Poor Friedman

There are two very different ways people can choose to describe post-WW II American power. While most rational people examining the historical record would quickly see the US as an imperial power, some choose the more benevolent term “superpower.” Thomas Friedman uses the latter, and as someone who strongly supported the Iraq War (remember “Suck on this?” 2:47), it shouldn’t be surprising.

What worries me the most is that Friedman, along with much of American society (though not the rest of the world), actually believes it is true, and we can see this from what he wrote yesterday in the NYT. He said

the most unique and important feature of U.S. foreign policy over the last century has been the degree to which America’s diplomats and naval, air and ground forces provided global public goods — from open seas to open trade and from containment to counterterrorism — that benefited many others besides us.

I began typing out all of the civilians who have suffered, from the millions who have been killed and the untold numbers in poverty and living under dictatorships, as a direct result of US foreign policy. Listing them all would take a long time, from the Japanese civilians in the forties the Iraqis of today. But apparently he thinks that was all worth it, which makes me sick to my stomach.