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DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 5/22/2003 12:12 PM (GMT -6)

Taken from the Online Newshour website. This is from the 21st of May.

GWEN IFILL: Tom Friedman is just back from a reporting trip through the Middle East that took him to many of his old haunts, including Egypt, Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Kuwait, and southern Iraq. He joins us now. Tom, since you're being quoted all over the program tonight, I want to take you back before we get to that whole section of where you were in the Middle East let's talk about, you went to Europe first. You went to France and to Brussels.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Went to France and Brussels, Gwen. What struck me in France, first of all, was people were unapologetic. They felt they stood on principle. They were proud their government stood on principle, but at the same time you sensed just a tinge of embarrassment especially as the war was unfolding, as we were cutting through Iraq and as it was clear what kind of evil regime was being exposed. And I sensed especially from the people in the business community I heard, they're very disquieted by the notion of a long-term tension between the United States and France that could affect Franco-American investment and business.

GWEN IFILL: In Brussels, you were at NATO.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: In Brussels, I was at NATO headquarters. There's a revolution going on at NATO -- quite striking. NATO is moving to the South. This is no longer going to be an organization sitting on the eastern front with the Soviet Union. NATO is going to move into Kabul to take over the security operation in Kabul. I'll bet you before we're done in Iraq you're going to see NATO in Iraq as well. I think in three or four years you're going to see NATO be kind of a NATO-Russia organization, focused really on the instability from the South and no longer be an East-West alliance.

GWEN IFILL: You went to Cairo, you went to Egypt and visited with old friends there and some new friends, and talked a little bit about the Arab world's reaction to everything that was going on exactly at the same time in Iraq. What did you pick up?

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: What was striking, Gwen, I met with a class of American studies students from Cairo University one of the few American studies classes in the whole Arab world. And what was interesting talking to them is everyone has kind of the worst impression of what we're doing. "We're there for oil in Iraq. We're there to defend Israel. We're there for bases." But at the same time, Gwen, you know, I heard from all of these young people curiosity because what they understand is that they're seeing something they've never seen before in their lifetime. And that is American power being used in the Arab world not to sustain the status quo, not to buttress some Arab oil sheik and not to just protect Israel. They're seeing the revolutionary side of American power -- America coming to the region not just with its military might, but with its ideas. And at some level, they're really curious to see if we're true to our ideas and we really do develop a kind of progressive forward-looking Iraq.

GWEN IFILL: But in countries outside of Iraq, Saddam was not... people weren't necessarily weeping at the passing out of power of Saddam. It was Saddam-ism you say that Americans should be aware of.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Absolutely. There is something called Saddam-ism. It really is something that you see in this kind of post- colonial, somewhat humiliated part of the world, where people rally around these kinds of dictators just because they stick a thumb in our eye. You know, I met with a group of opposition Egyptian journalists one day over tea. It was really striking how much... I mean, they were rooting for Saddam to defend Baghdad, to hold the fort. One of things I said to them was "wait a minute, guys, don't you see how you would benefit most from a freer Iraq? I mean, imagine," I said to them, "if in two years Iraq held a free and fair election; Jimmy Carter came and certified a free and fair election in Iraq." Who else is holding an election in two years? Egypt is holding an election in two years. So can anyone imagine that if Iraq held a free and fair election that wouldn't also affect the kind of election Egypt would almost have to hold? I tried to show them the positive side of this. But for now that outlook of Saddam-ism, because it's so many feeling that they are being defeated, they are being humiliated. Even though rallying behind guys like Saddam, they know it's like a bad addiction. It's very much still there.

GWEN IFILL: You went to Tel Aviv, where people must be kind of holding their breaths waiting to see what the ultimate outcome is for Israeli-Palestinian relations.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: As soon as the Israelis realized that they wouldn't need their gas masks, that Saddam was not going to attack them, on the one hand they're relieved and happy that the United States is changing the regime in Baghdad which is a regime dedicated to Israel's destruction. At the same time though I certainly sensed among Israeli officials, Gwen, an awareness that this story is going to loop back to their door just as the Gulf War One ended up in a Madrid peace conference I think there is an awareness and we're seeing that played out today that we are going to follow up this war with Iraq-- we, the United States-- with, I think, a much more aggressive effort to promote some kind of Israeli- Palestinian peace settlement.

