Fuck You Tom Friedman

Does Thomas L. Friedman have no limits?  

In his Sunday op-ed (Teacher, Can We Leave Now? No.) Mr. Friedman writes of taking a "fun" helicopter ride with the Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and therefore the most powerful man in the U.S. military, in order to "cut the ribbon" on a secular all-girls school built by the American humanitarian Greg Mortenson.

Mr. Friedman then concludes:

 "But when you see two little Afgahn girls crouched on the front steps of their new school, clutching tightly with both arms the notebooks handed to them by a U.S. Admiral--as is they were their first dolls--it's hard to say: "Let's just walk away." Not Yet."

First of all Mr. Friedman, have you ever read a cynical book about the Vietnam War, one that mocks the journalists who go on helicopter trips with generals and report it as the truth?  Well you are now that journalist, falling for the military's PR, hook, line and sinker.  (and if you haven't read any of those books, maybe you should.  I recommend starting with Dispatches, by Michael Herr.)

Secondly, your concern for education is truly touching.  However, for some reason you conflate the military occupation with Mr. Mortenson's private efforts to open schools.  Does this mean that we should invade every country in which Mr. Mortenson works?  Moreover, perhaps you haven't noticed, but the U.S. military hopes to employ over 100,000 Afghans not as teachers, or doctors, or engineers, but as soldiers.  In the 2009 Supplemental Appropriations Act, passed in June, the U.S. taxpayers spent close to four times as much money on fighting a war in Afghanistan as it did on civilian aid to Afghanistan.  You also seem to have it stuck in your head that when the U.S. military ends the Afghanistan War, anything related to the West will end with it.  Just maybe Mr. Mortenson's schools would not be blown up if his tax dollars were not blowing up wedding parties. 

Lastly, please don't ever writs this paragraph again (or alternately, go work for the Weekly Standard):

Mortenson's efforts remind us what the essence of the War on Terrorism is about.  It's about the war of ideas within Islam--a war between religous zealots who glorify martyrdom and want to keep Islam untouched by modernity and isolated by other faiths, with its women disempowered, and those who want to embrace modernity, open Islam to new ideas and empower Muslim women as much as men.