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06/04/2003 Archived Entry: "The Sublime and the Ridiculous..."
The Sublime and the Ridiculous...
All in one day. Check the NYTimes Op-Ed page, and you get this from Mo Dowd:
U.S. News & World Report reveals this week that when Mr. Powell was rehearsing the case with two dozen officials, he became so frustrated by the dubious intelligence about Saddam that he tossed several pages in the air and declared: "I'm not reading this. This is $%&*#."First America has no intelligence. Then it has $%&*# intelligence.
So this is progress?
For the first time in history, America is searching for the reason we went to war after the war is over.
As The Times's James Risen reports, a bedrock of the administration's weapons case — the National Intelligence Estimate that concluded that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and was seeking nukes — is itself being reassessed. The document is at the center of a broad prewar-intelligence review, being conducted by the C.I.A. to see whether the weapons evidence was cooked.
Conservatives are busily offering a bouquet of new justifications for a pre-emptive attack on Iraq that was sold as self-defense against Saddam's poised and thrumming weapons of mass destruction.
And on the same page, you get this from Thomas 'Is he really this stupid?' Friedman:
The "real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after 9/11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world. Afghanistan wasn't enough because a terrorism bubble had built up over there — a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed to be punctured. This terrorism bubble said that plowing airplanes into the World Trade Center was O.K., having Muslim preachers say it was O.K. was O.K., having state-run newspapers call people who did such things "martyrs" was O.K. and allowing Muslim charities to raise money for such "martyrs" was O.K. Not only was all this seen as O.K., there was a feeling among radical Muslims that suicide bombing would level the balance of power between the Arab world and the West, because we had gone soft and their activists were ready to die.The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers, men and women, to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that we are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent our open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But we hit Saddam for one simple reason: because we could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world.
Because we could?? What a fucking stupid thing to say, even by the rapidly-falling standards of Tom Freidman.
Replies: 5 people speak up
Friedman's comments were spoken last Friday on the Charlie Rose show. I was in the process of isolating the key remarks - like "because we could", "could have sent a message by invading Saudi Arabia or Pakistan", and so forth.
But it looks like Friedman has saved me the work by writing Wednesday's column.
Also, the "terrorism bubble" is a foolish concept. We had a financial bubble, but a terrorism bubble? By what metric?
In the Charlie Rose show Friedman went on to say that we had to show the Arabs that we weren't soft. That we were willing to go in and get dirty, and not worry so much about our capital gains and dividends - as if the plutocrats had decided to take off their their top hats and don khaki. Yeah, right.
Posted by Quiddity @ 06/04/2003 01:28 AM NY
Soon we'll have some kind of synthesis of bubbles and gates and create the Mega-Bubble-Gate which may burst all over us and get us all sticky. That's the problem with bubbles, they get you all sticky.
Speaking of sticky, nothing like telling the world we do things because we can. I mean, that's why we climb mountains and go to the moon and all that. Because they are there. Because we can. Nothing like being an American and doing stuff because we can. Why did Bush steal the election? Because he could. Why take money awy from the poor and give it to the rich(like a Bizzaro World Robin Hood)? Because he can. It's all about positive thinking and doing stuff because we can do stuff. Why do we need any more compelling reasons than that? I'm bored, I want to attack a third world nation to show them I can do what I want when I want. America is like a ten year old on the Jenny Jones show who has been brought on because she misbehaves and dresses like a skank. When chastised by an audience member, she shouts out, "I do what I want! Whatever!" Ahhh, America. Makes you a little sick, but you just keep watching.
Posted by MercuryX23 @ 06/04/2003 02:51 AM NY
I, too, gaped in horror at Charlie Rose's interview of Friedman. Friedman is widely touted as an "old Middle East Hand" and, therefore, presumably speaks with authority on the subject.
Friedman's NYT/moderate-intellectual credentials make him far more ominous than a hundred ghoulish Rumsfelds/Perles/Gingrichs.
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 06/04/2003 10:42 AM NY
Freidman bears an uncanny resemblance to Dennis Miller in that both men seem to have lost their faculties. I have no idea why Miller suddenly became a big Bush-o-phile....could it be because he saw what happened to Bill Maher when he spoke his mind?
Friedman had often been on target with regard to the Middle East, but to pull this "because we could" bullshit is a mystery. Not only is it lazy journalism, but it contradicts most of his previous middle-of-the-road approach.
At least Dowd still has balls, figuratively speaking, of course.
Posted by JeffLebowski @ 06/04/2003 11:38 AM NY
I knew it was going to be a rapid downhill slide when I saw he'd put real reason in quotation marks. Phew, good thing an insider like TF doesn't have to pretend WMDs are the real real reason like, I dunno, the thousands of blown apart Iraqis and US/UK soldiers.
I cancelled my NYT subscription after the America has a New Baby ... Iraq! column
Posted by Peanut @ 06/04/2003 01:56 PM NY