GWEN IFILL: After taking the long way around you finally... you've come to southern Iraq and visited a hospital in Umm Qasr.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Umm Qasr, which was the first city liberated by the war. I went in with Kuwaiti Red Cross, which was quite interesting really, and gave me more freedom to Rome and talk to people. Three things struck me from that three things struck me from that visit. First of all was how abjectly poor this town was. This was a major port city. This was more poor than some of the worst sub-Saharan African villages I've ever visited. It was unimaginably and shamefully poor when you think how rich this country is in natural resources. It tells you a little bit of what Saddam did. Another thing that struck me in talk to go people in the hospital, doctors and nurses, after you talked to about the situation at the moment, every person I talked to had a story about Saddam having taken a son, a brother, a cousin or a relative. But the third thing that struck me in talking to them because I kind of expected garlands and flowers, was how suspicious they were of us. "You're here for the oil, right?" I mean, that was kind of the mood of a lot of people. It was a reminder that there's a... they have their narrative and we have ours. Our narrative was the statue coming down on... and the liberation of Baghdad. That's certainly part of the truth of what happened there. It's a big part of the truth. But there is another narrative going on from their point of view. One that comes from watching the Arab satellite TVs, al Jazeera -- that this is some kind of American occupation. You are going to see a kind of struggle between those two. We have to remember they haven't been watching Fox TV down there. They've been watching Arab TV, and it's bombarded them with a very different set of images than we have. As the previous segment really alluded to, everything really depends now, Gwen, on what we build there. We can talk all we want. We can say we're here for these motives. They can say we're there for these motives. If we build a decent Iraq, if we help Iraqis build a decent Iraq, I think a lot of this can go away.

GWEN IFILL: There's the rub. Exactly how does the United States go about that in an environment where people were suspicious even before, happy to be liberated but not necessarily happy to have the liberators stay.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: I think the key thing is to focus on two things, Gwen. One is process -- that we develop a fair, transparent process for bringing Iraqis forward to run their own country. If we start anointing X, Y or Z or pushing aside X, Y or Z, we're in trouble. The other thing is a lesson I learned after Israel. I went to the West Bank and looked at the Israeli occupation from Ramallah there and the problems it's run into. One of the real lessons of the Israeli occupation is what happens when the mainstream-- in this case the Israeli mainstream-- doesn't have a clear view of what it wants to do with this territory. When the mainstream doesn't have a clear view, trust me, the extremes will. And the extremes will drive the agenda. I think it's so important that President Bush focus as much with blinders and a laser beam on building that kind of decent accountable rule-of-law Iraq that he fought the war with that he now fights the post war with.

GWEN IFILL: You write about the series of walls which the United States must overcome, not just the obvious ones, but all kinds of lurking barriers which still exist to getting this goal that you say the United States should be aiming for.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Well, one of those walls is clearly the wall between Israelis and Palestinians. Why is it important for us to be seen to be working to break down that wall? We're now in kind of a pre- political moment in Iraq, Gwen but very soon as you heard earlier here people are going to be jockeying for power. Now say you're one of the pro- American people and you want to run for mayor of Baghdad or for governor of Baghdad province or whatever. But I'm a Shiite cleric and I want that job, what's the quickest way for me to de-legitimize you? It's to say, oh, you're working with the Americans who are lackeys of Ariel Sharon. These stories will all get tied together. We won the ground war, but there was an air war -- an air war in the air waves. It's still going on. That's why it's so important for us to address in a fair way-- not bashing any side or other-- the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as we try to move forward on Iraq because they'll intersect.

GWEN IFILL: With so many people within and without Iraq who have a vested interest in the outcome how do you stop someone from hijacking the peace process?

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: You stop them from hijacking it by hijacking it yourself, that is, by keeping a laser focus of your eye on the prize. What is the prize we're trying to go create? We're trying to create an Iraq that will allow for the emergence of Iraqis who are Iraqi nationalists who don't want to be occupied who are true Muslims, true to their faith but at the same time have a progressive, modernizing agenda and are willing and ready to work with us. That's the Iraq we want. And everything we do in the region, in the Arab-Israeli context and in Iraq has to keep a laser focus on will it support that prize.

