Comments on: Channeling Tommy

By: Guru Gulab Khatri

Guru Gulab Khatri — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 19:25:50 +0000

Regarding “Iraq was a mess to begin with, and by almost all sensible standards itâ€™s worse now.”
That is absolutely bullshit.
Take for eg the very existance of communist party of Iraq, as well as athiest association in iraq.
Now i dont agree with communists, but the point is under the previous system no organization could exist without the cliques approval.
Iraq’s biggest problem is that US wasnt forceful in shutting up or killing Al-Sadr as it had been when killing saudi backed insurgents (who for the most part were noniraqi).
The other issue is OIL. What %age of oil revenue will go to centre,state and district governments is what the killing is all about.
Either way It is a really hard sell for someone to convince a rational person that iraq is worse off as the result of US invasion.
The comparison to vietnam etc are way off.
Where in iraq has there been a carpet bombing by US?

By: John

John — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 11:25:31 +0000

i read his book the world is flat. Though book was good to read, i don’t fully agree with him

By: Devang

Devang — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 12:48:18 +0000

Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree was good reading for my sophmore year in High School. It was good to read about globalization back then. It’s been downhill since then for Friedman, I’m afraid. He’s still stuck to the same point, even though we know much more about the realities of WTO sanctioned globalization. His original “thesis” is still right, but he’s added little new since then. Of the NYT op-eder’s, my favorite’s been Krugman since atleast 2000 by a long shot. Nothing beats a real economist who can actually write in today’s world.

For being a middle-eastern expert, by way of his studies and career, he certainly has been more wrong than others about the Iraq war (others who hail from both the right and the left side of the political spectrum). Iraq was a mess to begin with, and by almost all sensible standards it’s worse now. I’ll be thinking twice about reading an optimist like Mr. Friedman when it comes to that part of the world.

By: shiv

shiv — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 05:28:05 +0000

Some reviews of Friedman’s magnum opus

http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=4964
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060910/18qa.htm

By: Jyoti Iyer

Jyoti Iyer — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 03:17:43 +0000

What a crazy-ass idiot , Friedman I mean.

Jyoti

By: Guru Gulab Khatri

Guru Gulab Khatri — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:25:14 +0000

I was never a friedman fan.
But his critique from the braindead retrogressive.
Given a binary selection I would pick friedman over the likes of solomon.
Solomon’s criticism reminds me of similarly banal but more intersting critique I had read from fatty glutton vandana shiva, and the bloke Varadarajan from the hindu newspaper. Again in a binary world I find my self allied on friedmans side.

By: abey

abey — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 07:37:13 +0000

gork! rotflmao!

By: Aditya Athalye

Aditya Athalye — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 05:51:00 +0000

i don’t know why you even bother with this guy… one was forced to drop the book that flattened the world like hot coals upon a glance at the contents and a riffle through the pages… else one would have passe’d out too…