Month: December 2009

More terrorism news


The terror attack of December25, 2009 was meant to force the hand of the US to go to war in or with Yemen.  Thankfully the attack failed, but that hasn’t stopped the beating of war drums to attack and Joe Lieberman an ardent war supporter was one of the first to make that call.

Lieberman, the neoconservative solon who wanted to be the Secretary of Defense in the administration of John McCain (his 2008 candidate for president) and who would gladly play the same role in the administration of a Sarah Palin or any other saber-rattling Republican, is proposing the launch of a new preemptive war on Yemen……

Referencing his own travels to Yemen, and meetings with unnamed U.S. officials, the senator chirped: “Iraq was yesterday’s war, Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.”

Lieberman, whose refusal to serve in the military when he could have during the Vietnam era has never prevented him from spouting hawkish views………….

Lieberman was also a sponsor of the Senate bill S.J. Res.46 which called for war with Iraq and never met a war he didn’t like, as long as he doesn’t have to fight it himself. Just what we need, a mini-Bush. Everyone is jumping on the blame the Obama administration bandwagon and that is no doubt one of the planned consequences of this failed attack, which was really meant to be Obama’s 911 trial by fire. There are some other rather interesting sidebars to this terror attack.

The name ICTS has surfaced again. You know who they are don’t you? The same people who were responsible for airport security at Logan International Airport, the departure point for two of the fatal aircraft of 911 were responsible for security at the Amsterdam airport, despite their statement to the contrary.  If anyone should be made to squirm under the light of scrutiny it should be ICTS who has been at the security helm during terrorist attacks on 911 and 12/25.  Don’t let the phony debate about technology divert you from the responsibility this company has for what happened on December, 25.  The airport in Amsterdam has 15, count them 15 full body image scanners which AbdulMuttaleb managed to evade under the watchful eye of ICTS personnel. There’s also the claim that the terrorist got on the plane without a passport or had someone speak on his behalf with gate agents to have him board without proper credentials.   That seems plausible, for if he had a passport with his name it should have set off alarm bells throughout the aviation community because his name was also attached to a terrorist watch list generated by the UK government and American CIA. Government officials have managed to deflect that criticism by pointing out there is more than one terrorism list.

The interesting issue about the hot potato of 12/25 is despite all the security we were told we needed after 911 and for all the reasons given for that increased security here we are  eight years later, with the same excuses given for the lapse in security and with the same response for our vulnerability, that of going to war in a foreign nondescript country, Yemen.  What happened to the increased efficiency we were told would result under the newly formed Department of Homeland Security that was supposed to facilitate communications between the various agencies responsible for America’s security so that the moment the suspect’s father informed the American embassy in his country of his suspicions about his son’s inclinations that message would go to the very top of the nation’s security apparatus? Instead we’re mired in the various degrees of watch lists and the distinction between watches and no-fly lists and suspects and terrorists.  Does anyone think increased expenditures  to a bloated federal agency will fine tune even this mess called Homeland Security?   How did a “security” company with all the latest up to date technological equipment at its disposal fail to use it on this  suspect?   Why the obvious ruse at the boarding gate, witnessed by two American lawyers, who have gone on record to say other far more incriminating things about the nature of security at the Amsterdam airport.

The only terror unleashed on 12/25 was the realization that despite all the country has gone through, and all the dollars spent, and all the experience those responsible for security should have gained over the last eight years, government is no more serious now about its security of citizens than it was  in 2001.  The event was just another in a long line of deceptions initiated to start another military campaign in some far region of the world and enrich the coffers of the 21st century’s welfare recipient, security companies.  Colin Powell, with whom I have serious misgivings at times said it best

are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. … The only thing that can really destroy us is us. We shouldn’t do it to ourselves, and we shouldn’t use fear for political purposes—scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex.

We are well on the road to such a relationship between catastrophic events and burgeoning government contracts to the likes of ICTS whose existence depends on their own ineptitude, planned or chance.  Watch for another round of “security” individuals to pop up with their cures for a problem that was cured even well before 911.  We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be manipulated this way.

Voodoo Terror Alerts


In light of the recent attempt on December 25 to take down an airliner on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, a few things should be kept in  mind.  The alleged terrorist was on a watch list connecting him to terrorism for over two years, was a Nigerian citizen who was denied entry into the UK after graduating from there and still he was given a visa to come to the US!?  Moreover, his own father had alerted US authorities six months ago to his son’s extremist views and none of that previous history was enough to make people at airports in Nigeria or Amsterdam to even perform a pat down of the young man before he boarded a plane?  I know we just came off the Christmas holiday which can stretch credulity to its limits with images of Santa Claus and red nosed reign deer but to think that is plausible is to think 19 hijackers can collectively penetrate the most protected air space of any place in the world on orders from a man in a cave with a cell phone to attack some of the most secured buildings ever built.  Quite simply it just doesn’t happen, and if it does, people from TSA to Homeland Security to airport authorities and airline companies across three continents should have their heads lopped from their shoulders for incompetence.

