Tom Friedman sez, "Let's Just Surrender!"
Given the ideological direction in which the American Left was headed on the GWOT ever since 9/11, I suppose it was inevitable that a column like this one would show up sooner or later. The wonder is that it came as "later" as it did.
Oh, Friedman doesn't go quite so far as to call for the U.S. to quit the war altogether. But in the call he does make - to close down Gitmo and release all the Taliban/al Qaeda terrorists we have in custody there - it's difficult to figure what else the next step beyond it would be.
The gist of Friedman's proposed capitulation to the terrorists is offered over at NRO's Corner:
Friedman dismissively tosses off, "Sure, a few may come back to haunt us.” But that's worth it, I guess, to...
Well, that's what he doesn't really explain. Make "our European partners" happy? How does that enhance our national security? I suppose it might, in some minimalist sense, if that would get more of them (beside the Brits) actively on our side in the war as at least co-belligerents, but with their latent anti-Americanism, ideological malice, delusions of superpowerhood, freeloader mentality vis-a-vie maintaining their own military capabilities, and burgeoning Muslimization, that's never going to happen.
What Friedman's column amounts to is the retroactive application of John Kerry's "global test" to the war from which he and his fellow-travelers spent last year arguing that the liberation of Iraq was a "distraction."
As both David B. Rivkin Jr. & Lee A. Casey explain at The Corner, and Paul Meringoff reinforces at Powerline, such reversion to a Clinton-style "law enforcment" anti-terrorism model would be futile because it was proven a total failure on 9/11 itself. Islamist sentiments were not any less noticably "inflamed" during these years when this war was entirely one-sided, nor was their "recruitment energy" measurably diminished by our seemingly inexhaustible, and EUro-elite-pleasing restraint. To the contrary, they took our refusal to fight back as prima facie evidence of our decadence and a green light to attack us with impunity and without limit. And that they did, until a death toll of three thousand Americans in the space of forty-five minutes finally made it impossible for libs to ignore it any longer.
It's like the man with a long family history of heart disease who eats like a hog, gets no exercise beyond the trek to the fridge, and experiences chest pains over a sustained period but ignores them until finally suffers a massive heart attack. He survives it, somehow, and undergoes bypass surgery. For a while the shock of that experience holds his attention, and he eats less and healthier, dutifully exercises, and takes his medication. And then his loud-mouthed, ignorant friend tells him, "Ahh, what does that doctor know? He just wants to keep taking your money in exchange for ruining your life. You don't need him. Let's go to the buffet, my treat." Who in this example has our hero's best interests at heart?
Friedman's "Sure, a few may come back to haunt us" quip is the clincher to me. That is a naked concession that he knows what the consequences of his argument would be. He, by all accounts and indications, is not a genuinely stupid man, for all his penchant for writing manifestly stupid things. He knows that deliberately relinquishing all the gains we've made in the GWOT over the past four years by emptying Gitmo would be to reap the proverbial whirlwind, guarantee more and bigger homeland attacks than 9/11, and bring the not-so-metaphorical barbarians to our gates. But he apparently doesn't care, or perhaps even actively favors that outcome as some sort of collective penance for all the "inflamation" of "world opinion" our pro-active self-defense has caused.
It reminds me of something one-time Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once said: "We will not die so that the world will think better of us." Tom Friedman has now indicated that he's willing to make that sacrifice (for everybody but himself, of course).
Some dare call it treason. I, at the very least, would respond that the only thing I am willing to do with the white flag TF wants me to wave is wipe my ass with it, and have it sent to Gitmo and used to wrap the next shipment of "holy" Korans for our "uninvited guests."
If anybody from Newsweek is watching, there's your next "scoop."
Enjoy.
Oh, Friedman doesn't go quite so far as to call for the U.S. to quit the war altogether. But in the call he does make - to close down Gitmo and release all the Taliban/al Qaeda terrorists we have in custody there - it's difficult to figure what else the next step beyond it would be.
The gist of Friedman's proposed capitulation to the terrorists is offered over at NRO's Corner:
[Friedman] claims that Guantanamo is undercutting American policy abroad, and endangering American lives, because it is so very unpopular in the foreign media - especially the London papers - and is “inflaming sentiments against the U.S. all over the world and providing recruitment energy on the Internet for those who would do us ill”...If we have evidence against any of the detainees, he suggests, we should “put them on trial, convict as many [as] possible (which will not be easy because of bungled interrogations) and then simply let the rest go home or to a third country."
Friedman dismissively tosses off, "Sure, a few may come back to haunt us.” But that's worth it, I guess, to...
Well, that's what he doesn't really explain. Make "our European partners" happy? How does that enhance our national security? I suppose it might, in some minimalist sense, if that would get more of them (beside the Brits) actively on our side in the war as at least co-belligerents, but with their latent anti-Americanism, ideological malice, delusions of superpowerhood, freeloader mentality vis-a-vie maintaining their own military capabilities, and burgeoning Muslimization, that's never going to happen.
What Friedman's column amounts to is the retroactive application of John Kerry's "global test" to the war from which he and his fellow-travelers spent last year arguing that the liberation of Iraq was a "distraction."
As both David B. Rivkin Jr. & Lee A. Casey explain at The Corner, and Paul Meringoff reinforces at Powerline, such reversion to a Clinton-style "law enforcment" anti-terrorism model would be futile because it was proven a total failure on 9/11 itself. Islamist sentiments were not any less noticably "inflamed" during these years when this war was entirely one-sided, nor was their "recruitment energy" measurably diminished by our seemingly inexhaustible, and EUro-elite-pleasing restraint. To the contrary, they took our refusal to fight back as prima facie evidence of our decadence and a green light to attack us with impunity and without limit. And that they did, until a death toll of three thousand Americans in the space of forty-five minutes finally made it impossible for libs to ignore it any longer.
It's like the man with a long family history of heart disease who eats like a hog, gets no exercise beyond the trek to the fridge, and experiences chest pains over a sustained period but ignores them until finally suffers a massive heart attack. He survives it, somehow, and undergoes bypass surgery. For a while the shock of that experience holds his attention, and he eats less and healthier, dutifully exercises, and takes his medication. And then his loud-mouthed, ignorant friend tells him, "Ahh, what does that doctor know? He just wants to keep taking your money in exchange for ruining your life. You don't need him. Let's go to the buffet, my treat." Who in this example has our hero's best interests at heart?
Friedman's "Sure, a few may come back to haunt us" quip is the clincher to me. That is a naked concession that he knows what the consequences of his argument would be. He, by all accounts and indications, is not a genuinely stupid man, for all his penchant for writing manifestly stupid things. He knows that deliberately relinquishing all the gains we've made in the GWOT over the past four years by emptying Gitmo would be to reap the proverbial whirlwind, guarantee more and bigger homeland attacks than 9/11, and bring the not-so-metaphorical barbarians to our gates. But he apparently doesn't care, or perhaps even actively favors that outcome as some sort of collective penance for all the "inflamation" of "world opinion" our pro-active self-defense has caused.
It reminds me of something one-time Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once said: "We will not die so that the world will think better of us." Tom Friedman has now indicated that he's willing to make that sacrifice (for everybody but himself, of course).
Some dare call it treason. I, at the very least, would respond that the only thing I am willing to do with the white flag TF wants me to wave is wipe my ass with it, and have it sent to Gitmo and used to wrap the next shipment of "holy" Korans for our "uninvited guests."
If anybody from Newsweek is watching, there's your next "scoop."
Enjoy.
posted by JASmius at 10:29 AM
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