Americans are ready for nation building at home

It’s hard to pin down Thomas Friedman, if one is not paying attention. Yes, Mr. Friedman is a cheerleader of techno-prediterminism and an unapologetic free market fundamentalist; that, nonetheless, I read because his opinions seem blessed with Good Housekeeping’s seal of approval for “conventional wisdom,” that is often held by those in the top echelons of industry, government and similar elite circles. However, even though Mr. Friedman is often just a purveyor of conventional wisdom (i.e., the Iraq invasion was a good idea), now and then he writes a thing or two that surprises:

Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.

If Mr. Friedman is putting this in his column it can only mean that, in between cocktail parties at his “11,400-square-foot house,” he’s heard a similar line from one of his elite associates. And if this is the case, it means that there’s a new conventional wisdom bubbling up in these elite circles about nation building at home.

From his previous writings, and in between the lines of his latest column, it’s clear that Mr. Friedman expects free market fundamentalism to shape any domestic nation building programs; however, just the fact that this possibility is emerging as a domestic policy, it can only mean that Mr. Friedman and his elite colleagues are contemplating an expanded role for our federal government.

If after traveling through our country this is the conclusion that Mr. Friedman arrived at, that Americans are ready for nation building at home; then I suggest that Mr. Friedman should spend more time at home, observing Americans, just as he so famously spends time observing and chatting with taxi drivers abroad.

The Tom Friedman Disease

If you’re into reading stenographed regurgitations of establishment conventional wisdom (CW), then you need read no other than the pompous NYT’s columnist Tom Friedman. This mouthpiece of establishment and financial elites will serve you one dish after another high on empty CW calories, saturated with high opinions of his "insights," and totally lacking a new or fresh look at the issue of the day.

Now Glenn Greenwald takes a look at “the Tom Friedman disease [that] consumes establishment Washington”:

[Tom Friedman], by far, was most responsible for selling the war to centrists and liberal "hawks" and thereby creating "consensus" support for Bush’s war[.]

[...]

I spent the day yesterday and today reading every Tom Friedman column beginning in mid-2002 through the present regarding Iraq. That body of work is extraordinary. Friedman is truly one of the most frivolous, dishonest, and morally bankrupt public intellectuals burdening this country. Yet he is, of course, still today, one of the most universally revered figures around, despite — amazingly enough, I think it’s more accurate to say "because of" — his advocacy of the invasion of Iraq, likely the greatest strategic foreign policy disaster in America’s history.

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[T]he specific strain of intellectual bankruptcy that drove Friedman’s strident support for the invasion of Iraq continues to be what drives not only Tom Friedman today, but virtually all of our elite opinion-makers and "centrist" and "responsible" political figures currently attempting to "solve" the Iraq disaster.

In column after column prior to the war, Friedman argued that invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam was a noble, moral, and wise course of action. To Friedman, that was something we absolutely ought to do, and as a result, he repeatedly used his column to justify the invasion and railed against anti-war arguments voiced by those whom he derisively called "knee-jerk liberals and pacifists[.]"

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Despite the Bush administration’s failures to take any of the steps necessary to wage the war "the right way," Friedman never once rescinded or even diluted his support for the war. He continued to advocate the invasion and support the administration’s push for war — at one point, in February, even calling for the anti-war French to be removed from the U.N. Security Council and replaced by India, and at another point warning that we must be wary of Saddam’s last-ditch attempt to negotiate an alternative to war lest we be tricked into not invading — even though Friedman knew and said that all the things that needed to be done to avert disaster were not being done by the administration.

Put another way, these are the premises which Friedman, prior to the invasion, expressly embraced:

(1) If the war is done the right way, great benefits can be achieved.
(2) If the war is done the wrong way, unimaginable disasters will result.
(3) The Bush administration is doing this war the wrong way, not the right way, on every level.
(4) Given all of that, I support the waging of this war.

Just ponder that: Tom Friedman supported the invasion of Iraq even though, by his own reasoning, that war was being done the "wrong way" and would thus — also by his own reasoning — create nothing but untold damage on every level. And he did so all because there was some imaginary, hypothetical, fantasy way of doing the war that Friedman thought was good, but that he knew isn’t what we would get.

To support a war that you know is going to be executed in a destructive manner is as morally monstrous as it gets. The fact that there is some idealized, Platonic way to fight the war doesn’t make that any better if you know that that isn’t what is going to happen.

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Friedman himself continues to play the same repugnant game, arguing: (1) If we don’t do X, we should not stay in Iraq; (2) X is impossible or unrealistic; (3) I do not advocate withdrawal.

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But tragically, there is nothing unique about Tom Friedman. What drives him is the same mentality that enabled the administration’s invasion of Iraq and, so much worse, it is the mentality that is keeping us there and will keep us there for the indefinite future. We stay in Iraq in pursuit of goals we know are fantasies, because to do otherwise requires the geniuses and serious establishment analysts to accept responsibility for what they have done — and that is, by far, the most feared and despised outcome.

The invasion of Iraq was a huge mistake. But the behavior of our political and media leaders after that, and now, reveal that they are not just bereft of judgment but entirely bereft of character.

There’s a lot more in Greenwald’s post, including comments on John McCain and on the Baker/Hamilton Commission — go read the entire post here.

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has more on Friedman.