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Tom Friedman: what Obama should say to the Nobel Committee — 41 Comments

1. Slightly OT, but it looks like the sheep are making up their minds about Afghanistan:

   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/09/AR2009100902576_2.html?referrer=facebook

   This is possibly a leak of the Obama policy via a friendly Elder.

   I wonder how, if you had decided to try to appease the Taliban instead of fighting it, you would recommend something other than the policy Haass describes: give them a role in government and pay subsidies. And how the Pakistan leg of the strategy could be described as anything more than muddling along is beyond me.

2. A speech like the one Tom Friedman proposed (disclosure – I just read your excerpts and not the column), would never happen in a million years:

   1. His left-wing base followers who will give him a solid baseline of 30%+ solid support no matter how low his approval ratings shrink? They’re heads would explode.

   2. Along the lines of No. 1, he has never, as far as we can tell, affiliated with anyone, anytime, in his entire life – who holds those fond and sentimental feelings towards our men and women in uniform. Such words are like an alien language, to a certain demographic of our fellow citizens. May as well be in Martian. Or Klingon.

   3. Pigs don’t fly.

3. southernjames: I agree; not gonna happen. But I think Friedman writing the column is maybe not a pig flying, but leaping rather high?

4. Truly a nice thought and a surprise from Friedman.

   But no, ain’t gonna happen. I imagine Obama will include a sentence or two about our men and women who have served or are serving.

   Soon Obama must make his first irrevocable decision as commander-in-chief about Afghanistan. The Nobel Prize will not help him.

   I have the sinking feeling that Obama won’t go long and he won’t get out. He’ll make the worst choice: the middle way — enough soldiers so that we can’t win and we won’t lose (soon) but our soldiers keep dying.

5. Absolutely beautiful … posted it on my FB page too!

6. Great Fantasy Speech by Tom F. It’s too bad it ain’t gonna happen, and the dislike of the sheep for the sheepdog is why the anti-American Western elite hates America.

   I suspect Obama WILL add some pro-American military stuff into his speech — empty words are exactly his style. It will make not accepting McCrystal’s request for more troops easier.

   I hadn’t seen High Noon since the 60s-70s TV reruns in high school, but on your blog recommendation (last year? longer?) downloaded a copy. My wife and I liked it.

   The need for violence to protect/ fight against/ punish the criminally violent is the real purpose of gov’t. And justice is the main reason to justify support for gov’t force. Justice is almost the only end that justifies the use of violent force (along with self-defense).

   The Nobel Peace Prize. What a sad joke.

7. Friedman didn’t get to where he is in the media/gov’t nexus because he’s stupid, though reading his column often challenges that assumption. He’s doing his part to get the party line’s car back off the service road and on the highway. He’s still enough of a midwestern boy to smell the zeitgeist and find the time to remind those within the ruling class bubble about just who made the peace possible. If the elite don’t get this message and absorb it, he knows they will face the electorial wrath of the populace next year. I don’t have much belief in the premise that they’re open to this message, even to the extent of paying lip service to it. Sad, when you think about it. It says a lot about the times – as well as the Times.

8. Mezzrow: I felt a little guilty that my reaction to the Friedman column was so suspicious, so it’s a relief to read what you just said. I don’t trust Friedman, or like him. He’s an intellectual opportunist and a showboater and a big bore. Mickey Kaus (how I adore him!) called Friedman a “hearty hack.”

9. Two things:

   First, Friedman is able to recognize the point at which the situation has morphed “from the sublime to the ridiculous” (the Nobel); he sees himself as a loyal American first (a Democrat second), so was no doubt sincere when he penned the article, but under the circumstances I have no doubt he also doesn’t want to risk, as events evolve, having that identity challenged, but most important, not being taken seriously (respected) in the future.

   Second, too many are still in denial, whether deliberately or by naivete, of Obama’s reality as closet moslem-communist; deeply inculcated during his most formative youth, who’s emotional and intellectual loyalty to the religion, ideology and dogma of his entire family, from the Kenyan family moslem left, to his dedicated lefttist mother and grandparents, which transcends and permeates his persona and decision making. Don’t underestimate this profound conflict of interest in his role as Commander-in-Chief, he displays it everyday as POTUS; his only choice is taquia, or the shame of dishonor and betrayal of the ummah, and his family. This is a very dangerous man, in that position, but more dangerous are the people who promote and support him…

10. Picture Obama in a ten-gallon hat, Colt revolvers on each hip, lasso in hand, eyes squinting into the setting sun, walking side-by side with Gary Cooper toward the OK Corral…. Oh, wake-up now, that would be Ronald Reagan…

11. Unbelievably, I just found out that Obama has already won two Grammies!

    Check out the article to note how, ahem, liberally they award Garmmies for spoken word.

