Friedman's confusion.

I've expressed often and loudly my disgust at what is taking place in Zimbabwe and my disgust at the recent Russian and Chinese veto of sanctions against the Zimbabwean regime.

Tom Friedman picks up on this subject today but seems to labour under the notion that the sanctions were vetoed because of some form of anti-Americanism at the UN.

Much ink has been spilled lately decrying the decline in American popularity around the world under President Bush. Polls tell us how China is now more popular in Asia than America and how few Europeans say they identify with the United States. I am sure there is truth to these polls. We should have done better in Iraq. An America that presides over Abu Ghraib, torture and Guantánamo Bay deserves a thumbs-down.

But America is not and never has been just about those things, which is why I also find some of these poll results self-indulgent, knee-jerk and borderline silly. Friday’s vote at the U.N. on Zimbabwe reminded me why.

The sanctions were actually vetoed because Mbeki has managed to convince the Russians and the Chinese that he can bring about a peaceful solution, the failure to win the vote was not remotely connected to anti-Americanism.

But it is the reasons which Friedman cites for this rise in anti-Americanism which I find startling.

Firstly, American unpopularity across the globe has not been brought about because the world wishes that the US could "have done better in Iraq"; the world doesn't think that the US should ever have gone into Iraq. It was the US ignoring the very UN that Friedman is now berating which most incensed us. It was Bush's tearing up of international law which started the slide in American popularity. It was certainly not us expressing disappointment that Bush didn't carry out his illegal invasion more succinctly.

At the time of the invasion many of us laughed at Blair's talk of "a Baghdad bounce" because, even if the invasion had gone like a textbook Blair would still have returned to a sullen population. We never wanted or agreed with the war. Our anger is not that it has gone badly, it is that the invasion took place at all.

The other reasons Friedman cites are equally laughable.

As Glenn Greenwald points out:

Friedman generously allows that "[a]n America that presides over Abu Ghraib, torture and Guantánamo Bay deserves a thumbs-down" -- a "thumbs-down": what a playful movie critic says about a boring film.

And I just love his listing of Abu Ghraib, torture and Guantamo Bay and the dismissal:

But America is not and never has been just about those things.

Friedman just doesn't get it. America is currently loathed because under the presidency of George W Bush - enthusiastically backed by people like Tom Friedman - "those things" are exactly what the US is about.

You can't torture people, cancel habeas corpus, fly citizens of other country's to black holes - where they disappear for years at a time - and then glibly state, "America is not and has never has been just about those things". America under the current leadership is precisely about those things. Which is why the US is currently hated throughout huge parts of the globe.

But Friedman finds such a notion impossible to comprehend. I am reminded of the quote from Quentin Crisp, "There is no point working on a pig farm for twenty years while saying deep down 'I am a ballerina'. After twenty years, pigs have become your style".

So Friedman can lament all he wants about how unfair it is for the world to look at the US under Bush and see only the Iraq war, Abu Ghraib, torture, Guantanamo Bay, and a nation that is currently breaking the Geneva Convention. After eight years of Bush, I'm afraid that's become the US's style.

He ends this bizarre piece as pompously as he begins:

Which brings me back to America. Perfect we are not, but America still has some moral backbone. There are travesties we will not tolerate.

What are those Tom? You have tolerated a war fought for lies, the removal of habeas corpus, torture, the outing of a CIA operative, the illegal wiretapping of your own citizens; So please tell me, where is this line in the sand which America will not tolerate being breached?

And I also love how Tom has asked and answered his own question as to why the world currently suffers from anti-Americanism. It would never occur to him simply to ask us.

Greenwald again:

To dismiss matters such as government-sponsored torture and lawless detention camps with nothing more than an acknowledgment in passing that perhaps they deserve a "thumbs-down" is almost as bad. That the same people who do that are then surprised and even offended that the rest of the world finds them repellent and dangerous -- that they actually expect that the world should view them as honorable moral arbiters -- is probably the most revealing aspect of all.

Tom simply doesn't get it. America is currently hated because it is being run at the moment by a group of people who think the way he does. That's why he finds all this so confusing.

He, and the neo-cons who think like him, ARE the problem.

Click title for his bizarre article.

Tags: Tom Friedman, Zimbabwe, China, Russia, anti-Americanism, torture, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay