Lately Thomas Friedman has been indulging himself in the kind of Monday morning quarterbacking I find particularly annoying. He carries on about the importance of battle for Iraq and how it is now slipping away because of administration incompetence.
I got a brief glimpse of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's news conference on Monday, as the battle for Falluja began. I couldn't help but rub my eyes for a moment and wonder aloud whether I had been transported back in time to some 20 months ago, when the war for Iraq had just started. Watching CNN, I saw the same Rummy joking with the Pentagon press corps, the same scratchy reports from the front by "embedded reporters,'' the same footage of U.S. generals who briefed the soldiers preparing for battle about how they were liberating Iraq.
There was only one difference that no one seemed to want to mention. It wasn't 20 months ago. It was now. And Iraq has still not been fully liberated. In fact, as the fight for Falluja shows, it hasn't even been fully occupied.
There are a couple of other minor differences whose mention has somehow escaped the notice of Mr. Friedman. First, the order to go into battle in Falluja came from the Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi. Second, 3000 Iraqi soldiers went into battle along side the Americans. Let me spell it out for you Mr. Friedman. There's a interim government with a Prime Minister and there's an Iraqi army. And their on our side.
The picture Mr. Friedman presents, no progress in Iraq, is not just inaccurate. And it's not believable that Mr. Friedman is unaware of these differences between now and 20 months ago. It's just that, when you are a dishonest partisan hack, differences like this can hardly be mentioned.
When a mainstream pundit expresses the thought that Iraq is a disaster, I always wonder compared to what? Does he ever think about comparing it to something like, say, another war? If any one of them ever has, I haven't heard of it. There were American Civil War battles where more troops were killed in an hour than died in over three years in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He continues his lament with with what I'm sure he considers his six penetrating questions. These are purportedly questions that if the administration can answer satisfactorily will convince Mr. Friedman that we have a chance to get it right in Iraq.
Free advice: until you have answers to the following six questions, don't believe any happy talk coming from the Bush team on Iraq.
Question 1 Have we really finished the war in Iraq ? And by that I mean…
Do we need to go further with this, or any other of his idiotic questions? Is it necessary for him to actually clarify what he means? Just who does he think he's kidding? He implies that someone thinks it's finished. Who? Either his his grip on reality is non-existent or his commitment to truth is non-existent. Either way I have some some advice of my own: Don't believe any talk of any kind whatever, coming from Thomas Friedman. Clearly the No Surrender mentality, recently voiced in a Krugman column, is policy at the Times.
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