{"id":700,"date":"2008-06-25T07:43:59","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T11:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=700"},"modified":"2008-06-25T07:44:37","modified_gmt":"2008-06-25T11:44:37","slug":"analyse-foreign-affairs-like-tom-friedman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=700","title":{"rendered":"Analyze foreign affairs like Tom Friedman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Friedman on Iraq today<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

One of the first things I realized when visiting Iraq after the U.S. invasion was that the very fact that Iraqis did not liberate themselves, but had to be liberated by Americans, was a source of humiliation to them.<\/strong> It’s one reason they never threw flowers. When someone else has to liberate you in your own home, that is humiliating — and humiliation, I believe, is the single-most underestimated force in international relations, especially in the Middle East. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tom Friedman on Iraq, May 30, 2003 (transcript courtesy of Atrios<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

I think it [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie.
…
We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.
…<\/p>\n

What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad<\/strong>, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?"<\/p>\n

You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna let it grow?<\/p>\n

Well Suck. On. This.<\/p>\n

Okay.<\/p>\n

That Charlie was what this war was about.<\/strong> We could've hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could. That's the real truth.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Remarkable they don't feel liberated by the likes of Friedman.  Remarkable indeed. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Friedman on Iraq today: One of the first things I realized when visiting Iraq after the U.S. invasion was that the very fact that Iraqis did not liberate themselves, but had to be liberated by Americans, was a source of humiliation to them. It’s one reason they never threw flowers. When someone else has … Continue reading Analyze foreign affairs like Tom Friedman<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,77],"tags":[202,201],"class_list":["post-700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thomas-friedman","category-unclassifiable","tag-suckonthis","tag-tom-friedman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}