Thomas Friedman, "Cabs, Camels or ISIS": Islands of Decency in the Muslim Middle East?

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"Islands of decency" in the Muslim Middle East?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Cabs, Camels or ISIS," would-be Middle East expert Thomas Friedman provides us with his thoughts on how to handle the Islamic State in the aftermath of the Paris attacks. Tom Terrific would have us know:

"The context within which Arabs and Muslims live their lives really matters. And in too many places they’ve had only two choices — SISI or ISIS — the iron fist of generals, like Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who is trying to stifle all dissent, or the ISIS madness that says the only way forward is to take the Arab-Muslim world backward.

Fortunately, there is a third way: the autocracies, monarchies and a few frail democracies that have invested in their people and created islands of decency — Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon, Kurdistan, Kuwait, Morocco and the U.A.E. — where more young Arabs and Muslims can realize their full potential and build their dignity by disrupting camels and cabs — not Paris and Beirut."

If I was reading this op-ed on an airplane, right about now I would be reaching for the vomit bag.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is an "island of decency"? Some 70 percent of the population of Jordan, which was carved out of the Palestinian Mandate by Britain in 1922, consists of Palestinians who suffer from discrimination. "Honor killings" against women in Jordan? There are far too many, and they are effectively condoned by the government.

Lebanon, which plays host to Hezbollah and which has witnessed unrelenting civil war and savagery among its Shiite, Sunni, Maronite Christian and Druze inhabitants, is an island of decency? Two suicide bombings in Beirut killed 43 people on Thursday.

Kuwait, whose wealthy denizens have been channeling millions of dollars to the Islamic State, is an island of decency? Spare me!

Friedman continues his opinion piece by observing:

"For me, the big strategic question in Iraq and Syria is: What would it take to uproot ISIS and create a Sunni island of decency in its place? For starters, that requires an honest assessment of how big the challenge is.

Sixty years ago Asian dictators told their people in effect, 'I am going to take away your freedom — but give you the best education, export-led economics and infrastructure that money can buy — and in a half-century you’ll build a middle class that will gradually take your freedom back.' In the Arab world, 60 years ago dictators told their people, in effect, 'I am going to take away your freedom and give you the Arab-Israeli conflict, a shiny object to distract you from my corruption and predation.'

That difference, 60 years later, has produced the Asian economic miracle and fueled the Arab civilizational meltdown/disorder in Yemen, Libya, Syria and Iraq."

Hold on, Tom! China's citizenry is taking its freedom back? How the hell do you ignore the country's three million slaves who manufacture cheap consumer goods for the West? And although Iran leads the world in per capita executions, China executes more people per year than all other countries combined. Mention by Friedman of China's brutal occupation of Tibet? Not a chance.

Or stated otherwise, Friedman's comparison of China with the Muslim Middle East is moronic, but when has that ever stopped him from writing drivel?

Friedman's erudite conclusion:

"To sustainably defeat bad ISIS Sunnis you need good non-ISIS Sunnis to create an island of decency in their place."

Ah yes, replace the bad Sunnis with the good Sunnis. Holy cow, Tom cracked the case! Unless, of course, you prefer one of the competing bullshit narratives proffered by Brooks and Ignatius . . .

New York Times Editorial, "Hillary Clinton Botches Wall Street Questions": And Saudi Contributions to the Clinton Foundation?

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A New York Times editorial entitled "Hillary Clinton Botches Wall Street Questions" has surprisingly savaged Hillary Clinton's explanation concerning campaign contributions she has received from Wall Street. In response to her attempt to tie these contributions to the 9/11 attacks directed against the World Trade Center in Manhattan's financial district, the editorial states:

"Since 2001, she and Bill Clinton have earned more than $125 million for speeches, many of the most lucrative made before financial groups. That does not account for the millions given directly to her campaign, and to political action committees backing her. Nearly 15 years after the 2001 attacks, Mrs. Clinton was earning more than $200,000 for a 20-minute speech. Most of those took place behind guarded doors. But one can guess that she and the financial executives were not still talking about 9/11.

. . . .

Her effort to tug on Americans’ heartstrings instead of explaining her Wall Street ties — on a day that the scars of 9/11 were exposed anew — was at best botched rhetoric. At worst it was the type of cynical move that Mrs. Clinton would have condemned in Republicans."

Contributions from Wall Street? In the aftermath of the Islamic State's attack against Paris, I would be more concerned with contributions the Clinton Foundation has received from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait, which have also taken a lax attitude toward private contributions to this terror organization.

Prior to November 2016, I am confident this cozy arrangement between the Clintons and the various Gulf states will be explored. It will also be interesting to hear her explain away the abusive conduct of these donor countries to women.

Paul Krugman, "Errors and Lies": Saddam's Genocidal War Against the Kurds Was Also a Crime

Last Monday, Megyn Kelly asked Jeb Bush whether he would have invaded Iraq in 2003 "knowing what we know now." Jeb Bush responded in the affirmative, setting off a media firestorm and subsequent claims by Jeb that he misunderstood the question. In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Errors and Lies," Paul Krugman also seizes upon this controversy and concludes:

"But truth matters, and not just because those who refuse to learn from history are doomed in some general sense to repeat it. The campaign of lies that took us into Iraq was recent enough that it’s still important to hold the guilty individuals accountable. Never mind Jeb Bush’s verbal stumbles. Think, instead, about his foreign-policy team, led by people who were directly involved in concocting a false case for war.

