Friday, February 6, 2004
Mike emails a pointer to yesterday's Thomas Friedman pap A Rude Awakening. Now, sometimes, Friedman is excellent, bringing forth well-written insight from a guy with mucho connections. The other Tom Freidman is...well...a dope, suggesting we raise the gas tax or appease the Syrians.
Sadly, yesterday's "effort" is part of the latter group. Tom should take whatever money he made writing yesterday's column and sign the check over to Steven Den Beste who wrote what can only be described as a balm on the wound this Freidman effort opens up.
Sadly, I haven't even felt compelled to fisk Freidman when he's writing like this. He's so obviously politically partisan and frankly out to lunch it just doesn't seem worth it.
Just a few comments:
I can't keep track anymore. I thought the Republicans were the ones who paid too much attention to foreign policy, and not enough to domestic issues. My bad. And regarding "Islamic Republicanism" - the electorate might care if that happens in Iraq, but I can pretty much guarantee you that if it happens in "Palestine," absolutely no one will give a shit. I doubt the American Electorate expects anything different.
OK, now this is a style criticism. Tom, the "can you hear me now" thing? The only reason that gets people's attention now is that it's annoying. It's over-done. It's this year's "talk to the hand." No one wants to hear that, and believe me, by the end of this piece, you'll be wishing this column just passed quietly out of memory. The rest of us certainly are.
Let's start with the Palestinians...
Actually, Freidman never really gets back to talking about Iraq. He can't, of course, since it's still too early to say what's going to happen there, and further, it's almost impossible to make a case that the Administration isn't doing everything possible to empower a moderate middle there. That's the entire point of the effort. What the results will be are still open, but the idea the attention isn't on is absurd.
That is, Mr. Sharon has the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat under house arrest in his office in Ramallah, and he's had George Bush under house arrest in the Oval Office...
Yes, it follows that Ariel Sharon would come up with a plan for moving things forward, since he's one of the two main actors in this drama who can - and the other actor is NOT George W. Bush, by the way. If there's anyone keeping George Bush under house arrest, it's Yasir Arafat, the other actor in this drama who, it is plain, has no will to do his part to allow a third party to do any good whatsoever. He is an unreformed terrorist. Period. George Bush does not run the PA, and he doesn't run Israel. You play the hand you're dealt, and only one side of the conflict has shown any intention of movement - Ariel Sharon.
See above. This is nonsense, and just the kind of political outsider sour-grapes that one should expect of one of the prime-movers behind the suicidal Geneva Accord.
Freidman has an incredibly short and myopic memory. He has completely forgotten the prisoner release that happened under Mahmoud Abbas (at least one of whom later went on to blow themselves up in yet another suicide attack), Abbas' trip to the White House and his meeting with Sharon. Both Bush and Sharon did what they could to help Abbas. It was only one person who stood in his way - Yasir Arafat.
Nonsensical given the above. If Hamas takes over, the blame falls squarely on Palestinian, not Israeli or American shoulders. We can only do so much. Ultimately, it's the PA that wants to control Palestinian destiny, and they will reap what they themselves have sown. They bristle at any attempt by the US to help - even lashing out in anger that we should offer a reward for information on the terrorists who've murdered our own people. The Palestinians themselves, sorry to say, are the ones responsible for their own kids' education in hate and their own looming civil war.
[snip more of the same]
Funny thing, that. I thought the big complaint about Karzai was that he had no real power, and that we haven't, in fact, done enough to empower him and his "Islamic Republic of Afghanistan." And here I thought we started with the idea that having an "Islamic Republic" was an indicator of failure!
I guess building and empowering moderate Arab leadership under conditions we often can't control is even tougher than writing newspaper columns.
No, Tom. Talk to the hand.
Friedman's first paragraph is so stupid intimating that all the Repubs are focusing on is the "Home Front". Its what a dillusional lefty does, creates a false pretense so they can go off on their sanctimonious rant.
