Aaarrggghhh !!! – Moon of Alabama

September 28, 2005

Aaarrggghhh !!!

Atrios cites from today’s Tom Friedman column The Endgame in Iraq (NYT pay content)

That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won’t, then we are wasting our time. We should arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind.

Posted by b on September 28, 2005 at 15:41 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Others can better express their moral or political contempt of promoting civil war to allow the continued occupation of Iraq. But, just as a practical matter, Tom Friedman’s policy will reap the ultimate whirlwind for the USA. A billion Sunni Arabs throughout the world will not sit idly by and watch their brothers and sisters die by American genocide in Iraq.

Posted by: Jim S | Sep 28 2005 15:57 utc | 1

From the opinion column of the Nazi Party press organ, the “Volkischer Beobachter,” on 15th September, 1942.
“Every Jew who exerts influence in Europe is a danger to European culture. If anyone reproaches me with having driven from this city, which was once the European metropolis of Jewry, tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of Jews into the ghetto of the East, I feel myself compelled to reply, ‘I see in this an action contributing to European culture’.”
That excerpt was entered as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials.
If the Sunnis in Iraq have the poor sense to be a minority population, well, what can a pundit do but go wash his hands?
Pontius Pilate washed his hands.
Hitler, a vegetarian and a bit of a neat freak himself, washed his hands a great deal.
No one is guilty if they simply announce they have washed their hands.
Mr. Friedman’s opinion piece is the first half of a one-two punch. He will publish the other half in six months or a year, saying I Told You So — Aren’t I Wise?
His piece is an announcement that it is still considered noble to bear the white man’s burden.

Posted by: Antifa | Sep 28 2005 16:01 utc | 2

Agreed. Sooner or later, a lot of Americans (sadly, good Americans among them) will die because of the evils perpetrated by this regime.

Posted by: Lupin | Sep 28 2005 16:02 utc | 3

Friedman sure is a bloody arm-chair warrior.

Posted by: Groucho | Sep 28 2005 16:11 utc | 4

Well thank God (oops, I mean, uh notGod) at least some of those Bad Americans will be killed.
But then again its an unsigned comment, so obviously the person making it knows how wrong they are, because they are too chickensh!t to stand by their words.

Posted by: Scof | Sep 28 2005 16:14 utc | 5

I mentioned this the other day on this forum. The Shia have oil in the south, Kurds have oil in the north and the Sunnis have none. Thats what they are fighting for. With a republic set up as the current situation, the Sunnis will be left high and dry.
There is no incentive for the Sunnis to go along and get along. They will be armed by the Saudis, the Kurds by the US in exchange for oil and the Shia by Iran and the US with the US help coming in exchange for oil.
Civil war, here we come. Man, that nation building sure wroks great doesn’t it? Let me see, how low can the populations go?

Posted by: jdp | Sep 28 2005 16:16 utc | 6

Iraq’s First Female Suicide Bomber Strikes ???
Not according to Female suicide bomber info on wikipedia, according them the first were in april 2003.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 28 2005 16:27 utc | 7

“There is some schedule showing what you (need) to do to get Iraqis standing up and defending themselves which is now suddenly beginning to happen, so there are some signs of progress. The only way we’re going to be successful there – and ultimately, success is going to have to be somewhat redefined – is to create sufficient stability to get the troops home.”
Could someone explain this?

Posted by: ed | Sep 28 2005 16:30 utc | 8

Why does anyone still read this drooling fuck-wit?

Posted by: Colman | Sep 28 2005 16:36 utc | 9

exactly Colman, his columns are only good to wrap fish in.

Posted by: dan of steele | Sep 28 2005 16:43 utc | 10

Dan, I wouldn’t let my fish near that rubbish.

Posted by: Colman | Sep 28 2005 16:45 utc | 11

Tom “Pick a Country, Any Country” Friedman offers up another brain fart.
Well, Tom, they intend to be a ruling minority. Thought you might have known that already. And, with the Shia apparently ready to do each other, I’d have to guess that they have pretty good shot at succeeding.

Posted by: 4-fingers | Sep 28 2005 16:49 utc | 12

Aaarrggghhh !!! i know the feeling
true anecdote – trying to amend my relationship w/ my father. called him up on the phone last w/e
hey dad…this is your son. how are you doing?
okay. oh, i’ve been reading this book. you’ve GOT to read it. it’s really really good. you’re going to have to get it!
what’s the title, dad?
the lexus and the olive tree…

Posted by: b real | Sep 28 2005 17:02 utc | 13

Top-ranking Americans have told equally top-ranking Indians in recent weeks that the US has plans to invade Iran before Bush’s term ends.
When the Bush players (read:Friedman) want us to focus on Iraq, you can bet something is up else where for instance, The Hindu : Front Page : LNG deal is off: Iran
but not so fast: Iran denies shift in India ties
Iran says it has no plans to pull out of a $22bn gas deal with India in the wake of a disagreement over Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Also see: Payback time

