Educating Thomas Friedman

Jonathan Schwarz:

As Glenn Greenwald points out, Thomas Friedman endorsed terrorism yesterday in his New York Times column:

Israel’s counterstrategy [in 2006] was to use its Air Force to pummel Hezbollah and, while not directly targeting the Lebanese civilians with whom Hezbollah was intertwined, to inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it was logical. Israel basically said that when dealing with a nonstate actor, Hezbollah, nested among civilians, the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians — the families and employers of the militants — to restrain Hezbollah in the future...

In Gaza, I still can’t tell if Israel is trying to eradicate Hamas or trying to educate Hamas, by inflicting a heavy death toll on Hamas militants and heavy pain on the Gaza population...If it is out to educate Hamas, Israel may have achieved its aims.

That's an interesting theory about using massive force to "educate" people. I wonder how well it worked on Thomas Friedman himself after the 9/11 attacks? His immediate reaction to the "heavy pain" inflicted on New York City's population was to try to restrain America's nationalistic right wing, right?

Tim Russert Show, CNBC
October 13, 2001

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: So it's time we got tough. It's time that we looked people in the eye. It's time that the terrorists were the ones who are always afraid, always looking over their shoulder, and to create that, you do have to fight a different kind of war. I was a critic of Rumsfeld before, but there's one thing...that I do like about Rumsfeld. He's just a little bit crazy, OK? He's just a little bit crazy, and in this kind of war, they always count on being able to out-crazy us.

Huh. Well, I'm sure it will work differently on the filthy wogs, given that they're subhuman.

—Jonathan Schwarz

911 nostalgia

Ever wonder why someone hasn't done a simple physical analysis to settle, once and for all, how structures like the World Trade Center buildings could fall at virtually free-fall speed? Someone trained in such things?

Someone, it turns out, has.

Too Much To Read -- too much Bad News to Read

Here's what kept me up most of last night:

http://armyofdude.blogspot.com/ -- a great blog from a soldier in Iraq

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Study_US_preparing_massive_military_attack_0828.html

http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/pilots.html -- Unbelievably experienced pilots, flight instructors, and air traffic controllers express their doubts about the official 911 story

http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2005/01/14509.php -- Dov Zackheim, Pentagon Comptroller, Has Misplaced A Trillion $ -- this is on top of the 2.5 trillion Rumsfeld said was missing

http://harpers.org/archive/2007/08/hbc-90000995 -- "The War Draws Nearer" by Scott Horton at Harpers
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m35722&hd=&size=1&l=e -- "the Great Iraq Swindle -- How Bush allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the US Treasury"


http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/08/29/gulf_coast/index.html -- "Hurricane recovery, Republican-style --many are still struggling on the Gulf Coast. But casino and real estate investors are living large -- thanks to Republican officials" -- by Tim Shorrock

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8MDEM380&show_article=1 -- God told Pat Robertson that a major terrorist attack will occur soon in the US

http://smokingmirrors.blogspot.com/ -- a frightening little blog

http://mparent7777-2.blogspot.com/2007/08/hoyer-to-push-iran-law.html -- after a trip to Israel Stenny Hoyer is going to push for a more belligerent and insane stance against Iran