Interesting NY Times article

[so.cal.fan]

Silence and Suicide
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
If I were editor of this newspaper, I would have led last Thursday's issue with the news report, under a big headline, saying that a Sunni Muslim suicide bomber attacked the Shiite mosque in Hilla, Iraq, on Wednesday - the Shiites' first day of Ramadan - and blew himself up, killing at least 25 worshipers and wounding more than 87. The worshipers had come to the mosque not only to mark the start of the Muslim holy month, but also to mourn a Shiite restaurant owner who had been killed by insurgents a few days earlier. According to The A.P., "The explosion hit the Husseiniyat Ibn al-Nama mosque, ripping through strings of light bulbs and green and red flags hung around the entrance to celebrate the start of the holy month.".........the rest EDITED BY P.A.

[Suff]

Yes, we, too, are hypocrites. I think the U.S. abuses of prisoners of war in Iraq and Afghanistan (we apparently tortured to death scores of prisoners in our custody) is a lasting blot on us all. But at least we have news media, a religious elite and courts that are exposing this, and a Senate majority that is now acting to bring it to a halt.

.

That's good piece. The only way we will eliminate the fundamental Islamists bent on violence is with the help of the Muslim World. It has to come from within. The psychology of the Religion must change. To do that we need the Billion or so peaceful Muslims to handle the 10 million that are not. It's vital that we make nice with Muslims. We need them.

Relative to this paragraph I cropped out. Fox news opined all week that AMERICAN SOLDIERS Will die if the press continues to fight for the right to view photographs and documents relating to our Torture of Prisoners.

They (fox news) said that the FREE PRESS were providing aid and comfort to the enemy. That they were helping Alqueda by creating another recruitment tool. They tossed around the treason word, traitor, unamerican.... etc etc..

Also... The anti-torture Bill that passed in the Senate last week was voted NO by nine senators. All Republicans.
Wayne Allard of Colorado;
Kit Bond of Missouri;
Tom Coburn of Oklahoma;
Thad Cochran of Mississippi;
John Cornyn of Texas;
James Inhofe of Oklahoma;
Pat Roberts of Kansas;
Jeff Sessions of Alabama
Ted Stevens of Alaska.

Also, President bush has threatened to VETO it. His very first VETO by the way.


The Bush administration pledged yesterday to veto legislation banning the torture of prisoners by US troops after an overwhelming and almost unprecedented revolt by loyalist congressmen

The mutiny was the latest setback for an administration facing an increasingly independent and bloody-minded legislature. But it also marked a key moment in Congress's campaign to curtail the huge powers it has granted the White House since 2001 in its war against terrorism.
The late-night Senate vote saw the measure forbidding torture passed by 90 to nine, with most Republicans backing the measure. Most senators said the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal and similar allegations at the Guantanamo Bay prison rendered the result a foregone conclusion.



So when you read this sentence in the Article you posted
But at least we have news media, a religious elite and courts that are exposing this, and a Senate majority that is now acting to bring it to a halt.

Just know, it is not without significant difficulty and propaganda from the Right.

[so.cal.fan]

October 7, 2005
What Were They Thinking?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
When the definitive history of the Iraq war is written, future historians will surely want to ask Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush each one big question. To Saddam, the question would be: What were you thinking? If you had no weapons of mass destruction, why did you keep acting as though you did? For Mr. Bush, the question would be: What were you thinking? If you bet your whole presidency on succeeding in Iraq, why did you let Donald Rumsfeld run the war with just enough troops to lose? Why didn't you establish security inside Iraq and along its borders? How could you ever have thought this would be easy?...the rest EDITED BY P.A.

[Suff]

NY Times Columnist being shared around it looks like..


Nytimes.com went to paid subscribers only for their Op/Ed and columnist's last month. Big point of controversy among the political Bloggers.

Since Brooks, Friedman, and Krugman are pay to see now...

They did a Lexus /Nexus type search of how often they are quoted in Blogs and so forth.

With the amount of free news, and free commentary available on the WWW, this graph from Sept through yesterday shows how much it has hurt their exposure

[Tom]

Torture = whatever it takes.
Not to belabor the point, but NOBODY was tortured at Aba Grad.
No one died, noboy was permanatly injured.
Torture and landmines make good sense in a war.

[PaceAdvantage]

I can't have people reprinting full text articles. I've already been contacted via email concerning possible legal action because of past abuse. PLEASE PROVIDE A LINK and ONE PARAGRAPH OF TEXT whenever posting copyrighted material!!!!

Now, I have to edit so.cal.fan's posts, but I don't have a link to these articles....

[so.cal.fan]

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/thomaslfriedman/index.html

Sorry....I won't post them again.....I thought the author's name on the article was enough.
Like Suff said, they are only open to subscribers, which I am one. His last two articles used to be free for anyone to read.

[PaceAdvantage]

Please continue to post the links and the info, just not the full text....

[so.cal.fan]

Tom Friedman's column is often reprinted in a local paper here....The Pasadena Star News. I've seen it many times, they always have that paper laying around Santa Anita racetrack.
I subscribed to the online columns, and now have access to them all, but Tom is the only one I read....I'm not interested in the opinions of Maureen Dowd and others who write for that paper.
Since most of you are from NY.....you probably read the NYT anyway.
I highly recommend Friedman's columns.....they are very interesting.
One friend of mine who is a history buff, says Tom Friedman is the Walter Lippman of the 21st century. Agree with Tom or not.....he makes some very interesting observations.

[Tom]

I heard Friedman on CNN yesterday - very disappointed in him.
He attacked Lou Dobbs for ranting agaisnt immigration on his program.

Tommy-boy....I thought you had some brain cells up there. It appears Tommy-boy cannot distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. This puts serious doubts in my mind about anyhting he has written. He is either very ignorant or just another lib singing the party line. Anyone wanna buy his book cheap? I won't be finishing my copy.

Lou did have a snappy reply tonight - he refered to Tommy-boy as the guy who still believes the world is flat:rolleyes: and challenged him to present FACTS that he has ever said anything negative about immigration. Like a vampire and garlic, I don't expect a response from Tommy-boy.
Must have been a drive - by interview.

[kenwoodallpromos]

Just consider that they murdered themselves in addition to everyone else- maybe they get an extra virgin if we credit them with the extra murder!