Same Old, Same Old with Tom Friedman

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Tom Friedman wrote a book about the environment (Hot, Flat, and Crowded), so it jarred Imus when Friedman said the horrors of industrialized farming, detailed in David Kirby’s Animal Factory, were not on his “radar.”

Though Friedman promised he’d look into it, Imus was skeptical. “I can just tell, you’ve got a sausage burger in one hand,” he surmised. “And a bacon sandwich in the other.”

Friedman was probably using both hands when he wrote today’s column, which focuses on idealism versus realism in Afghanistan. In his view, President George W. Bush adopted a very “neo-realist” approach to the war there, worrying more about tracking down Al-Qaeda than about running Afghanistan. Obama has been forced to go down a different road.

“Karzai’s mis-governance reached such industrial proportions that tens of thousands of Afghans turned away from him and said, ‘You know what? We actually prefer the Taliban back,’” said Friedman.

Obama’s goal thus became clearing out the Taliban and delivering good governance to people, thereby convincing them to restore their allegiance to the government and join the Army, ultimately allowing the U.S. to skip town.

“Obama is pursuing a much more idealist foreign policy in Afghanistan, and by definition in Iraq,” Friedman pointed out. “A lot of people question Obama for getting in Karzai’s face about corruption, to which I say, you can’t get in his face enough.”

Imus hit it on the nose when he declared U.S. policy in Afghanistan, “the dictionary definition of nation-building,” and Friedman stipulated that the policy only works if Obama follows through.

So far, the “government in a box” tactic, as General McChrystal calls it, has been applied in Marja, Afghanistan, where the U.S. cleared out the Taliban and came in with “a box” of Afghan officials to provide good government. The jury is still out on this approach’s effectiveness, but it will soon be used in Kandahar, “the next big test,” said Friedman.

Imus, like most people, doesn’t see how this or any plan in the Middle East ever works anywhere, whether in Afghanistan or Israel or Iraq or Iran. “We often touch on this subject,” Imus said. “The conversation never changes. Just the people do.”

Friedman has noticed the same funny tendency. One of his first appearances with the I-Man was when he wrote From Beirut to Jerusalem, and as he prepares to release a 20th anniversary edition soon, Friedman knows exactly what the new introduction will say: “Nothing has changed.”

But something else better change, and fast: Friedman’s familiarity with the impact this country’s food supply has on the environment, and how poor treatment of animals on factory farms leads to all kinds of hazards, specifically health-related ones.

“This is an opportunity for you to get up to speed,” Imus told his bewildered guest. “Isn’t it, Tom?”

-Julie Kanfer