Over at Politico, Jonathan Topaz reports that Thomas Friedman recently told MSNBC “If there’s anything we should have learned from Iraq … it’s that we don’t know what the hell we’re doing,”
Let me unpack that remark just a little, and give you the gist of what Tom is trying to say:
“I am a complete asshole. I am a moral cretin. If you look at the record, I said that we ought to invade Iraq just to show that “we could.” Yes, I vigorously advocated invading a defenseless country, one that had done us no harm, and raining death and destruction on a helpless people as an act of brutal and nihilistic self assertion.
“Not only was I immoral, I was deeply stupid. It never occurred to me that inflicting vast and purposeless destruction on a society might have unintended consequences and might in fact result in further waves of mindless violence and destruction. I wish to God I had kept my big mouth shut, and I further wish that I had the moral courage to admit my error, but my swollen ego won’t let me. I am much more concerned about my status as an “important person” than I am about the status of my immortal soul, which I will commend to God at this point, because I find it too inconvenient to worry about, at least until after my next book comes out.”
Yes, I think that that is what Tom wanted to say. I mean, we all are at fault, aren’t we? After all, we listened to Tom. So we’re all as guilty as he is!