Also, he ties in Iraq just so he can make his article appear to have some "universal" theme when like you said all its about is his rant on Palestine, which I believe he screeched about in a prior article - the admins so called "non-involvement"
Again, he goes back to his trying to apply a universality. Sharon has Arafat and Bush under house arrest and now we start to hear the rantings of a baby using over pitched rhetoric and playing to the lowest denominator. Exposing the "Jewish and Christian Zionists" who have him "cornered" and even Dick Cheney who does what Sharon tells him to. One only wishes you could hear him say this at a speech so you could eviscerate his infantile rantings.
The prisoner swap argument you covered but what's worse is Friedman uses an extrememly painful decision for Sharon and Israel, a shitty trade for a few Israeli family's peace of mind, and includes into his screed. Its beyond infantile ranting here, its disgusting!
Then he uses this extremely painful decision to try and tell us that the "moderate peaceful" PLO has tried "moderation" with Israel (when exactly?) and gotten nowhere but the animals in Hezbullah kidnap and torture get what they want. While the unfortunate trade with Hezbullah is a horrible trade and incredibly bad precedent hge tried to intimate that the Pals are on the "moderate" or "peaceful" side of the equation is ridiculous! Was it not the Pals who declared war in the face of an unbelievable peace offer? Is it the PLO that broadcast Nazi hate every day? And the largest impetus for the planned War/Intifadah was unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, inspired by Hezbullah. You wonder if Tom is now against that decision or this is an inconvenient line of logic to draw from his infantile screech? (along with the Likud at the time)
And the Fatah and Hamas as Glick points out are indistinguishable in Gaza and are committing terrorist acts in the West Bank, Al Asqua and Fatah policemen!
His inclusion of Karzai as an example is so stupid you could list 10 hypocrisies within hypocrisies and my bp is already soaring! We appointed Karzai. Arafat won't move. We tried everything.
Calling for elections before the Roadmap.
Putting pressure to appoint people to his cabinet that were not old line Fatah loyalists. He sacked them and put in all his own people.
Appointing a PM and trying to get Dahlan to get control of forces. He sacked and used both of them, even tapping their friggin phones.
Appointing al Fayad to clean up the corruption and thus weaken his money hawking. He has now sacked him effectively as well.
And yet wey're told by Friedman (I believe) and the Europeans that "We can't choose the Pal leader for them"
Ironically this is true! When an Israeli or American promotes Abbas or anyone else they lose in popularity. When we try and isolate Arafat he gains in popularity. Thus, Friedman's own pretext is even further nonsense.
In the end a Civil War must be fought in the Territories. That's the point.
Friedman and others want more window dressing and phony visits by Zinni and Powell where Arafat try and uses it to gain international standing and does nothing again.
The thing that infuriates me is Friedman acting like an Indyidiot baby, who screeches, hits below the belt and plays to the lowest common denominator in a nonsensical illogical screed because he's angry he's not getting his way.
Can you sense my anger, "Can you hear it now Can you feel it now Tommy Boy?"
Mike
I also want to add that AIPAC the "Jewish Zionist Lobby" whom Friedman has spoken in front of I believe support a 2 state solution and even welcomed and spoke with the Geneva formulators when they were here. And all this screed is about is Tommy Boy's love of the Geneva process or Oslo redux but worse which even lefties at Haaretz eviscerated! (eviscerated)
Sharon can't do anything significant without American approval as the fence has changed direction several times already proves. To intimate that Sharon has the White House under house arrest is playing to the lowest denominator of the "powerful international Jewish/Zionist force" But of course here it is ok to do that because Tommy Boy really knows whats good and right and wants to save Israel/us/the admin/American people from themselves. So to do that and to get attention (baby) he needs to hit below the belt....
Don't you get it, Tommy Boy is just giving us our needed tough love medicine.
Mike
Bravo, Sol. Nice job.
LOL........ Lynn should know that it was me who alerted to the fisk of this, though Solomon gave me the props, because I emailed it Lynn too......... lol..
Thanks, Lynn.
BTW, Mike. You make a good point regarding the false dichotomy Freidman draws between the PA and the rest of the terror gangs. It reminds me of his constant moral pairing of settlers and terrorists - annoying as hell.