Word: friedman
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Washington has a bad habit of viewing things elsewhere in the world only through the prism of American experience, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the recent comparisons of Iraq and Vietnam. Both President Bush and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman are wrong in comparing the current violence in Iraq to the 1968 Tet Offensive...
...What both Bush and Friedman fail to see is that the catastrophe created by the U.S. invasion is a product of Iraq's own history, culture and composition, and experience of previous invasions - and of the failure of the U.S. leadership to grasp those specifics. It has nothing to do with American experiences elsewhere, and in fact continuing to view events there through the Vietnam prism may have actually contributed to the problem...
...Sure, just as in Vietnam, the U.S. is fighting an unwinnable war in Iraq. But in Vietnam, the U.S. faced a single challenger, who won because America did not. In Iraq, the U.S. can't win - but nor can anyone else. To imagine, as Bush and Friedman do, that this is a war between the U.S. and "jihadists" ignores the reality that there are multiple armed conflicts under way in Iraq, and many of those fighting the U.S. are also fighting each other...
...That's the other thing that I'd mention, too, and separate and apart from that, and not really in response to your question. I'm struck by the fact, as well, to come back to this notion that what's being attempted here is to break our will. Friedman has got an interesting piece today on it, if you saw Tom Friedman this morning talking about the extent to which the enemy in this stage in Iraq aim very much at the American people, and public opinion in the United States very sensitive to how to use the media...
Talisa B. Friedman...