I happened to be out driving last night and, while surfing the radio dial, I came across NPR's "Talk of the Nation" and the guest was The New York TIMES' resident know-it-all Tom Friedman deigning to explain how the Earth is Flat to us unwashed. The paperback edition of the book has just come out and Freidman was doing what all good authors do - flacking it on the media. For some reason the question of our Middle East Policy kept coming up. And I really got a kick out of the answer he gave to one listener who wanted to know how he could still have anything good to say about the Iraq misadventure even thought he no longer had faith in this administration's competence.
Well, he said in his most condescending voice, you see we've been treating the region as our own set of gas stations. And all we wanted was the oil at a reasonable price and that the natives not be too beastly to Isreal. And we didn't care how the owners treated their people. Then, sayeth Tom, came 9/11 (when, as we're told ad naseum, "everything changed") some of those people sent us a message that they didn't like the deal anymore. So, I guess that's why we're there.
Except I don't recall the Saddam Gas Station sending anyone on 9/11 to attack us. No, it seems to me that those folks came from Saudi Arabia mainly. And they trained and had a safe haven in Afghanistan. And I also recall that fifty years ago another Middle Easterner named Mossadegh wanted to put the Iranian gas station under new management and let the "Employees" have a say in its running but we said "No" and overthrew him. After all he wanted to Nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and devote its revenues to Iran. We couldn't have that now, could we? And there went the last Secular Democratic regime in the Gulf. And nothing said about Israel or cheap gas.
So what did we do Mr Freidman? About 9/11 that is? Well we invaded the wrong country and toppled the wrong dictator, that's what we did. And at the time you were just giddy about it. You wrote that every so often we should kick some booty to let people know who's boss. And you were all for bombing these people into "Good Government" in a sort of Wilsonianism gone wild. Well that has sure worked out for us hasn't it? But you're oh so smug and oh so sure that you got it right. Its just those klutzes - the Bushies that fouled up.
I honestly know whether to laugh or cry but one thing is certain. In this country there is no such thing as being so wrong that you decide not to open your trap anymore. And being a columnist at the TIMES means never admitting error. But I really wish I'd tuned in earlier. Because I would have loved to know how those tainted veggies and dangerous toys from China are "Flattening" our world. But I guess I'll have to wait for that answe and I'm sure you'll have a doozy. Got to keep up appearences after all.
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