So let’s get the Iraq story right. Yes, from a national point of view the invasion was a mistake. But (with apologies to Talleyrand) it was worse than a mistake, it was a crime."

Again, to set the record straight: I opposed the 2003 Iraq War, inasmuch as I anticipated that it would destroy the Sunni/Shiite equilibrium in the Middle East, i.e. without Saddam in Iraq, the mullahs in Iran would run amuck. Also, even then, I was more concerned with Iran's nascent nuclear weapons development program than I was with Saddam's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

On the other hand, there is something missing from Krugman's opinion piece. As reported almost a decade ago by ABC News in an article entitled "List of Saddam's Crimes Is Long":

"Saddam Hussein was hanged for ordering the deaths of 148 Shiite men and boys in the village of Dujail after an assassination attempt there in 1982. But by the standards of his brutal rule, the Dujail killings were a relatively minor crime.

The exact number of deaths attributable to Saddam Hussein may never be known, but estimates range as high as half a million. There is evidence of more than 250 mass graves dating to his rule."

The ABC News article proceeds to list the genocidal crimes committed by Saddam against Iraq's Kurds and Shiites, including the use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians during the 1988 Al-Anfal Campaign.

Or stated otherwise, Saddam was a monster, who deserved to die. However, as proven by subsequent events, e.g., the rise of ISIL, and the inability of Sunni and Shiite Muslims to live together in peace, Saddam's execution did nothing to end the never ending cycle of savagery in a monstrous Muslim Middle East.

Yes, George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq was a grotesque mistake. However, if Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds could have thereafter lived together in a model of democracy and tolerance - something that I did not believe was possible and still do not believe is possible - maybe, just maybe, the war might today be viewed differently.

New York Times Editorial, "President Obama and the Gulf Arabs": Who Wrote This Twaddle?

What I would give to know who wrote today's New York Times editorial entitled "President Obama and the Gulf Arabs"! The editorial begins:

"Saudi Arabia is so angry at the emerging nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers that it is threatening to develop its own nuclear capability — one more indication of the deep differences between the United States and the Persian Gulf Arab states over the deal, which the major powers and Iran aim to complete by June 30. President Obama had hoped to bridge that gap with a show of American-Arab unity at this week’s summit meeting at Camp David. The summit meeting fell well short of his ambitions, an unfortunate outcome for both sides.

. . . .

The most overt evidence of the unsettled ties between the United States and its longstanding Arab allies was a decision by King Salman of Saudi Arabia to stay home, after the White House announced he would be at the meeting. Bahrain’s king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, also a no-show, chose to attend a horse show in Britain."

A pity Obama is not inviting Israeli Prime Minster Netanyahu to Camp David to bridge their differences. Netanyahu would come, but Obama has no intention of inviting his bête noire, who might educate the president concerning the realities of the Middle East.

The Times editorial continues:

"It is hard to see how threatening and snubbing a president who is offering crucial assistance to the Saudi-led war in Yemen and who still has two years left in office advances Arab interests. Even so, Mr. Obama could have done a better job of calming Arab insecurities long before he invited the gulf leaders to Camp David.

The Sunni Arabs have two main worries. One is that the nuclear agreement with Iran would leave Iran with a limited capability to produce nuclear fuel for energy and medical purposes, instead of ending it outright. They also worry that Iran’s re-entry into the international community after decades of isolation would mean that Washington’s loyalties would henceforth be divided and that America could no longer be counted on to defend them."

It is "hard to see" why Sunni Gulf State leaders are snubbing the president? For the love of heaven, Obama is giving Iran the right to manufacture a nuclear arsenal after 10 years, if Khamenei doesn't cheat before the expiration of the agreement - which he will. Then, too, Obama is giving Iran a signing bonus of $50 billion of freed bank deposits, which will quickly find its way into the hands of the Houthis in Yemen, Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza. Yes, I know: the editorial claims that the funds will be used for "accumulated domestic needs." Indeed, this might be a cogent argument were it not for the fact that Iran is a country that hangs homosexuals, stones to death women accused of adultery, and persecutes Baha'is, Kurds, Christians and Sunni Muslims, as its leaders await the return of the Mahdi. Attribute rational conduct to Khamenei and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard? I don't think so.

Remarkably, the editorial does not address Obama's nonsensical claim that if Iran cheats, sanctions will "snap back" into place. On Wednesday, Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin gave the lie to this outlandish attempt to sell the deal with Khamenei by declaring:

"'There can be no automaticity, none whatsoever' in reimposing UN sanctions if Iran violates the terms of an agreement to curb its nuclear program, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told Bloomberg News on Wednesday. He didn’t elaborate."

The editorial concludes:

"A verifiable nuclear deal that limits Iran’s abilities has the best chance of keeping Iran from a nuclear weapon. The solution definitely does not lie in threats by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to build up their own nuclear capabilities, which could set off a new arms race and inflame the region even more."

A "verifiable nuclear deal" of the kind that was also negotiated by Wendy Sherman with North Korea in the past? Good luck!

Moreover, as previously observed, the deal is not intended to prevent Iran from building an atomic bomb. Rather, it is intended to delay by ten years the fabrication of such a weapon. "The solution definitely does not lie in threats by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states to build up their own nuclear capabilities"? True. The solution lies in a credible effort by the US to stand up to Tehran and deny them any possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, this is not occurring, and the Arabs, who better understand Iran than Obama, know this.

[Regarding Obama's credibility involving his "unique" interpretation of events in the Middle East, see also "Obama Claims Chlorine 'Historically Has Not Been Listed as a Chemical Weapon': Liar!."]