It should be apparent to all concerned that all of the inconvenience and intrusiveness citizens have  gone through as we travel all over the world has nothing to do with our or the nation’s security, but is rather done to us or visited upon us by the new class of welfare queens and kings who are stealing from the nation’s coffers as they perpetuate one of  the biggest frauds known to man…that of the threat of terror.  This latest “terrorist” should have never been allowed to board a plane headed for America with all the attention he had supposedly received from his father to officials in the UK to bureaucrats in Delta, Northwestern and the bowels of the US federal government. Not one voice of dissent was raised when this young man bought his ticket in Nigeria; not one red flag or alarm was sounded as he travelled and it was only the brave acts of individual citizens who were seated near him that stopped a disaster that the government has been telling us for the last 8 years only it can stop at the expense of untold amounts of money and human suffering for the innocent.

So it should come as no surprise this story of vodoo terror alerts…you know the kind that never materialize because they aren’t really real…..where a man claimed he could decipher terror chatter from al-Jazeerah TV’s airwaves; this assertion was enough to cause the Bush administration to raise the terror alert level to level Orange, in of all months……December…… Merry Christmas……..just in time to claim that terrorism war was aimed at Christians celebrating Christmas, much like the attempted assassination or rather sacrifice made on the passengers of flight 253 on December 25, 2009 would have signified had it been successful.  In the case of the al-Jazeerah story, the fraudster Dennis Montgomery was discovered and outed as a liar and con man by people in government but not before literally stealing money from you and I while lying about what he could do.  As it turns out he couldn’t do anything he promised, and that seems to be the story of much of what has to do with terrorism and the federal government.  It can do very little to “protect” us and in some cases has been the source of much of our terror.  How else can you account for the fact that Umar Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab was able to purchase a ticket on an American airliner with all that is in place to prevent people like him from flying!  No doubt it will be said ‘more needs to be done’ and I would agree.  Let’s start by firing the idiots who don’t do their jobs and crediting the people who really saved lives…the passengers of flight 253.   Let me be one who says, like my brothers in arms of the 2nd amendment, we don’t need more laws we just need people to enforce the laws we already have.

No Comment


…Americans regard sexual infidelity as far more serious than invading countries on the basis of false charges and deception, invasions that have caused the deaths and displacement of millions of innocent people. Remember, the House impeached President Clinton not for his war crimes in Serbia, but for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Americans are more upset by Tiger Woods’ sexual affairs than they are by the Bush and Obama administrations’ destruction of US civil liberty. Americans don’t seem to mind that “their” government for the last 8 years has resorted to the detention practices of 1,000 years ago–simply grab a person and throw him into a dungeon forever without bringing charges and obtaining a conviction.

According to polls, Americans support torture, a violation of both US and international law, and Americans don’t mind that their government violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and spies on them without obtaining warrants from a court. Apparently, the brave citizens of the “sole remaining superpower” are so afraid of terrorists that they are content to give up liberty for safety, an impossible feat.

With stunning insouciance, Americans have given up the rule of law that protected their liberty. The silence of law schools and bar associations indicates that the age of liberty has passed. In short, the American people support tyranny. And that’s where they are headed.

–Paul Craig Roberts

Illegal Israeli Organ Harvesting


There was something to the story after all, that Israelis illegally took the organs of murdered Palestinians.  One can only wonder when the revelation will emerge that some Jews in the US had something to do with that.  The “academic” responsible for breaking this story is the same one who turned in or reported the Jewish Americans to authorities which broke the case here in the US.

Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without their families’ permission.

The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel’s Abu Kabir forensic institute, Jehuda Hiss. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper that Israel was killing Palestinians to harvest their organs. Israel hotly denied the charge.

Parts of the interview were broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 TV over the weekend. In it, Hiss said: “We started to harvest corneas… Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family.”The Channel 2 report said in the 1990s, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.

It’s interesting to note that while Israelis don’t want to donate their organs, they certainly don’t mind receiving them from anyone, which makes it all the more plausible that many Palestinians and Israelis were killed by the state of Israel in order to get their organs, must likely at a considerable profit for the folks like Levy Izhak Rosenbaum et.co who was arrested here in the US earlier this year.  One more feather in the cap for the murderous regime which has fooled everyone into thinking it is a light unto the Nations.

From your neighbors


Love for Jesus Can Bring Christians, Muslims Together – Ibrahim Hooper

“Behold! The angels said: ‘O Mary! God giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him. His name will be Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and in (the company of) those nearest to God.’”

Before searching for this quote in the New Testament, you might first ask your Muslim co-worker, friend or neighbor for a copy of the Quran, Islam’s revealed text. The quote is from verse 45 of chapter 3 in the Quran.

It is well known, particularly in this holiday season, that Christians follow the teachings of Jesus. What is less well understood is that Muslims also love and revere Jesus as one of God’s greatest messengers to mankind.