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 28 2005 17:02 utc | 14

I had to do some cooking after posting that – cooking always calms me down.
1. Friedman is openly calling for the US to acitvly support genocide of a religious minority. They should take him to Nuremberg for that.
2. Friedman is a bad writer. “reap the wind”?
“Sew wind and reap storm” is the saying he is searching for. But then to whom the world is flat …

Posted by: b | Sep 28 2005 17:08 utc | 15

Subconsciously title of Tommy’s new book said all one needs to know about him. He just spins words to impress himself. Such Laughable garbage, one can’t even say he’s a good propagandist as he can neither analyze nor provide valuable sources of info. After the superb threads we’ve had going, you should have left that drivel on atrios where it belongs.

Posted by: jj | Sep 28 2005 17:42 utc | 16

We should arm the Shiites and Kurds and leave the Sunnis of Iraq to reap the wind.
The guy whose primary justification for American troops staying in Iraq has been to prevent a civil war is now actively encouraging a sectarian bloodbath fueled by an endless supply of US imported weapons?
The only consistency to Friedman’s position is that US arms manufacturers always benefit.
Olive Branch indeed . . . .

Posted by: Night Owl | Sep 28 2005 20:36 utc | 17

It’s long been my personal belief that Tom Friedman is a strong candidate for the coveted Most Overrated Pundit in the Commentariat award. His half baked musings on globalization alone are a sad commentary on the inadequacy of a religious studies degree from Oxford to make sense of the economic complexities of the world at the start of the 21st century.
Ignorance is no bar to a career as a pundit however and the truth is that to the morally impaired, who make up a rather larger portion of the population than we with our liberal faith in humanity are perhaps inclined to concede, even advocating genocide is fine as long as the victims are of the right ethnicity and religion.

Posted by: Lexington | Sep 28 2005 21:47 utc | 18

On 2nd thought, maybe we’re being too hard on poor Tommy, the GM of the mouthoff brigades. He after all is giving the Sunnis a choice/ultimatum – either they can agree to their destruction, or be blamed for causing a Civil War.
You’d think that someone @Times would read Asia Times & be embarrassed by him, no?

Posted by: jj | Sep 28 2005 21:54 utc | 19

for friedman & his stern gang pals – a good arab is a dead arab & that has been his basic truth behind his cretinous commentaries & his bilious books – i wouldn’t piss on his pultizer if the new yorl times was on fire & burning to the ground as it should

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 28 2005 22:42 utc | 20

R’Giap, you might stop by americablog.blogspot.com quickly for update on Pentagon’s handling of the War-Porn site.

Posted by: jj | Sep 28 2005 22:57 utc | 21

jj
thanks
this entire criminal administration needs to be on the other side of firepower

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 29 2005 0:07 utc | 22

Slightly OT, but since we were already discussing it on this thread and the other one is thankfully dead…
War-Porn Update: Pentagon handled it quietly. War-porn removed from site, though index still there, for moment at least. I suspected as much.

Posted by: jj | Sep 29 2005 0:51 utc | 23

their whole fucking war is pornography
the criminal war needs to be torn down
the system that created that war needs to be taken down
the system that created that war is pornographic
the tom delays the rumsfields are pornographers
the feed off whatever is good in people & turn it into shit
however much i am against whatever he did – a pat tillman thought he was following a civic duty – & that civic duty was to a state that turns that duty into a participation in crime, war crimes, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity
a small courtroom in texas is not where they belong
they belong before the hague with the rest of the smalltime crooks that they once called leaders of men
americans need every day to see thos photograps to see faces ripped off heads, to see bodies human bodies shredded as if they were some foreign cloth
above all they need to see dead american bodies
american bodies from ohio, buffalo, minessota, atlanta, they need to see bodies from wisconsin, taos, oregon – they need to see – that their boys & girls are being sent to be murderers – & they need to see what happens to those who go & murder a foreign people in another land. they need to see it every night
& then perhaps then – they might end this criminal expedition

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 29 2005 1:04 utc | 24

RGiap: I was in Paris this summer and saw the amazing exhibit of Reporters without Frontiers 20 years of photographs. Astounding, horrifying, straight-to-the-heart photos of people living in garbage, starving, suffering – all on the fence of the Jardin Luxembourg as us well fed people walked by on the way to dinner. Creepy.

Posted by: citizen k | Sep 29 2005 5:07 utc | 25

I don’t read that chap much so .. ?
To me it looks like he simply writes what many people want to read. He rationalises and puts into prose the self-serving, hateful things people think they have figured out for themselves, or just intuit. Add a bit of spin or gloss and Bob is your uncle. Or aunt or whatever.

Posted by: Noisette | Sep 29 2005 15:14 utc | 26

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