You must always keep in mind that in college Friedman was a member of 'Peace Now' the leftist Jewish organization which seems to believe the only appropriate place for Jews to live is Auschwitz. He apparently is not merely a scummy self-hating Jew, but he has broadened his self-hatred to include Americans as a class.

I can't tell if he is expressing a death wish, is in denial about our circumstances, or finds repulsive the need for courage in the face of danger repulsive. Who, not similarly afflicted, would want him for a neighbor?

"The Kerry/Friedman plan is to reach a tacit truce with the terrorists. Go back to killing foreigners, or only small numbers of Americans, and we'll go back to ignoring you."

That's exactly right. 9/11 was the most catastrophically stupid move that AQ could have made. But roughly half of Americans have just about lost interest, because for most of us life is exactly the same as it was on Sep 10, in that we're not at all obviously at war.

Check out the Jacksonian Mr. Friedman from Sep 28, 2001:

"I'm still not sure the world fully appreciates what this has meant to Americans. We are not fighting for Kosovo, and we are not fighting for Bosnia, Somalia or Kuwait. We are fighting for our country. And Americans will fight for their country and they will die for their country."

...

"We need to be really focused, really serious, and just a little bit crazy. I don't mean we should indiscriminately kill people, especially innocent Afghans. I mean that the terrorists and their supporters need to know that from here forward we will do whatever it takes to defend our way of life--and then some. From here forward, it's the bad guys who need to be afraid every waking moment. The more frightened our enemies are today, the fewer we will have to fight tomorrow."

...

"For everything there is a season. There will be a season later on for talking. There will be a season for dealing with other states that have supported terrorism. And there will be a season for promoting Arab-Israeli peace or economic development. But right now--right now is the season of hunting down people who want to destroy our country. War alone may not solve this problem, but neither will social work. And one thing a focused, covert war will do is create a level of deterrence that has not existed up to now. Every state has to know that after Sept. 11, harboring anti-U.S. terrorists will be lethal.

To drive that point home, though, people have to see that we are focused, serious and ready to use whatever tactics will make the terrorists feel bad, not make us feel good. As the Lebanese militia leader Bashir Gemayel once said about the Middle East--before he himself was assassinated--'This is not Norway here, and it is not Denmark.'"

Someone should read this column to Mr. Friedman today. To his credit, he wasn't unchanged by 9/11 as many of his colleagues to the left were, but he's gone back. This is what's so awful about our mistakes in Iraq--we had a few year grace period to really get things done. And a lot was done, but Assad and the mullahs are still there, and most Americans just want to pretend they're but a nuisance.

Sen. Kerry and Mr. Friedman both seem to suffer from the same mentality that afflicts the majority of Europeans, Canadians, and the Left in general. They all seem to refuse the idea that modern terrorism represents a clear and present danger, not only to the United States, but in fact to all those international institutions, ideals, and goals which they purportedly hold so dearly.

I recently attended a Torah study group as a guest of a friend of mine who is a Ukrainian Jew. The entire thing quickly devolved into an anti-Bush, anti-Republican, anti-Sharon melee. Because of being a guest I felt it would be inappropriate to challenge anyone there and so I didn't. My friend didn't participate either primarily because his language skills would have rendered him ineffective. Afterwards we discussed the incident and I told him how fiercely I disagreed with what had been said. Having grown up in the Soviet Union and being a dissident there he then stated to me so simply as he has a habit of doing "People like those would kill you". Well, so would Kerry and Friedman in my estimation.

They are also saying to the Animal Liberation Fronts, to the Ted Kaczynskis and the McVeighs and Nicholls, "As long as you aren't too indiscriminate in your targets, and as long as not too many people get killed, and as long as you target the 'right' people, and as long as you keep it out of important places like New York, as long as you don't threaten our political power, it's okay to keep doing what you are doing."

Isn't it the Left which is always accusing their strawman Rightwingers of wanting to "go back" to a time when families consisted of "Ozzie and Harriet"? And then they claim that to do so, and to want to do so, means that those strawmen also want to bring back all the bad things back then (like segregation and "keeping women in the kitchen"), too.

Also troublesome is the idea that we should "get back to a place." What's wrong with going forward to a place where these people are no longer not even a "nuisance"? A time when mass slaughter and destruction, like racism and sexism and homophobia and all those other wonderful things they claim to desire, aren't just eliminated but inconceivable.

Used to be that Progressives stood for "progress", but since they made their alliance with the Greens, they can only look to a mythical past paradise.

We want victory, not a perpetual war.

The article highlights a question that I have not seen actually articulated anywhere. Obviously, we need to defeat Al Qaeda and the international terrorist network to the point where we know they cannot attack the US and our allies for some time. Victory is won at that moment.

What comes next though is how we structure ourselves and the international system to prevent the way Al Qaeda and other terrorists were able to flourish.

I don't think we have a battle plan to actually do the first, although Bush is making an attempt. Kerry has no real strategy that I can see.

But I see no discussion to the second. Assuming Al Qaeda is destroyed, what must we do then? The current haphazard safeguards - a terrible Homeland Security system, idiotic border control, a very troubling rights issue with the PATRIOT Act, and ignoring the UN will not work in the long run. We need a smart Homeland Security system that does not oppress passengers, an effective border policy, a way to screen terrorists without the rights issues PATRIOT embodies, and a reform of the international system. None of which will be easy - but unless we have some sort of plan eventually we will again be at the mercy of events.

Have you actually read the Patriot Act?

Had he gone to the IMF for a loan, they would have let him pass in no time.

Did anybody notice that Friedman was complainig about the IMF, which is not under US jurisdiction and which undoubtedly sets its own security policies. The IMF is one of those "good" international institutions to which we are supposed to outsource our foreign policy.

I think he has lost his marbles.

Chris: Have you been following the domestic political debate at all? Bush is the only one who has a plan for the second phase -- establish democracies in the middle east to bring freedom and prosperity to the vilest regions and remove the root causes. You seem to think the war must go on forever -- Bush is trying to build a new world where war is not profitable for anyone.

Dude, My Pet Goat.

Jimmy:

A reference to your new civil right?

Friedman's "right" to ignore terrorism is possible as long as their are people who are willing to go out and kill the terrorists. All he has to do is elect the right poiticians every 2 years who will remain steadfast in the struggle against the terrorists, and then he can go back to his philosophical musings the rest of the time. The trouble is, he doesn't want to even be bothered with having to think about it during an election. The odds of him being killed in a terrorist attack are smaller than being killed in a car accident - as long as we continue to take the offensive to the terrorists.