GWEN IFILL: Well, Tom, thanks again for taking us along on your trip.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Thanks so much, Gwen. Thank you.

Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

Edited by - DLW on 06/10/2003 10:58:52 AM

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 5/22/2003 12:13 PM (GMT -6)

Let us be sure of one thing, this issue is not going away. We must gird ourselves to understand the issues as best as we can with the time/energy we have so that next time it flares up we will be in an informed position to offer prophetic criticism of what our gov't may be doing..

dlw

Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 6/3/2003 5:38 PM (GMT -6)

What do we make of, as Christians, the evidence that we were being manipulated by the Bush Administration with its talks of Weapons of Mass Destruction into supporting GW2? Irregardless of whether the outcome is ultimately desirable or not?

I think it sets a bad precedent. As a believer in the Priesthood of the Believers, I think elitist manipulations of the masses to support "the right" policies should be suspect.

dlw

Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 6/4/2003 6:16 AM (GMT -6)

Here are three very important speeches in full that came out and bear upon the future of the Middle East...

President Bush's speech:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0603/bush_pal_state.php3

Prime Minister Sharon's speech:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0603/arik_pal_state.php3

"Palestinian" Prime Minister Abbas's speech:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0603/abbas_pal_state.php3

Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

honorman
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137

Posted 6/4/2003 6:30 AM (GMT -6)

What do we make of Christians who have personal anomoscity towards the president making negative comments about him? One wonders where the issue of intergrity lies?

honorman
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137

Posted 6/4/2003 8:47 AM (GMT -6)

I think, more importantly, you have an issue to deal with DLW, and that is issue of why you, a Christian, do not give the benefit of the doubt to Bush, another confessing Christian. It is very possible that Bush is wrong. But how do you know he mislead us? Why do YOU assume such a thing? Why are YOU so quick to rush to judgment? I was always taught that one should give the benefit of doubt to my fellow human being and particularly another Christian.
It should be noted that, during the debate to go to war, no one, not the French, The Germans, The Russians, nor Hans Bix doubted the existance of WMD. All believed in them, so it wasn't just Bush. They simply didn't want war for their own reasons. That should be remembered. Everyone believed in them and so, if they aren't there, everyone was wrong.
Still I find such cynicism coming from one Christian to another very troubling...

DLW
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Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 6/4/2003 9:29 AM (GMT -6)

quote:

I think, more importantly, you have an issue to deal with DLW, and that is issue of why you, a Christian, do not give the benefit of the doubt to Bush, another confessing Christian. It is very possible that Bush is wrong. But how do you know he mislead us? Why do YOU assume such a thing? Why are YOU so quick to rush to judgment? I was always taught that one should give the benefit of doubt to my fellow human being and particularly another Christian.
It should be noted that, during the debate to go to war, no one, not the French, The Germans, The Russians, nor Hans Bix doubted the existance of WMD. All believed in them, so it wasn't just Bush. They simply didn't want war for their own reasons. That should be remembered. Everyone believed in them and so, if they aren't there, everyone was wrong.
Still I find such cynicism coming from one Christian to another very troubling...

My personal animosity is towards George Bush as president, not his Christianity. As I did with BC, I will not impugn his relationship with God. However, I think my views regarding the willingness of the Bush Administration to manipulate to acheive its goals and stay in power are very justified.

The point was that the pitch used to get support for the war was that we USAmericans were in danger due to Iraq's WMD. It seems now that this was not the reason why the Bush Administration wanted regime change so bad and so soon. It was used because it would play well with a nation to stress a secondary issue that appealed to our heightened sense of vulnerability after 9-11.

You should never give politicians the benefit of the doubt when it comes to war and how they justify their political objectives. They have too high of an incentive to whitewash their records and cannot be held accountable otherwise.

dlw

Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

honorman
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137

Posted 6/4/2003 11:17 AM (GMT -6)

You cannot divide a person like that, DLW. I really think you should pray about this one...

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 6/4/2003 11:37 AM (GMT -6)

Having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ does not make one have infallible political judgement.

Christian leaders have always been among those most responsible for the failures associated with Christianity. I could impugn them all as not really being Christians but prefer not to question their salvation and focus on their fallibility..

dlw

Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 6/7/2003 9:50 AM (GMT -6)

This was taken from the Lehrer Newhour discussion with M Shields and D Brooks.

