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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTom Friedman's status among American elites is the key for understanding the US imperial decline
http://www.salon.com/2012/07/25/the_value_of_tom_friedman/In The New York Times today, Tom Friedman argues that the only thing that could save Syria is if that country is lucky enough to have the U.S. do to it what the U.S. did to Iraq, and in the process, says this:
And, for me, the lesson of Iraq is quite simple: You cant go from Saddam to Switzerland without getting stuck in Hobbes a war of all against all unless you have a well-armed external midwife, whom everyone on the ground both fears and trusts to manage the transition. In Iraq, that was America.
Just on the level of basic cogency, this makes absolutely no sense. Friedman says that a country will be stuck in Hobbes a war of all against all unless it has America there. But Iraq did have America there, and as Friedman himself points out just a few paragraphs later it got stuck in Hobbes, precisely because America was there (Because of both U.S. incompetence and the nature of Iraq, this U.S. intervention triggered a civil war in which all the parties in Iraq Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds tested the new balance of power, inflicting enormous casualties on each other and leading, tragically, to ethnic cleansing that rearranged the country into more homogeneous blocks of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds). He literally negates his own principal claim a country that overthrows its dictator can only avoid Hobbes if it has a U.S.-like force occupying and controlling it in the very same column in which he advances it.
snip
Friedman recently visited Australia and New Zealand to promote his latest book and, needless to say, generously gifted the citizens of those nations with his wisdom and insights about their countries. One New Zealand journalist reacted, not very gratefully, here. Friedman was interviewed for almost an hour by one of that countrys best known radio talk show hosts, Kim Hill, and her relentlessly adversarial, critical, deeply informed and at times subtly contemptuous questioning which can be heard on the player below or downloaded here stands in stark contrast to how he is routinely treated by the worshipful American media:
snip
Heres The sociopathy of Thomas L. Friedman: A compendium; its far from comprehensive, though it is quite illustrative. Friedman expert Matt Taibbi - this remains the all-time Supreme Gold Standard for eviscerating not only Tom Friedman, but anyone - pronounces todays column the single most incoherent thing he has ever written.
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Tom Friedman's status among American elites is the key for understanding the US imperial decline (Original Post)
stockholmer
Jul 2012
OP
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)1. I didn't really know much about Friedman when I bought his book
The World is Flat, but I strongly disagree with him on foreign policy (I read some of the stuff on Wikipedia). As for economics, I'm not finished with the book yet, so I'll have to wait until then to render a verdict.
hatrack
(59,596 posts)2. If by that you mean the fact he's taken seriously by the "elites" . . .
Definitely a symptom of decline.
Friedman - Cokie Roberts with facial hair.
Friedman - Cokie Roberts with facial hair.