Tom Friedman takes his cues on morality from Bin Laden
No really, he does:
...people among us who went over the line may go unpunished, because we still have enemies who respect no lines at all.
For those that missed Scott Horton's rebuttal of David Broder's sermonizing about the need to leave torturers unpunished, much of what Horton wrote is applicable to Friedman, certainly in terms of explaining the legal context behind investigations and prosecutions (even if they must lead to the prosecution of the most senior officials).
But Friedman, being Friedman, has to inject an everyman-slant; his low-brow, Bucksbaum-sponsored outreach to Joe Q. Public is predictable and practiced; and, I suppose, it's all he's got.
Anyway, you know the point of departure - "...Al Qaeda truly was a unique enemy, and the post-9/11 era a deeply confounding war in a variety of ways." In a subsequent paragraph, he uses the term 9/11 four times in four consecutive sentences.
He also rehashes the fighting-them-over-there-so-they-don't-fight-us-over-here meme - hey Madrid, London, how'd that work for you? - and condenses the full panoply of Bushie scare-mongering scenarios of which we are all probably far too familiar.
Of course there's the obligatory mixed metaphor - "close our open society another notch" - and there's the aggrandizing decision to speak on behalf of America - "a vast majority of Americans would have told the government (and still will): 'Do whatever it takes.'"
All of this is garden-variety Friedman. Low-brow horseshit, a collation of vaguely associated thoughts, and no particular argument or logic that could withstand scrutiny. (Take the initial fixation on the "truly unique" Al Qaeda using suicide attackers... Pearl Harbor, anyone? Or this: "Al Qaeda comes out of a stream in radical Islam [...] It respects no [...] religious constraints." Huh? Religious fundies don't respect religious constraints? How about that.)
But there's one comment that perhaps carries special resonance:
"...justice taken to its logical end here [...] would rip our country apart."
This was Peggy Noonan last weekend:
"Hearings, especially, would likely tear up the country as we descended into opposing camps."
On one side, presumably, those who take their moral cues from Al Qaeda, and on the other, those who don't.
Our country survived one president resigning in disgrace, and another president dragged through a multi-million-dollar witch hunt.
We barely survived two Bush terms.
We can survive the truth.
I really DON'T think we can survive ignoring the crimes that went against our very core as a nation.
April 29, 2009 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Half of the time I think Tom Friedman
is a complete moron. The other half
I think he is a flaming asshole.
In either case he is an utter disgrace
to his race: the human race.
April 29, 2009 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you dis Friedman's support of Obama's approach in this op-ed at your own peril. I think that he thinks like a lot of Americans think, and I think Obama prefers to operate according to that reality, i.e., the majority. (In short: Obama sees the executive as representing the majority. If Congress wishes to go in another direction, like dragging Bush and Cheney into grandstanding style hearings, I predict he will disassociate himself, and it will be to his benefit and to the detriment of Congress. Like Friedman implied, someone like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed will not make for a good victim, and, as he implies, some of those referred to in the memoes we have seen so far are not white collar criminals. They do not care whether we torture or not. If investigations are to do any good besides distracting grandstanding, as Friedman suggests in his second paragraph, they have to focus on the less spectacular and less theoretical of how a few top level terrorists were treated, but on the actually more problematic issues of how it happened that our people kicked to death shot suffocated or drowned detainees, many probably innocent and how that can try to make that never happen again.
Back to Obama. In this 2005 post on DKos, he basically told the progressive blogosphere that he did not think they struck the right note as to "Tone, Truth and the Democratic Party," that he thinks their "perspective misreads the American people." He also said the American people "don't think George Bush is mean-spirited or prejudiced, but have become aware that his administration is irresponsible and often incompetent." I haven't seen him say or do anything yet that has made him change his mind about what he said about George Bush there. I did see Michelle Obama kiss George Bush goodbye, after the inauguration, and I really don't think she would have done that if her husband had expressed the opinion to her that he was a war criminal.
My opinion, Friedman basically strikes the same tone in this op-ed.
BTW, I don't mean to imply that Congress will go the way of the outraged of the blogosphere, they will will instead do something more responsible. Unfortunately, responsible is not flashy, takes a long time, and does not get a lot of media/blogosphere attention.
April 29, 2009 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I feel in no peril at all!
I didn't exactly take Friedman to task for endorsing Obama's approach. I went to work on his "reasoning", for wont of a better word.
I'm sure it is clear, however, that I don't buy the Obama approach anyway. Aside from the fact political interference in a matter that is properly a matter for the DoJ carries a particular stink to it, Obama has so far appeared hesitant over any form of thorough, credible investigation.
Basically, he seems - for reasons of political convenience alone - to want to punt the issue of torture, and I do not agree with this at all. Maybe Obama has other reasons, I have no doubt they'd be more persuasive than Friedman's, but it would be nice to hear them.
April 30, 2009 6:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh the DailyKos thang. Well, it would be a good point if it were the 'screaming left' only that was outraged over torture.
The truth is, there are plenty on the right who are also outraged.
My take is that it is the "extremists" from both ends that want this swept under the rug. The sensible Middle is sensibly calling for an investigation, and sensibly using the DoJ for it.
The Dog and Pony show approach would be a political commission, not a legal investigation.
April 30, 2009 7:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
If thorough investigations were to take place, Clinton era individuals would also be implicated. Renditions and torture did not start w/ the bushies.
It's far-fetched to imagine that part of the big picture isn't part of the Obama administration calculus.
It's one thing to have Dem-controlled committees holding hearings and insuring that testimony is limited to reliable folks who wouldn't mention the culpability of the Clinton administration and quite another for completely independent inquiries not limited to the past 8 years.
That way danger lies....
April 30, 2009 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
A great reality show would have an episode where Tom Friedman is beaten to death by someone weilding the fresh corpse of Peggy Noonan. I'm sorry is that toooo harsh? Too fucking bad. Friedman thinks like alot of Americans think? That's unfortunate but not surprising. Maybe a more apt way of putting it would be that alot of Americans think just like Tom after reading one of his worth less than shit missives. Define "alot". The most responsible thing that Congress could do would be to insist that that piece of shit Holder and the DOJ do their fucking jobs and investigate and prosecute and let's leave the bullshit, politicized to the point of counter-productive "Truth Commissions" to the grandstanding, weak-tit, idiots like Leahy.
April 30, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink