More from the wonderful folks that brought us the Iraq War

It's a sign of how seriously damaged the political and intellectual culture of the United States really is that Tom "Suck.On.This." Friedman is still considered one of our leading columnist and foreign policy heavyweights. That YouTube video I just linked should always be in a reader's mind when reading Friedman's columns to remember just how truly fatuous and irresponsible a character he is when it comes to cheerleading for wars. (Update 10/02/2011: The video is now available from John Amato, Thomas Friedman and Iraq: Suck on This!: UPDATED with Video 11/18/2007) But since he was spectacularly wrong on Iraq, our Establishment press considers him an expert in good standing. Now he's offering us his dubious imitation of wisdom on the Afghanistan War: The Class Too Dumb to Quit New York Times 07/22/09.

And remember Friedman's like-minded warmongers at the Project for the American Century (PNAC)? PNAC as an organization is now defunct. But many of the same suspects have put up another war propaganda outlet, called the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI). RightWeb explains some of what they're up to in their endless pursuit of new wars:

Like its predecessor, PNAC, FPI apparently aims to build alliances across ideological lines through the mechanics of open sign-on letters supporting particular stances on key foreign policy issues. In early July 2009, for example, FPI released an open-letter to President Barack Obama urging him to promote human rights during his summit in Russia with President Dmitry Medvedev. Among the signatories to the letter were several long-standing neoconservative associates, including Max Boot, Jeffrey Gedmin, Carl Gershman, Max Kampelman, Bruce Jackson, Clifford May, Danielle Pletka, Randy Scheunemann, Gary Schmitt, Peter Wehner, and James Woolsey. In addition to these names, however, were those of several well known human rights and civil liberties experts, like Larry Cox of Amnesty International-USA, Clinton administration official Morton Halperin, and Stephen Rickard of the Open Society Institute.

Commenting on the letter, Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service wrote, “That several genuine human rights activists … should have chosen to associate themselves with such a group is remarkable and offers additional evidence that Kagan and Kristol are trying to reconstruct the neocon/liberal coalition that pressed the Clinton administration to intervene in the Balkans during the late 1990s. ... [T]o the extent that prominent liberals publicly endorse it, neoconservatives ... regain respectability.”

This is why when you hear someone like, say, Tom Friedman gushing about having wars to kill lots of people in order to defend the human rights of the people we're killing, it's worth asking whether it's human rights or war in which he's most interested. See Friedman's previous Times column, Teacher, Can We Leave Now? No. 07/18/09: "I must say, after witnessing the delight in the faces of those little Afghan girls crowded three to a desk waiting to learn, I found it very hard to write, "Let’s just get out of here'." I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that Mr. "Suck.On.This." cares in the slightest about the fate of little girls in Afghanistan. He's just writing cynical war propaganda.

US Military Presence Continues To Imperil Lives of Afghan Women by Lucinda Marshall of the Feminist Peace Network, CommonDreams.org 07/21/09 is a good companion piece and reality-check.

Tags: afghanistan war, thomas friedman