Friedman: Don't be misled: Iraq is not like Vietnam

[Barrett808]

Don't be misled: Iraq is not like Vietnam
By Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist

WASHINGTON - Since 9/11, we've seen so much depraved violence we don't notice anymore when we hit a new low. Monday's attacks in Baghdad were a new low.

Just stop for one second and contemplate what happened: A suicide bomber, driving an ambulance loaded with explosives, crashed into the Red Cross office and blew himself up on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

This suicide bomber was not restrained by either the sanctity of the Muslim holy day or the sanctity of the Red Cross. All civilizational norms were tossed aside. This is very unnerving.

Because the message from these terrorists is: ``There are no limits. We have created our own moral universe, where anything we do against Americans or Iraqis who cooperate with them is OK.''

What to do? The first thing is to understand who these people are. There is this notion being peddled by Europeans, the Arab press and the antiwar left that ``Iraq'' is just Arabic for Vietnam, and we should expect these kinds of attacks from Iraqis wanting to ``liberate'' their country from ``U.S. occupation.'' These attackers are the Iraqi Vietcong.

Hogwash.

(more)

http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/editorial/7147949.htm

[Plaid Adder]

1. You know, he was sort of making sense, and then this happened:

"They understand that this is the most radical-liberal revolutionary war the United States has ever launched -- a war of choice to install some democracy in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world."

...and I'm done.

I agree that Iraq is not Vietnam. It does not follow therefrom that this was a war of liberation. Just looking at what's happening with the rebuilding will tell you that, unless you are, you know, Thomas Friedman.

Sigh,

The Plaid Adder

[izzie]

2. I think it is in this way.

They made up things to get us to go We have no right to be take over country. We really need to come home all over the world or just say we are the worlds Empire, make Bush the Czar and turn over the country to him. It is crazy that we can not let people live in peace and let us live in peace.Blow black will just keep happen untel we learn to stop getting into other peoples busy and countries.

[kimchi]

3. Agreed, Plaid Adder.

"a war of choice to install some democracy" is one of the most ludicrous lines I've ever read from Friedman.

What is up with the man?

[bemildred]

4. Orwellian.

He's really talked himself into a box. I wish I had
some of the stuff he's smoking:

The great irony is that the Baathists and Arab dictators are opposing
the United States in Iraq because -- unlike many leftists -- they
understand exactly what this war is about. They understand that U.S.
power is not being used in Iraq for oil, imperialism or to shore up a
corrupt status quo, as it was in Vietnam and elsewhere in the Arab
world during the Cold War.

[Flying_Pig]

5. Friedman is a PNAC mouthpiece, and a lying little twit....

Why the Times continues to allow this man a platform from which to spew his fascist Likudnik/PNAC propaganda, is beyond me. Actually, it isn't. The Times fully supports these views as well, and Friedman speaks to, and for them.

[teryang]

6. Don't be mislead, Friedman is not a journalist

He's a government mouthpiece.

[dave29]

7. A "Liberal" War?

Umm, does this leave an unpleasant taste in anyone elses mouth? I guess more and more people are being liberated from their bodies every day.

You can't waltz into the middle east, bomb an entire country into submission, demand that they be just like us, support us, and then call it a Liberal Revolutionary War. I'm sorry, that's just BS. It is an occupation. Ask any Iraqi, and they will agree.

I'm all for Democracy, but I don't believe in killing innocent people to make it happen.

[realFedUp]

8. Dupe thread

The trouble with printing NYT columnists from other papers
is the other papers use different headlines so it gets
confusing. This is the original thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=18774

rfu, moderator