Thread: The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work

Thomas Friedman, the leading "liberal" columnist for the New York Times, writes in the final chapter of his book, "The Lexus and the olive tree", that the success of globalization depends on America's willingness to use its military power to impose it's mercantilist free trade system against any "who would threaten the system of globalization." He writes:

For the new globalism to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is. Sustainable globalization requires a stable power structure, and no country is more essential for this than the United States. The fact that no two major countries have gone to war is due to the precense of American power and American willingness to use that power against those who would threaten the system of globalization . The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist.

Markets function and flourish only when property rights are secure and can be enforced, which, in turn, requires a political framework protected and backed by military power.

Friedman was one the most vocal supporters of the invasion of Iraq. He said his support for the war was based on his yearning to bring democracy to suffering Arabs but if you read what he wrote when he was the Times' chief diplomatic correspondent during the shi'ite uprising in 1991 he approvingly reported that:

While oposing the popular rebellion, Washington did hope that a military coup might remove Saddam, and then Washington would have the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein.

I think I may keep going with this.



For more, see "The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work", by Belén Fernández, available at Amazon:

May 31, 2010. Israeli commandos slaughter nine Turkish humanitarian activists on board the Freedom Flotilla endeavoring to deliver aid to besieged Gaza. The event takes place in international waters. Thomas Friedman's reaction is to put the word humanitarian in quotation marks and to announce that Turkish "concern for Gaza and Israel's blockade is so out of balance with other horrific cases in the region" and that Turkey is risking its "historic role as a country that can be muslim, modern, democratic."

Continued...

Also keep in mind that Friedman is one the leading commentators in mainstreem discussion. From Meet the Press to CNN.

FAIR: Terrorism on the New York Times Op-Ed Page

Friedman supports civilian suffering as "education"

New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman endorsed terrorism in a January 14 column defending Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip.

To answer his own question about Israel's plan--"What is the goal?"--Friedman referred back to the 2006 attacks on Lebanon, which killed about 1,000 Lebanese civilians. To Friedman, this was the "education" of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah:

Israel's counterstrategy was to use its air force to pummel Hezbollah and, while not directly targeting the Lebanese civilians with whom Hezbollah was intertwined, to inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it was logical. Israel basically said that when dealing with a nonstate actor, Hezbollah, nested among civilians, the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians--the families and employers of the militants--to restrain Hezbollah in the future.

The "logical" plan, as Friedman explained it, is to punish civilians in the hopes that this will force the political change you prefer. This is precisely the "logic" of terrorists.

According to Friedman, this "education" worked on Hezbollah, and he hopes it will work in the current conflict: "In Gaza, I still can't tell if Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas or trying to 'educate' Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population." Friedman's preference is for the terrorism "education."

This pro-terrorism argument has been made before by Friedman, who advocated the same sort of terror against Serbs, writing (4/6/99) that "people tend to change their minds and adjust their goals as they see the price they are paying mount. Twelve days of surgical bombing was never going to turn Serbia around. Let's see what 12 weeks of less than surgical bombing does. Give war a chance."

The New York Times has developed certain rules and guidelines for its opinion columnists over the years--they are not permitted to endorse political candidates, and they are generally expected to refrain from criticizing one another by name in print. Other policies have been made clear in the past--as when liberal columnist Paul Krugman was instructed not to refer to George W. Bush as "lying" during the 2000 campaign (Washington Post, 1/22/03).

Does the Times have a similar standard for columnists who endorse inflicting suffering on civilians? Or does the acceptability of advocating terrorism depend on who is being terrorized?

ACTION: Ask the Times if Thomas Friedman's column advocating terrorism against civilians in Gaza meets the paper's standards for its opinion columns.

I find that he is very simplistic.

Originally Posted by Mayerling

I find that he is very simplistic.

He's a dangerous baffoon.

Thomas Friedman, the leading "liberal" columnist

That was a joke, right? The quotes make me think it probably is a joke, but it's hard to be sure.

Many liberals refer to head neocon Friedman as "The Mustache of Wisdom", and the term "One Friedman Unit" has been defined to mean "six months", due to Friendman's many claims over several years that we'd be able to pull out of Iraq in another 6 months.

And yes, Friedman, the guy who was totally wrong about everything, is still in high demand for the Talking Head shows. According to the modern American media, being totally and catastrophically wrong about everything in the past shouldn't necessarily disqualify someone's opinion.

Originally Posted by mamooth

That was a joke, right? The quotes make me think it probably is a joke, but it's hard to be sure.

Many liberals refer to head neocon Friedman as "The Mustache of Wisdom", and the term "One Friedman Unit" has been defined to mean "six months", due to Friendman's many claims over several years that we'd be able to pull out of Iraq in another 6 months.

And yes, Friedman, the guy who was totally wrong about everything, is still in high demand for the Talking Head shows. According to the modern American media, being totally and catastrophically wrong about everything in the past shouldn't necessarily disqualify someone's opinion.

As was Fareed Zakari. Don't these guys ever keep their old interviews? I kept a few choice ones from these so called experts during the Gulf War and they were wrong about everything,

Neo-liberal yes, liberal (in the American sense), no.