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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
The war itself was fine and right. Only its execution was flawed. We just need better war managers next time. Much of the palpable establishment excitement over the Obama administration is grounded not in the expectation that he will change this core mentality -- they clearly think, rightly or wrongly, that he won't -- but only that he'll execute and manage it more competently. --- GG explaining the cover story
The story is the same as with Bill Clinton's war in Europe. The difference is that Clinton hardly got any Americans hurt at all bombing civilians from way up in the sky. We are only going to talk about how Bush's conflict was conducted, not if it was an illegal aggression and a mistake from the get-go.
If would be nice if some day in the far distant future Americans would hold their own actions to the same standard that they hold the "others" to. Is it possible? Only after the empire falls, as no empire is ever self-reflective.
Sucking on tommy's big stick? On Sunday? If you really wish to get angry about Iraq, read NYT's take on General McCafferty. I posted on my amateur Open Salon this AM. But I want a take from you. Defense contracts actually stated that the longer we stayed in Iraq, the more money the generals would make.
But based on the bad news coming out of shopping-mall owner General Growth Properties [GGP], it is no wonder Friedman is feeling crankier than usual. That’s because the author’s wife, Ann (née Bucksbaum), is an heir to the General Growth fortune. In the past year, the couple—who live in an 11,400-square-foot mansion in Bethesda, Maryland—have watched helplessly as General Growth stock has fallen 99 percent, from a high of $51 to a recent 35 cents a share. The assorted Bucksbaum family trusts, once worth a combined $3.6 billion, are now worth less than $25 million.
Without schadenfreude life there'd be no joy in life. He's still got a few million left, of course.
His money was in malls. That tells you a LOT about him. (Shouldn't major media have conflict of interest rules? )
Friedman's term for it today is "collaborating with them to build progressive politics." -- GG
Who do we have to collaborate with to build some progressive politics in this country?
I realize that he means voting and ostensibly having a representative republic equals progress but, since the people are not represented in either case (perhaps in Iraq more so than here) who is that progress for? These neo-cons and fucking neo-libs say progressive when they mean politics that support their conservative, "free-market," hegemonic interests. That is what progressive means to them.
Lest any of us ever forget, I'm reminded again by reading those Friedman excerpts ("they must be held accountable," etc.) how prevalent the conflation of the Iraq War and 9/11 was in the public consciousness at the time. Accountable for what? To whom? Repeating the Bush administration's sleazy insinuations was an enterprise most of the pundit class was engaged in in some fashion or another. You'd think they'd be embarrassed nowadays, but then that would be asking a great deal of pundit psychology.
It's a lot like the experience of looking through newspapers from the early 1950s and seeing all the commentary obsessing about communism and how any means are justified to deal with the menace. (The subsequent horrifying record of people like John Foster Dulles would, I doubt, have been possible without the intensity of fear-mongering that occurred earlier.) But of course in this case we don't even have the comfort of historical distance to make ourselves feel better.
Most disturbingly, these comments are also a reminder of how, if there were any justice in the world, the entire Bush administration would be defending itself against war crimes charges.
See Pakistani columnist, Irfan Hussain.
http://dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/20081129.htm
or click on signature.
In listing the ways Muslims regress to the sixth century, he notes the following (emphasis added):
In India, Muslim ulema have won the right to dominate women as a religious right. This exemption was granted to them by a secular Congress Party. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Taliban and their supporters want to ban music, movies and even kite-flying. When the Taliban were in power, they had banned education for girls, and had denied women medical care from male doctors. Where will this madness end?
Perhaps it will tell you a lot about Indian politics to note that making that assessment above in public (the emphasized sentence) will likely get you tarred as a "Hindu fundamentalist".
You should also note that in India the above is a creation of the Left (Congress + Marxists).
I point this out because you mentioned Mumbai in your previous article; and because you are a civil libertarian and not a leftist or a rightist.
Every Indian should be ashamed of being lumped together with the Taliban, and that too, by a Pakistani! (India by Constitution explicitly aims to be secular, and Pakistan explicitly aims to be Islamic.) Yet you will see a lot of the "secular" crowd out there (e.g., on Huffington Post) defending India's "secularism". Ask them - when will this madness end?
T. Friedman's Op-Eds
Got no use for them...
Poor choice of imagery. Religious bigotry is timeless, but unique in character in each situation. As a part of history, it rhymes.
But with this intense Friedmanesque revisionism well underway -- whereby war cheerleaders like Friedman were Right and Good all along and it was only the incompetent Bush and Rumsfeld who ruined everything with their "bumbling" -- it seems increasingly likely that the opposite lesson will be learned.--GG
It's more than "increasingly likely that the opposite lesson will be learned" (if learned" is even in the vocabulary of people as dishonest as Friedman) by people such as Friedman and Fred Hiatt, but I'd like to hold out some hope that a majority of the human beings who populate America will be way ahead of those liars, and thus will have learned the lesson of the 'evil stupidity" of the "glorious prism" of "war" is not something that they would like to be party to again.
The Wasilla soap opera just gets weirder as Palin complains critics are "picking apart a good point guard"
The media outlet's use of Bush euphemisms sparks a much-needed debate on journalistic standards.
And so are his Fox News pals, who lambasted Sen. Al Franken's "stolen election"
An inflexible right wing is allowing the Golden State to drown in debt. But it's not alone
Thanks for sharing, Governor. Now please take a cue from Norm Coleman, and go away
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