12. MizP, I used to think Friedman was an original thinker back when I was still drinking the kool-aid. I am also sure that he is entirely sincere about what he has to write at this link, and that he has a real affection for the American men and women doing the hard jobs given them around the world to make it a more peaceful place, as well as for our nation in general.

    But… In retrospect, when one makes the time to really think through the themes he brings up, one begins to realize how shockingly shallow the thinking is that lies behind his writing. I haven’t decided whether this is unintentionally so, or whether if he makes these decisions to hit a specific middle-brow bien pensant sort of an audience of conventional liberals who respond to a historical window that consists of a strange combination of Friedman’s own generational assumptions (I am a member of that exact age cohort, BTW) and a sure recall of details of pop culture as the ultimate measure of all things. I suspect it is some combination of the two.

13. Anybody else notice Iraq was missing among those places to honor sacrifice? Even when he gets it right, Friedman doesn’t.

14. Friedman hardly mentioned Iraq .. maybe he did so because he knows that Obama would never admit that we were right in Iraq.

15. I accept this peace prize on behalf of the men and women of the U.S. military who served in iraq At Abu Grieb Prison.

    I accept this peace prize on behalf of the men and women of the U.S. military who served in Iraq after the occupation for their marvellous humanitarian missions for the country and its people:
    – More than five million persons displaced.
    – More than 4 million below poverty level.
    – Approximately, 2 million widows.
    – Five million orphans.
    – Insufficient food for more than eight million.
    – More than 400,000 detainees and prisoners.
    – More than 28% of the population is unemployed.

16. No, no Sam. That all happened back when America was “bad”.

    Obama changed all that and gave the world hope. His election makes America good now and that is why he got the Nobel Prize.

    Those are his soldiers now, and now they are good too: let a thousand flowers bloom from the barrels of rifles!

    They wouldn’t give the Nobel prize to the leader of a bad country, would they, Sam?

17. They wouldn’t give two Grammy’s to the leader of a bad country, would they, Sam?

18. “I will accept this award on behalf of the American men and women who are still on patrol today in Iraq, helping to protect Baghdad’s fledgling government…

    Friedman, like Obama, is careful not to mention the Americans who fought to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

    That was the bad war, the dumb war, but patrolling and protecting Iraq after the fact might be sorta OK.

19. sam: If you want to have that debate, have at it.

    War is hell, as Sherman said. It’s only justification is that the intended results are preferable to not fighting.

    Most of us here — as well as Iraqis polled every year — say that Iraq is better off since the invasion in spite of the terrible prices that have been paid.

    I’d also be interested to see you back up your statistics with links.

20. sam: To play by my own rules I refer you to the under-appreciated blog Back Talk by a pseudonymous statistics professor, who calls himself Engram, at a liberal universtiy. Engram functioned as a most stalwart neocon during the bad old days of the Iraq War. He was so lethal that trolls never got a foothold in his comments.

    Here’s Engram in 2006 on the question of whether Iraqis are better off since the invasion.

    Since the invasion in March of 2003, I have been absolutely amazed that self-assured critics of the war have been so eager to knowingly weigh in on the magnitude of the ostensible disaster in Iraq without stopping to consider — not for one fleeting moment — how the Iraqi people themselves feel about it. Many critics seem to think that we should be apologizing to the people of Iraq for ruining their country, but given how the Iraqis themselves feel about their situation, I make no apology at all.

    Engram points out that even with the Iraqi Sunnis averaged in (only 13% favorable), Iraqis agreed that “ousting was Saddam Hussein was worth it” by a 77% margin.

    Here’s Engram in 2008 on a related question:

    In March of 2007, 43% thought life was better (14% much better + 29% somewhat better), whereas 36% thought that life was worse (8% much worse + 28% somewhat worse). In other words, even when violence was at its worst, more Iraqis indicated that life was better under those conditions that it was under Saddam Hussein. Can you imagine how the Iraqi people would answer that question if it were put to them today, now that violence has decreased to unthinkably low levels? Now that Sunnis have joined Shiites in working to maintain security in Iraq?

    Since 2007 the pollsters have stopped asking Iraqis whether the Iraq War was worth it. Pollsters know that they will get the “wrong” answer.

    Protestors like you, sam, never even asked the question. You and your friends assumed that you were on the side of the Iraqis but didn’t care to check if the Iraqis agreed.

    I find your self-righteous indignation contemptible.

21. sam, Abu Ghraib at it’s worst under U.S. control was a cakewalk compared to it’s history under Saddam… By no stretch of the imagination are Iraq’s problems the fault of a long overdue American police action. Obamatoads and duplicitous left-wing europeans are the shallowest variety of hypocrites.

    http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=6387

22. Huxley, sincere thanks for a another daily read, Engram that is.

23. t

    he Iraqi state that the United States helped create is “dysfunctional.” In a particularly pointed commentary, he said the state is more corrupt and less competent today than it was under Saddam Hussein.
    the mismanagement, corruption and bloodshed of the past four years have destroyed another dream of the invasion’s backers

    “The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order,”

    Ali Allawi, a former top minister in Iraq’s transitional government.
    

