Blaming the victims

The nickle version of today's Tom Friedman [behind subscription wall] romp through fantasy land: the problem with Iraq is the Arab-Muslims.

But worst of all, Muslims, the very people whose future is being killed, are also mute. No surge can work in Iraq unless we have a “moral surge,” a counternihilism strategy that delegitimizes suicide bombers. The most important restraints are cultural, societal and religious. It takes a village — but the Arab-Muslim village today is largely silent. The best are indifferent or intimidated; the worst quietly applaud the Sunnis who kill Shiites. ["And, what about the Shiites who kill Sunnis?," asks Walldon]

Nobody in the Arab world “has the guts to say that what is happening in Iraq is wrong — that killing schoolkids is wrong,” said Mamoun Fandy, director of the Middle East program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “People somehow think that killing Iraqis is good because it will stick it to the Americans, so Arabs are undermining the American project in Iraq by killing themselves.”

Yeah. I wonder how the Tom Friedman would feel if someone had invaded his country, toppled his government, installed a puppet government to rule him, and remained there as an occupying power. I suspect he might find that a little mayhem made sense if it was the only way he could induce the occupying power to leave.