>> Friedman bought into the WH lies of WMD, short war, no cost, welcome as liberators
Revisionism.
Friedman, like most of the Democrats in Congress, ran from his support after the fact. But his rationale for supporting the war was similar to mine, which was NOT WMDs:
Friedman supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, writing that the establishment of a democratic state in the Middle East would force other countries in the region to liberalize and modernize. In his February 9, 2003, column for The Wall Street, Friedman also pointed to the lack of compliance with the United Nations Security Council Resolution regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction: "The French position is utterly incoherent. The inspections have not worked yet, says Mr. de Villepin, because Saddam has not fully cooperated, and, therefore, we should triple the number of inspectors. But the inspections have failed not because of a shortage of inspectors. They have failed because of a shortage of compliance on Saddam's part, as the French know."
After the fact:
"Since the invasion, Friedman has expressed alarm over the post-invasion conduct of the war by the George W. Bush administration. Nevertheless, until his piece dated August 4, 2006 (see below), his columns remained hopeful to the possibility of a positive conclusion to the Iraq conflict (although his optimism appeared to steadily diminish as the conflict continued). Friedman chided George W. Bush and Tony Blair for "hyping" the evidence, and stated plainly that converting Iraq to democracy "would be a huge undertaking, though, and maybe impossible, given Iraq's fractious history".
So, like most of the liberals who supported the war, afterward, they essentially lied their way out of it. You couldn't win it by just flying over dropping a few bombs, so suddenly, instead of accepting their share of the responsibility, they did the politically expedient thing and lied like hell.
Friedman was correct to begin with: Had Obama not blown the ending the outcome in Iraq could have been a very positive thing for the region. |
