If this weren't so tragic it would be funny.........

[callofthewild]

October 19, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
Leading by (Bad) Example

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN - bestselling author and Foreign Affairs Columnist for the New York Times

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 (Iraq News Agency) - A delegation of Iraqi judges and journalists abruptly left the U.S. today, cutting short its visit to study the workings of American democracy. A delegation spokesman said the Iraqis were "bewildered" by some of the behavior of the Bush administration and felt it was best to limit their exposure to the U.S. system at this time, when Iraq is taking its first baby steps toward democracy.

The lead Iraqi delegate, Muhammad Mithaqi, a notedsecular Sunni judge
who had recently survived an assassination attempt by Islamist radicals, said that he was stunned when he heard President Bush telling Republicans that one reason they should support Harriet Miers for the U.S. Supreme Court was because of "her religion." She is described as a devout
evangelical Christian.

Mithaqi said that after two years of being lectured to by U.S. diplomats in Baghdad about the need to separate "mosque from state" in the new
Iraq, he was also floored to read that the former Whitewater prosecutor
Kenneth Starr, now a law school dean, said on the radio show of the
conservative James Dobson that Miers deserved support because she was "a very, very strong Christian [who] should be a source of great comfort
and assistance to people in the households of faith around the country."

"Now let me get this straight," Judge Mithaqi said. "You are lecturing us about keeping religion out of politics, and then your own president and conservative legal scholars go and tell your public to endorse Miers as a Supreme Court justice because she is an evangelical Christian.

"How would you feel if you picked up your newspapers next week and read
that the president of Iraq justified the appointment of an Iraqi Supreme Court justice by telling Iraqis: 'Don't pay attention to his lack of legal expertise. Pay attention to the fact that he is a Muslim fundamentalist and prays at a Saudi-funded Wahhabi mosque.' Is that the Iraq you sent your sons to build and to die for? I don't think so. We can't have our people exposed to such talk."

A fellow delegation member, Abdul Wahab al-Unfi, a Shiite lawyer who
walks with a limp today as a result of torture in a Saddam prison, said
he did not want to spend another day in Washington after listening to
the Bush team defend its right to use torture in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Unfi said he was heartened by the fact that the Senate voted 90 to 9 to
ban U.S. torture of military prisoners. But he said he was depressed by
reports that the White House might veto the bill because of that
amendment, which would ban "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of
P.O.W.'s.

"I survived eight years of torture under Saddam," Unfi said. "Virtually
every extended family in Iraq has someone who was tortured or killed in
a Baathist prison. Yet, already, more than 100 prisoners of war have
died in U.S. custody. How is that possible from the greatest democracy in
the world? There must be no place for torture in the future Iraq. We are going home now because I don't want our delegation corrupted by all this American right-to-torture talk."

Finally, the delegation member Sahaf al-Sahafi, editor of one of Iraq's
new newspapers, said he wanted to go home after watching a televised
videoconference last Thursday between soldiers in Iraq and President
Bush. The soldiers, 10 Americans and an Iraqi, were coached by a Pentagon aide on how to respond to Mr. Bush.

"I had nightmares watching this," Sahafi said. "It was right from the
Saddam playbook. I was particularly upset to hear the Iraqi sergeant
major, Akeel Shakir Nasser, tell Mr. Bush: 'Thank you very much for
everything. I like you.' It was exactly the kind of staged encounter that
Saddam used to have with his troops."

Sahafi said he was also floored to see the U.S.Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan agency that works for Congress, declare that a
Bush administration contract that paid Armstrong Williams, a supposedly
independent commentator, to promote Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind
policy constituted illegal propaganda - an attempt by the government to
buy good press.

"Saddam bought and paid journalists all over the Arab world," Sahafi
said. "It makes me sick to see even a drop of that in America."

By coincidence, the Iraqi delegates departed Washington just as the
Bush aide Karen Hughes returned from the Middle East. Her trip was aimed
at improving America's image among Muslims by giving them a more
accurate view of America and President Bush. She said, "The more they know about us, the more they will like us." :eek:

[tstrand]

Great read and summarizes my thoughts exactly.

However, I believe this article is fake.

I don't think Friedman writes for the Iraq News Agency and I believe the official agency is Iraqi News Agency.

I just want to clarify so that when we spread information we only spread accurate information unless it's strictly for humor.


-Tom

[tstrand]

Great read and summarizes my thoughts exactly.
However, I believe this article is fake.

The original article is still pertinent, so I searched it out again. To clarify for people wanting to send this article around, Thomas Friedman *did* write this in the New York Times Op/Ed page, Oct 19, 2005, but his last line was omitted in the earlier message,

"(Yes, all of this is a fake news story. I just wish that it weren't so true.)"

See the original here. It requires a free registration to the NYT.

https://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/19/opinion/19friedman.html

-Tom