Fight Israel's wars to the last American soldier!

A cheerleader for the war in Iraq sets his site on Iran. Friedman's arguments presuppose that America should exercise controlling power over the Middle East. He and other imperialist empire builders find this a compelling ambition. Others wonder why.

Friedman notes two sides in his new, for now, cold war: America and its Middle East allies versus America’s Middle East non-allies.

I’m reminded of the classic IQ test that gave a list of items and asked you to remove the one that did not belong with the others. I assume that Mr. Friedman didn’t get past that question successfully.

As Friedman would put it: Oh. My. God.

Never knew the droll Rose had some a streak of self parody. Priceless.

Charlie Rose interviews himself, in a Samuel Beckett style:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFE2CCfAP1o

Lots of reaction shots, all over the top and out of context.

Herodotus is a fun read, but much of Friedman's blather (and Greenwald's reaction) can be illumintaed by a brief sidebar from last November's Harpers. "The Kindness Of Strangers" - a very worthwhile read.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/11/0081757

I worked in cable TV for a while and wrote/hosted a short-lived "outdoor sports show." The face-to-face Charlie Rose interview was almost certainly done with two cameras, so there is likely lots of great Rose listening/reaction footage, especially when TF tells the Muslim world to Suck. On. This.

But even with two cameras rolling, there are still "noddys" to shoot later if the editor/producer wants a certain reaction that isn't there during the original footage. The satirical version of these are done beautifully on The Daily Show and such.

They gotta be lying around on somebody's cutting room floor.

p.s. some people deny that reaction shots actually exist in real time, claiming they are faked up afterwards ('noddy shots') so I am open to expert info on this.

Thanks, Glenn Greenwald, for an alternate interpretation of the current situation with Iran. I used to be an avid reader of Tom Friedman and silently accepted the Iraq war based on his reasoning, not that of George Bush. I force myself to read TF's columns now, but am more wary. I am just not informed enough about these issues to make a clear judgement. Your counter argument helps me a great deal.

Tom Friedman is a neocon nutcase, a cocktail-swiggin' armchair commando. (Aren't ALL neocons?!) He's also with the New York Times, a "newspaper" that gives you all the LIES that are fit to print. Consider its lying reporters and columnists--Miller, Blair, Kristol, Safire et al.

Of course, I'm sure that Friedman would enlist if he could. He'd be over there securing the Middle East for Israel.

Over and over, folks miss the sarcasm in Rob Mac's post about the Persian invasions.

The history lesson is much appreciated, though.

Rob Mac wrote:

"This just goes to show the short memory of your average liberal. Iran invaded Greece not once, but twice in the 5th century BC. In fact, Iran (sure, it was called Persia then) was a scourge in the eastern Mediterranean. My god, they even invaded India! Iran has invaded most of its neighbors at some point in the past 2500 years."

This is the purest of red herrings. Persian history from the rise of the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus II the Great in the mid-sixth century BCE to its extinction under Alexander the Great in the late third century BCE hasn't the faintest bearing on modern, Islamic Iran. The Shah liked to play political and nationalistic Kitsch with the symbols of the ancient empire, but no one took it seriously. Furthermore, Persia did not invade India, Alexander did with a multinational force of which the core was his Macedonian phalanx. As titular head of the old Achaemenid Empire one might by a stretch call it a 'Persian' invasion, but a very long and essentially silly stretch. I might add that the Achaemenid Empire was, as empires go, far more beneficent and tolerant than (say) the British Empire was in the treatment of its colonies in Africa, India and the Middle East.

If Rob Mac knew any ancient history, he might have cited the invasions of the Sassanid Dynasty, which rose in the third century CE and for the next four centuries was Rome's most aggressive enemy. Sassanid strength was grounded in popular support, nationalism and Zoroastrianism. The final war for survival between the two during the reign of the Emperor Heraclius I exhausted both empires and left Persia too weak to resist the Arabic invasions. But this example is just as much a red herring as the previous one. Roughly ransacking history back 2,500 years is no honest way to make a point against GG.

Since virtually all Americans are ignorant of Iran's ancient history, of which they are deservedly proud, let me recommend some reading:

Period of the Greco-Persian Wars (499-479)

Everyone must start with Herodotus, The Histories. For those who can't read Greek, Robin Waterfield's translation with Catharine Dewald's extensive and very detailed notes is probably the most accessible (Penguin). The new Landmark Herodotus ed. Robert Strassler is also a good choice.

1. Burn, Persian and the Greeks (Duckworth)

2. Green, The Greco-Persian Wars (UC Press)

3. Miller, Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC (CUP)

4. Lazenby, The Defense of Greece (Aris&Phillips)

5. Lateiner, The Historical Method of Herodotus (Toronto)

Byzantine Empire

Procopius' history provides essential background for the earlier period.

1. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State (Rutgers)

2. Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire, 2 vols. (Wisconsin UP)

3. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284-602, 4 vols. (Blackwell)

4. Runciman, History of the Crusades, 3 vols. (CUP)

5. Cameron, Procopius (UC Press)

6. Cameron, The Later Roman Empire (Harvard)

I could cite several hundred more, but these provide good coverage and are easily available.

Thanks for the information. Since a whole lot of that organization is top secret (unless you're married to Joe Wilson) and off budget, how would one know if a 'program', or mindset is operational? To assume the unprovable is too much to ask.

Didn't the nyt lay off 15% of it's news staff a while back? (I know, friedman's a columnist) They're not going to be paying for some 1st class putz traveller if they can help it. Why does fred hiatt have a job at the wapo? Proove he's not a company man. And don't get me started on pbs.