    Baha Mousa soldiers ‘not just a few bad apples‘
    

    huxley

    I’d also be interested to see you back up your statistics with links.
    
    Dr. Omar Al Kubaisy: Speech in the European Parliament.
    

    Carnage and despair in Iraq

    Gray Says:
    makes America good now and that is why he got the Nobel Prize.

    Gray, so reading the responce for my comment you still think America good now?

24. why do you kill zaid?; Warum té¶test du, Zaid
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a72FfurX0oM

25. Sam, I don’t think America is a good country, I know it is a good country, as proven by years and years of saving more people than any other country in the world, regardless of what leftist idiots portray or say to the UN (spit), the facts speak for themselves, for anyone with a slight amount of intelligence.

26. Sam, we speak English here, the video was meaningless, I don’t pay any attention to what followers of Islam say, I pay attention to what they do, it OK to lie to kafirs no?
    http://www.studytoanswer.net/myths_ch7.html

27. Darrell Says
    for anyone with a slight amount of intelligence.

    So Darrell your slight amount of intelligence tells you US did and doing good by saving more people and the “facts” speak for themselves in iraq?

28. Yes Sam, and Saddam made the trains run on time, too.

29. Facts:

    http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/2000/09/iraq-000918.htm
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein's_Iraq

30. Perhaps this wiki page will display properly:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein%27s_Iraq#Documented_human_rights_violations_1979-2003

31. Warum té¶test du, Zaid

    Not making your case here, “sam”. Wasn’t 9/11 planned in your neighborhood?

    Anyways, nevermind, Obama made it all better. Don’t you like Obama?

32. “We had begun to forget the realities of cost.

    And when such conflict appeared on the horizon, there were those among both policy makers and commentators who were able to talk about it without really measuring the price, the cost of justice.”

    Archbishop of Canterbury

33. I read that link to the Archbishop of Canterbury. So glad that history started in 2003. I mean, that’s what his moralizing amounts to, doesn’t it? Nothing before OIF means anything in the man’s moral caculus. Bravo!!

    Oh and Sam, here’s a quote from the same article that spins the other way, maybe you should take it to heart:

    “In a world as complicated as ours has become, it would be a very rash person who would feel able to say without hesitation, this was absolutely the right or the wrong thing to do, the right or the wrong place to be.”

    Good luck with your moral preening.

34. The sheepdog argument sounds a lot like Lassie versus Cujo.

    And I especially like mezzrow’s reinterpretation of Protagoras:

    ” Pop-Culture is the Measure of all Things.”

35. Peggy Noonan has a similar, but subtly different idea for Obama’s Nobel acceptance speech. I like, in particular, her ideas about the effect such a speech would have on the Committee.

    But of course, neither will ever happen.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574464083239280914.html

36. No one you know

    After more than six years with all the distructions, killing and in hummian done on a nation and you still think that “ was absolutely the right or the wrong thing to do,!

    for anyone with a slight amount of intelligence should knew that by now.

    Good luck with your body preening.

    I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.

    I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.

    Why I threw the shoe

37. Sam, sorry about your slight intelligence. You don’t like the quote, why did you link to it?

    Quoting the man who threw the shoe at Bush proves my point. Why not ask why the man did not throw the shoe at Saddam? Why do you think that is? Please explain to anyone with the slightest bit of intelligence how rapes and murders did not occur in Iraq until 6 years ago.

38. no one suggested or denied tyrant regime atrocities here with his nation.

    Same nation promised to be freed and democratic after six years of blood shed the fact speaks by themselves now what US did and doing with its proxy regimes

39. For what it’s worth, I think Obama is as qualified to win the Nobel Prize as he was to be elected president.

40. I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.

    He and you are working against the people creating a better world. You see, it doesn’t matter how fauked up the world is or is not. The only thing that matters is which side are you on. You are either on the side of the destroyers or the creators.

    There is no waffling here. Throwing a shoe is going to save a life? Is that going to prevent the US military from blowing a nuke up on your home town? Is that going to prevent AL Qaeda from butchering your father using your mother’s thigh bone?

    If you don’t want to help people create, then don’t try to lie here about how you’re better than the creators.

41. the destroyers or the creators.

    Its depends on which side you stand on Ymarsakar?
    i.e. you can waffling as a
    long as as you could this is usual from Bush’s megaphone, but I wish you are from that nation to see who is the destroyers and the creators?

    the stupidity here of one coming here waving nuke words how stunted person here talking like just any terrorists.

    Is that going to prevent AL Qaeda from butchering your father using your mother’s thigh bone?

    Thanks reminds us here about AL Qaeda, you should asked your top exepert Bremer who refused to close the borders to secure the country from the Ganges and killers who invited by the “the destroyers “

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