Letter to the New York Times (via media whores online)
From: Danny Rose
To: 'letters@nytimes.com'
Subject: Friedman's Stupidity
Dear New York Times:
Please find some more columnists like Krugman, who are willing to hold the Bush administration accountable. Our national discourse is in danger of becoming entirely detached from reality.
Here is a paragraph from Friedman's column today:
"As far as I'm concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war. That skull, and the thousands more that will be unearthed, are enough for me. Mr. Bush doesn't owe the world any explanation for missing chemical weapons (even if it turns out that the White House hyped this issue). It is clear that in ending Saddam's tyranny, a huge human engine for mass destruction has been broken. The thing about Saddam's reign is that when you look at that skull, you don't even know what period it came from - his suppression of the Kurds or the Shiites, his insane wars with Iran and Kuwait, or just his daily brutality."
Is Friedman drunk? Are the dozens of other pundits repeating this fallacious argument drunk? Do they not remember the debate over the war that took place just weeks ago? Did the administration argue that they wanted to go to war for the benefit of the Iraqi people? No -- they claimed regime change was necessary for national security, specifically because of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Not even apologists like Friedman claimed that concern for Iraqi people was sufficient to justify a war.
And now? Is it so hard to hold in the mind the following two thoughts: (1) it is good that Saddam is gone; (2) the administration failed to justify the war. The failure to find significant WMD (significant = enough to threaten the U.S.) is very, very serious. The administration did not "hype" the issue of WMD. It was their primary justification. And it is already clear that their central claim -- that the US knew for certain that Saddam threatened the U.S. with WMD -- was a deliberate lie.
Not hype. Lies.
Sincerely,
Danny Rose
From: Danny Rose
To: 'letters@nytimes.com'
Subject: Friedman's Stupidity
Dear New York Times:
Please find some more columnists like Krugman, who are willing to hold the Bush administration accountable. Our national discourse is in danger of becoming entirely detached from reality.
Here is a paragraph from Friedman's column today:
"As far as I'm concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war. That skull, and the thousands more that will be unearthed, are enough for me. Mr. Bush doesn't owe the world any explanation for missing chemical weapons (even if it turns out that the White House hyped this issue). It is clear that in ending Saddam's tyranny, a huge human engine for mass destruction has been broken. The thing about Saddam's reign is that when you look at that skull, you don't even know what period it came from - his suppression of the Kurds or the Shiites, his insane wars with Iran and Kuwait, or just his daily brutality."
Is Friedman drunk? Are the dozens of other pundits repeating this fallacious argument drunk? Do they not remember the debate over the war that took place just weeks ago? Did the administration argue that they wanted to go to war for the benefit of the Iraqi people? No -- they claimed regime change was necessary for national security, specifically because of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Not even apologists like Friedman claimed that concern for Iraqi people was sufficient to justify a war.
And now? Is it so hard to hold in the mind the following two thoughts: (1) it is good that Saddam is gone; (2) the administration failed to justify the war. The failure to find significant WMD (significant = enough to threaten the U.S.) is very, very serious. The administration did not "hype" the issue of WMD. It was their primary justification. And it is already clear that their central claim -- that the US knew for certain that Saddam threatened the U.S. with WMD -- was a deliberate lie.
Not hype. Lies.
Sincerely,
Danny Rose
posted by hackmuth at
4:42 PM
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