It's worse than I remembered. I gave him too much credit.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/19/frie dman-liberals/

Look, I understand people who opposed the war. Some opposed it for military reasons, because they're against war, some opposed it because they hate George Bush, some opposed it because they didn't believe Arabs are capable of democracy. I wasn't in that group. I really believed that finding a different kind of politics in collaboration with people in that region was a really important project.

ASHBROOK: You're going to sarcasm. We can feel you've taken your licks on this.

They took the video down, but the audio is bad enough. I think this really is an insight into his warped perspective.

A forced anecdote usually leads to a very trite talk. I have heard dozens of pinheaded politicians and putrid preachers use stupid stories and awful anecdotes. It's not a style to emulate.

We had a fundamental conflict of interest in Iraq. Friedman argued democracy and humanitarian relief, but the reality was we wanted the oil. Friedman was either:

1. Naive as Hell about American interests when he wrote about our interest in Democracy. Or:

2. Bullshitting us when he knew damn well our first priority was the oil.

If Friedman wants to save people, send our troops to Darfur.

I'm with mboehm. I'd be interested in hearing the "case against Friedman", because I actually think his columns stand up incredibly well. If you were led astray by reading them, you simply weren't reading them well. Some excepts below, all immediately before and after the war began:

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Friedman on Sep 1, 2002

As I think about President Bush's plans to take out Saddam Hussein and rebuild Iraq into a democracy, one question gnaws at me: Is Iraq the way it is today because Saddam Hussein is the way he is? Or is Saddam Hussein the way he is because Iraq is the way it is?

I mean, is Iraq a totalitarian dictatorship under a cruel, iron-fisted man because the country is actually an Arab Yugoslavia -- a highly tribalized, artificial state, drawn up by the British, consisting of Shiites in the south, Kurds in the north and Sunnis in the center -- whose historical ethnic rivalries can be managed only by a Saddam-like figure? ...

This is not a reason for not taking Saddam out. It is a reason for preparing the U.S. public for a potentially long, costly nation-building operation and for enlisting as many allies as possible to share the burden...

What's worrying about the Bushies is that they seem much more adept at breaking things than building things. To do nation-building you need to be something of a naïve optimist. I worry that the Bushies are way too cynical for nation-building.

My most knowledgeable Iraqi friend tells me he is confident that the morning after any U.S. invasion, American troops would be welcomed by Iraqis, and the regime would fold quickly. It's the morning after the morning after that we have to be prepared for.

In the best case, a 'nice' strongman will emerge from the Iraqi Army to preside over a gradual transition to democracy, with America receding into a supporting role. In the worst case, we crack Iraq open and it falls apart in our hands, with all its historical internal tensions -- particularly between its long-ruling Sunni minority and its long-frustrated Shiite majority. In that case, George Bush will have to become Iraq's strongman -- the iron fist that holds the country together, gradually redistributes the oil wealth and supervises a much longer transition to democracy.

My Iraqi friend tells me that anyone who tells you he knows which scenario will unfold doesn't know Iraq.

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Friedman on Feb 19, 2003

...I am also very troubled by the way Bush officials have tried to justify this war on the grounds that Saddam is allied with Osama bin Laden or will be soon. There is simply no proof of that, and every time I hear them repeat it I think of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. You don't take the country to war on the wings of a lie.

Tell people the truth. Saddam does not threaten us today. He can be deterred. Taking him out is a war of choice -- but it's a legitimate choice. It's because he is undermining the U.N., it's because if left alone he will seek weapons that will threaten all his neighbors, it's because you believe the people of Iraq deserve to be liberated from his tyranny, and it's because you intend to help Iraqis create a progressive state that could stimulate reform in the Arab/Muslim world, so that this region won't keep churning out angry young people who are attracted to radical Islam and are the real weapons of mass destruction.

That's the case for war -- and it will require years of occupying Iraq and a simultaneous effort to defuse the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to create a regional context for success. If done right, such a war could shrink Al Qaeda's influence -- but Al Qaeda is a separate enemy that will have to be fought separately, and will remain a threat even if Saddam is ousted...

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Friedman on March 5, 2003

...Indeed, our own Congress is being asked to suspend belief yet again and accept Mr. Bush's promises that this war, soaring oil prices and a weakening dollar won't bust the budget even more than his tax cuts already have. And when the respected U.S. Army chief of staff wisely cautioned that stabilizing Iraq could require some 200,000 troops, the Bush team told us to ignore him, too. Troubling.

But it's also probably too late. For Mr. Bush and for the U.S., the costs of leaving Saddam in place -- having made Washington blink and abandon its allies in the region -- would be enormous. I suspect that when the small group of war hawks persuaded Mr. Bush to begin a huge troop buildup in the gulf back in July -- without consulting Congress or the country -- they knew that it would create a situation where the U.S. could never back down without huge costs.

This reminds me of the joke about the man who gets lost and asks a cop for directions, and the first thing the cop says is, ''Well, you wouldn't start from here.'' No, I wouldn't have -- but here is where we've been put. So those who argue against the war have to admit that doing nothing now would mean perpetuating Saddam's tyranny and giving succor to all dictators. And those, like myself, who have argued that removing Saddam is the right thing to do have to admit that the risks of doing so are rising so high, and the number of allies we have for the long haul becoming so few, that it may be impossible to do it right.

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Friedman on April 9, 2003

It's hard to smile when there's no water. It's hard to applaud when you're frightened. It's hard to say, ''Thank you for liberating me,'' when liberation has meant that looters have ransacked everything from the grain silos to the local school, where they even took away the blackboard...

This was a scene of humiliation, not liberation. We must do better....

America broke Iraq; now America owns Iraq, and it owns the primary responsibility for normalizing it. If the water doesn't flow, if the food doesn't arrive, if the rains don't come and if the sun doesn't shine, it's now America's fault. We'd better get used to it, we'd better make things right, we'd better do it soon, and we'd better get all the help we can get.

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Friedman on June 18, 2003

... If I were President Bush, though, and my political life depended on Iraq being a success, I would already be worrying. I would have double the number of U.S. troops there and be throwing so much food and investment into Iraq that people there would think they've won the jackpot. Why the president is not doing that beats me, and it could end up beating him.

Oh crap, I was still logged in under our joint account.  Sorry.