The New York Times was the most conspicuous cheerleader for the Iraq war among major national news outlets. Judith Miller of NYT played the dedicated moll to the Bush administration's gangsters and the criminal Ahmed Chalabi. She was jettisoned by her patrons only after it was revealed (mostly due to the dogged reporting by bloggers) how "close" she was to her "sources". William Safire, another neo-con (or paleo-con) on the newspaper's editorial staff has retired and we will be spared his verbosity and repugnant views of the world, especially the middle east.
There still remains a dangerous voice on the NYT's editorial page. Thomas Friedman, who pontificates on the state of the world from several sides of his mouth is even more dangerous than the conservative and libertarian commentators because he masquerades as a liberal. His penchant for contradictory non-sense and half truths is appalling. Friedman was one of the first to climb the "new" China-India bandwagon. He paints a one sided picture of India - of gleaming high tech cities, savvy middle class consumers, a cheerful, disciplined "English speaking" work force (perfect for outsourcing jobs by US companies) and math and engineering whizzes marching to a glorious Asian sun rise. What he does not describe is the India where the majority still lives in poverty relying on a poor and shaky infrastructure of unreliable basic services. Where elected leaders are often corrupt. Where drinking water is not always safe or easily available and the war against AIDS and other communicable diseases is being fought by a valiant few with meager resources. Friedman's China is all Shanghai high rises and super highways appearing overnight. He completely ignores the high handed, ruthless manner in which the totalitarian government of China brings about some of these economic miracles by wiping out villages and polluting the countryside.
Friedman has supported the Iraq war from the beginning although of late, he has taken to criticizing the Bush administration's inept handling of it. His views on Iraq have been transparently dishonest - mixed signals of the velvet glove and the iron fist. Now that there is no sane solution left and no meaningful "open letter" to Bush and his cronies to compose, he has suggested the bloodiest solution so far. In his latest article in the New York Times (sorry, a Times Select link), Friedman slyly suggests that in order to solve the "Iran Problem", the latest bee in Bush's bonnet, the US should consider abandoning Iraq in its current unstable state. Not because the war is looking increasingly more costly and useless in terms of US and Iraqi lives and resources, but because Friedman believes that Iraq in the midst of a sectarian civil war will be a nightmare on Iran's doorstep. Iran will be so consumed by trying to keep a violent Shia - Sunni strife spilling over into its own borders that its threat to the US (and its allies) will be effectively neutralized. Friedman is betting on the historical Persian- Arab rivalry raising its ugly head and resulting in mutual bloodshed. US will have thus killed two birds without firing a single more shot because the birds themselves will tear each other apart ! So much for peace and democracy in the middle east. Friedman says all this with a straight face and an avuncular calm that is as disgusting as it is unsurprising to those of us who have never been charmed by his one sided simplistic solutions to complex world matters. Marie Antoinette's naive "Let them eat cake" was not as heartless as Friedman's calculated and callous "Let the Muslims slaughter each other" solution.
Since the link I have provided to the article will not open to the full article for many readers, here is a link to a detailed analysis of the article from another source.
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