The possibility of ending the Mideast crisis
JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with that?
DAVID BROOKS: Not entirely. I do not think among the Jewish community or evangelical community there is much love for the settlements. In both of those communities they do not want to see Israel pushed around, but is if Sharon is willing to say, as he did very historically this week, that it is bad for Israel to have the occupied territories, the Jewish community and evangelical community are not going to get to his right.

That's one of the things Bush has going for him. I think they've also learned the lessons of the failure of Oslo. One, to marginalize Arafat, two to get the Arabs involved, which we didn't do sufficiently because it's only Egypt, Saudi Arabia and some of the Arab nations that can really lean on Hamas and those people who need to be crushed and leaned on.

And finally, don't get too geeky about the process. Those people, who are involved in negotiations, it's all they've done with their lives. They can negotiate for six months on the shape of the doilies at the conference table. And Bush, because of his personality, is just going to say hey, I don't care about that stuff, let's keep moving. I'm actually as optimistic as I've been in five years about the Middle East because I really think there's real movement this week and a chance for more.

JIM LEHRER: Do you share that optimism, politics of it aside?

MARK SHIELDS: I don't, Jim. I think there is a contrast in styles. Bill Clinton, whatever everybody says about him, mastered the history, the data...

JIM LEHRER: And the details.

MARK SHIELDS: He knew if he drew the line one block in Jerusalem, what the difference was in east Jerusalem, politically, sociologically, culturally and historically. And one of George Bush's own appointees said, he does not have the knowledge or the patience to learn the issue enough to have an end destination in mind. I mean, he really is - I guess if you like, it's big-picture broad strokes but it's detachment and the question David…

JIM LEHRER: Do you think that's enough?

DAVID BROOKS: I thought Clinton did a good job, but he was moving around the parking spaces between the two zones. But Clinton cannot get dragged down into this process. They're addicted to it.

JIM LEHRER: You mean Bush.

DAVID BROOKS: Bush can't. They're addicted -- they've been doing it for their lives there. There's like four different dimensions going. They love the process. They don't think about the end game. To me one of the really interesting things that has happened is the important role that Condoleezza Rice is playing, which is not the State Department, but within the White House itself …

JIM LEHRER: She has been given this account, has she not?

DAVID BROOKS: And Jim Hoagland of the "Washington Post" had a wonderful observation. If you look around the - at the governments around the world - very often it is not the State Department as the foreign ministry who are rising in power; it's the people right around the prime minister or the president; and in part that's because of communication technology. It is easy for leaders to talk, but in part it's because of the politicians in a political sense, you can't have professional technocrats running these negotiations because they get too detached from reality. You want to have politicians and people right around them doing it.

JIM LEHRER: On the domestic political thing, more generally, Mark, is it your feeling that the American people generally want their president to resolve things in the Middle East? Is that why every president of the United States recently, at least, every secretary of state eventually whether they want to or not, gets involved?

MARK SHIELDS: I don't think there is a groundswell of support for it.

JIM LEHRER: They have to choose to do it.

MARK SHIELDS: I've never seen it come up on a list of what are the most important issues that the president ought to be doing more in the Middle East. I mean, I think they like to see the president of the United States as a peacemaker and nobody, Jim, and one of the most interesting stories of all that came out of this was when Abdullah of Saudi Arabia went to visit the president at the Crawford Texas Ranch. He showed the president pictures that had been on television over there of Palestinian children who had been killed.

And it was a ten-minute video. He went through this book with him and he said, Mr. President, I'm with you whatever you do. But if you're going to get involved, you have to stay involved. I'll support you whatever you do. And the president, apparently, from those who were there, it was almost an epiphany for the president, the idea of the suffering. He didn't make an anti-Israeli creed or anything of the sort and the president's interest was encouraged and nurtured.

DAVID BROOKS: It is interesting because in the Congo millions have died in the past few years.

JIM LEHRER: Three million people since 1998.

DAVID BROOKS: Which is as many Palestinians as there are in the West Bank or almost as many, and yet somehow that is off the radar screen -- yet we all focus on the Middle East. I will say one thing that is different about Bush this time, which is he sees it as part of the war on terror, to which he has committed his presidency. So I do think that the ability to stay there is there.

Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 8/17/2003 5:52 AM (GMT -6)

In this article, Friedman talks about how Iraq is diverging in its views from other Arab-Middle East countries, in part due to its experiences of suffering under Saddam and the negative reactions of other Arab nations to GWII, which freed the Iraqis from Saddam.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/opinion/17FRIE.html

Telling the Truth in Iraq
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

AGHDAD, Iraq

I got a tour the other day of Baghdad's rebuilt airport, which is now quite beautiful, but still hasn't opened out of security concerns. Our tour guides even took us through passport control to show off their new computers that will check for incoming terrorists. As they showed us around, a question occurred to me that I posed to them: "What happens if someone gets off a plane with an Israeli passport?" After all, Iraq under Saddam Hussein not only didn't have diplomatic relations with Israel, it considered itself at war with Israel.

All of the officials present shrugged their shoulders and agreed that they hadn't thought about it — and that's one of the most interesting things about Iraq today. It is the only Arab country where the Arab-Israeli conflict is not the first topic of conversation with intellectuals and media elites. Make no mistake, the average Iraqi dislikes Israel and sympathizes with the Palestinian cause as much as any Saudi or Egyptian. This is an Arab country — never forget that.

But here's what is new and will have a big impact on inter-Arab politics, if Iraq can be rebuilt: Many Iraqis today express real resentment for the other Arab regimes, and even toward the Palestinians, for how they let themselves be bought off by Saddam. They feel that Saddam used the Iraqi people's oil wealth to buy popularity for himself in the Arab street — by giving Palestinians and other Arab students scholarships and nice apartments in Baghdad, and by paying off all sorts of Arab nationalist writers and newspapers. And then these same Arab intellectuals and media gave Saddam a free pass to torture, repress and starve his own people. In other words, "Arabism," in the minds of many Iraqis, is the cloak that Saddam hid behind to imprison them for 35 years, and now that they can say that out loud, they are saying it.

You'd never know this from watching Arab satellite television like Al Jazeera. Because although these stations have 21st-century graphics, they're still dominated by 1950's Nasserite political correctness — which insists that dignity comes from how you resist the foreigner, even if he's come as a liberator, not by what you build yourself.

But the truth will come out. "Iraq is going to be the Arab libido," a Lebanese aid worker in Baghdad said to me. "You know, when you have those naughty dreams that you can't tell anyone about and then suddenly you're on the couch talking about them — that's going to be Iraq." It's going to be where all the taboos that are not supposed to be spoken, get spoken. Indeed, they already are.

Hassan Fattah is a young Iraqi-American journalist who has returned to Baghdad to start a terrific newspaper called Iraq Today (www.iraq-today.com). Before the fall of Baghdad, though, he worked as a reporter in the West Bank. "I sympathize with the Palestinian cause," he said, "but after the fall of Baghdad, when I told Palestinians that I was an Iraqi, they would say to me, `You sold us out. You sold Iraq for nothing.' I was called a traitor. The average Palestinian wanted to see us fight — to resist — America, and the American `occupation,' because that is what they understood."

Of course, Iraqis want to run their own government as soon as possible, said Mr. Fattah — but not in order to join the old Arab nationalist parade, but rather to focus on themselves. "Iraqis know Saddam was a fake," he explained. "His Arabism came at their expense. For Iraqis it was not Arabism, it was torture and subjugation. [Now] there is this feeling that the Arab world has lashed out at us because we did not `resist' the Americans. It was because Iraqis have learned the lessons of phony Arabism — that Saddam could send $35,000 to the families of [Palestinian] suicide bombers, while leaving his own people starving and living on two dollars a day.

"That's why there is a dramatic gulf now between Iraqis and a lot of other Arabs. Young people here want to move on. In 10 years, this will be a very different place. If I can be a part of it, it will be like Hong Kong or Korea — but with an Iraqi face."

Talking to young Iraqis such as Hassan, you sense how much they want to break the old mold — how much they want to be Arabs, with an Arab identity, but to build a modern state that actually focuses on tapping its people's talents and energies, rather than diverting them, and one that seeks to base their dignity on what they build, not on whom they fight. Root for them to succeed, for having such a state in the heart of the Arab world would be a very, very good thing.

Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes."

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