." Do I believe we are responsible for all those deaths? Of course I do. But they don't support the argument that is actually being made here.

It's proof we had too many soldiers, by about 150,000.

"When the majority of those died as a result of the chaos in Iraq"

I haven't seen any evidence of this.

The idea that we need more soldiers is fundamentally wrong.

and that the invasion was a crime. However, we're talking about the conduct of the war here, which forces us to assume the invasion occured and then go from there. As for your disbelief of the claim that the majority of dead Iraqis died as a result of the chaos, well, I can't help you with that. Lancet said that over two thirds of the Iraqi civilian dead died as a result of either the insurgency or the ongoing sectarian-violence-cum-civil-war. If you don't believe their figures, feel free, I guess.

--IMM

However, we're talking about conduct of the war, not whether we can be blamed for their deaths in the first place.

There wouldn't have been a civil war without our invasion. We are responsible for all of it.

Not only that - I think the US instigated the civil war anyway.

I am talking about whether or not the numbers deny the claim that the United States did not have enough troops to secure the peace after the invasion. Please read my post before y'all kneejerk at me. I'm not freeping here.

All those thousands of people are DEAD, many thousands
more are going to die, and the USA's illegal invasion
is the root cause of it all.

Once you've admitted that, all you're really doing is
nit-picking over what particular TYPE of deaths we
are responsible for, an activity which is hardly even
germane to this particular topic.

it makes all the difference. There is a difference between disagreeing with the war and disagreeing with the intellectual integrity of a specific criticism of a specific policy related to it. Read the post you replied to. "I am talking about whether or not the numbers deny the claim that the United States did not have enough troops to secure the peace after the invasion."

THAT IS ALL MY ORIGINAL POST SAID. I DID NOT DEFEND THE WAR. I AM NOT A WAR SUPPORTER. JESUS CHRIST, PEOPLE.

Or would you just claim that that wasn't really the subject
under discussion...AGAIN?

What a conundrum-- we invade, overthrow their government, haven't a clue where to go from there... & a civil war is the result! Gee, I give up...HOW did that civil war get started? Wasn't us! No sir!

I am not talking about whether or not we are morally responsible for the deaths. We are. I am talking about whether or not the numbers prove that we had too aggressive of a plan to stabilize the country post-invasion.

if we had adjusted the numbers everything might have been fine.

Like you don't seem to get the whole thing was a fiasco that should never have happened. Whether we had more or less troops in beside any point.

And I've said repeatedly in this thread that the war was wrong and that we are responsible for it. All I have said is that we shouldn't massage numbers to show things they don't show. The numbers claim that the war was a bad idea. The numbers do not claim that the occupation force was sufficient to prevent a power vacuum.

country? If you roll a snowball down a mountain side I guess you are not responsible if it becomes an avalanche. All that other snow decided to fall too.

If America had not invaded and destroyed their current government none of those six hundred thousand would be lying in their graves and this does not even mentioned the untold maimed and disabled...If you hand a child a loaded gun and the child shoots someone are you guilt free?

Yet I've heard way too many people speak highly of him.

Who is also a loudmouthed, racist idiot, so your point stands, I suppose ;)

I'm glad the same logic applies.

Kinky is about 50-50. But he is a comedian/entertainer, not a supposed "respected" commentator. I always wonder how Thomas Friedman got his job; he is always off.

--IMM

Perhaps I should be embarrassed to admit it, but I don't even know who Kinky Friedman is.

He just ran for governor of Texas. I know him best for his band, Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys.

More (if you're curious) here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinky_Friedman

--IMM

the sine qua non when it comes to U.S. yellow journalism. I'm no Friedman fan, but this is little more than a vitriolic personal attack, and pissant carping about the NYT op/ed page- which by the way is very, very good. Counterpunch is as disgusting as any of its counterparts on the right.

Sickening that anyone could mistake this shit for journalism. Not to mention pathetic.

Just because Counterpunch picks up one of his columns ought to be no reflection on Mr. Floyd.

Here is the link to his column in its original home, on his own blog: Hideous Kinky: The Genocidal Fury of Thomas Friedman

I am quite nonplussed to find you defending the NYT op/ed page. With the notable exception of Paul Krugman, it is a sinkhole of right wing idiocy and depraved "conventional wisdom".

Instead of attacking Counterpunch -- which, aside from a few inhouse writers, merely picks up various columns and commentary from other sources (just as DU does, btw) -- let's see your defense of Friedman.

sw

nt

See the list that FAIR has made:

.. suffer by trying to help the rest of the world."

It's rather pathetic how the mainstream ideology predictably produces, over and over again, the same excuses for idiotic blunders, the same wounded self-righteous about how misunderstood we are, the same complaints about the incomprehensible ingratitude of the families of death squad victims or of villagers whose lives were destroyed by napalm and agent orange, the same irritation that nobody understands how much WE have suffered through the situation, the same unwillingness to admit a mistake, the same insistence that the problem is traitors in our midst who weaken our resolve and want to thwart the future success that we would experience by redoubling our (so far unsuccessful) efforts ...

He's a moron masquerading as a journalist.