Stupidity

How much does Tom Friedman get paid again to spout out inanities like this?

How could it be that Danish cartoons of Muhammad led to mass violent protests, while unspeakable violence by Muslims against Muslims in Iraq every day evokes about as much reaction in the Arab-Muslim world as the weather report? Where is the Muslim Martin Luther King? Where is the “Million Muslim March” under the banner: “No Shiites, No Sunnis: We are all children of the Prophet Muhammad.”

This is so patently banal I cannot let it pass.

As bad as "Jim Crow Laws" and bigotry were in the South, as well as economic injustice in the north there was a hell of a big difference between modern day Iraq and 1950s & 60s America. As long as there is a third party occupation force, using military means -- and in particular overwhelming power -- against the native population ANY such figure is going to be portrayed as a tool of the "Imperial United States". Further, even in that United States, King was portrayed by J. Edgar Hoover and publications like The National Review (never changes does it?) as a Communist, or a Communist (read Soviet) Dupe.

Such a figure today in Iraq would have a life-span of about one-half of a speech outside the Green Zone, let alone have no influence upon native Iraqis.

As long as there is an intervening power perceived, even as a biased broker, in the Middle East people will naturally focus on any effort that would benefit that power as being because that intervening power is behind it. It isn't that complicated. You know Tom it doesn't take an deep understanding of world history to realize that is normally the case.

Gandhi certainly wasn't telling folks that they had to remain pliable and part of the British Empire and even his circumstances were a world of difference from what exists in Iraq now, and his position was the opposite of what you are proposing. Gandhi made an effort to kick the British out in advance of trying to settle divisions in India (and of course we all know how long he lasted when that became his primary purpose). What would we, the United States, do to an Iraqi Gandhi anyhow? If they were not killed by an Iraqi or us, we'd certainly have that person in Guantanamo by now. Because they would be directly working against the Bush Administration's interests.

As long as we are there in force, as long as we dictate and are seen as dominating their affairs, the longer such efforts will be delayed, if not outright thwarted.