Other verses in the Quran, regarded by Muslims as the direct word of God, state that Jesus was strengthened with the “Holy Spirit” (2:87) and is a “sign for the whole world.” (21:91) His virgin birth was confirmed when Mary is quoted as asking: “How can I have a son when no man has ever touched me?” (3:47)

The Quran shows Jesus speaking from the cradle and, with God’s permission, curing lepers and the blind. (5:110) God also states in the Quran: “We gave (Jesus) the Gospel (Injeel) and put compassion and mercy into the hearts of his followers.” (57:27)

As forces of hate in this country and worldwide try to pull Muslims and Christians apart, we are in desperate need of a unifying force that can bridge the widening gap of interfaith misunderstanding and mistrust. That force could be the message of love, peace and forgiveness taught by Jesus and accepted by followers of both faiths.

Christians and Muslims would do well to consider another verse in the Quran reaffirming God’s eternal message of spiritual unity: “Say ye: ‘We believe in God and the revelation given to us and to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and it is unto Him that we surrender ourselves.’” (2:136)

The Prophet Muhammad himself sought to erase any distinctions between the message he taught and that taught by Jesus, who he called God’s “spirit and word.” Prophet Muhammad said: “Both in this world and in the Hereafter, I am the nearest of all people to Jesus, the son of Mary. The prophets are paternal brothers; their mothers are different, but their religion is one.”

When Muslims mention the Prophet Muhammad, they always add the phrase “peace be upon him.” Christians may be surprised to learn that the same phrase always follows a Muslim’s mention of Jesus or that we believe Jesus will return to earth in the last days before the final judgment. Disrespect toward Jesus, as we have seen all too often in our society, is very offensive to Muslims.

Unfortunately, violent events and hate-filled rhetoric around the world provide ample opportunity for promoting religious hostility. And yes, Muslims and Christians do have some differing perspectives on Jesus’ life and teachings. But his spiritual legacy offers an alternative opportunity for people of faith to recognize their shared religious heritage.

America’s Muslim community stands ready to honor that legacy by building bridges of interfaith understanding and challenging those who would divide our nation along religious or ethnic lines.

We have more in common than we think.

Right-click here to download pictures. To help protect your privacy, Outlook prevented automatic download of this picture from the Internet.

Europe’s Fascist Heritage


The world has already fought two large scale wars to extricate Europe from it’s racist tendencies and there appear to be more on the horizon.  Emboldened by the Swiss vote which was initiated because the Swiss People’s Party were intimidated by the four minaret already constructed in Switzerland and hence successfully passed a referendom which bans further contruction of minarets, France and its Islamophobic president, Nicholas Sarkozy et. co has stepped up the rhetoric against Muslims in Europe warning them they must embrace Europe’s historical values and avoid “ostentation or provocation” in the practice of their religion or else lose citizenship. France’s elected officials have thrown political responsibility aside and chosen mob rule and street rhetoric to address their citizens.  With the Muslim population of France approaching or even surpassing 5 million,  they have become an easy target for the likes of racists who want to threaten and intimidate Muslims with the tacit support of France’s political leaders, and other leaders of European parties who want to make Muslims targets of their hate and vitriol.

It’s good to see that not everyone is laying down and accepting the steam roller xenophobia on display in Europe these days.  GuillaumeMorand a Swiss businessman erected a minaret on his business establishment in protest of the vote banning minarets in his country and hints there may be other acts of civil disobedience on his part in the coming days as he wants all to know the ban is not something which all in Switzerland agree. On the British Isles, Rabbis Aaron Goldstein and Hillel Athias-Robles, of the Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue have gone on record to denounce the tactics of the racist element in their country, saying

“We are writing to express our support for our Muslim friends and neighbours, especially those at Harrow Central Mosque, who are under attack from those whose only purpose is to spread hatred and fear.“We condemn outright the outrageous lies of the English Defence League and SIOE which are entirely without foundation.

“We share the desire of the Muslim community of Harrow to respect our mutual traditions, to learn from each other’s cultures and ways of life, and to live together in peace.

“The Jewish community knows all too well what happens when such poison is allowed to go unchallenged: once hatred and intolerance are allowed to spread we all become its victims. “The whole community must stand together against those that seek to divide us.”

‘Those that seek to divide us’ sound so much like Sarkozy and the leaders of parties like SVP which generate measures designed to return Europe to the days of fascism and with it the rest of the world. In order to stop that eventuality it will take courage and a strong stand by the likes of rabbis Goldstein and Robbles and Monsieur Morand.  We here at Miscellany101 join them in denouncing the hate with a strong statement.  Mr. Sarkozy, stop spreading hate and fear.

Guantanamo Bay-Terrorist Training Ground


Guantanamo Bay will most likely go down as the place which housed the most terrorist we ever faced in our war on terror, the phony war started  by George Bush, and those terrorists were US personnel who engaged in torture and even murder.  The latest news that three suicides and the resulting investigation was so botched as to lead to more questions than answers can only lead one to the conclusion that the “suicides” were indeed murder and lead to other questions of how many other deaths at Gitmo were at the hands of the captors and not the captive.  The facts from the only independent study conducted are three detainees were found swinging at the end of a ligature in their closely guarded cells with rags stuffed in their throats and one “suicide” victim had his internal organs, heart and kidneys and throat removed before his body was interred.
The removal of internal organs closely dovetails into another story we’ve covered in the pages of Miscellany101 as it regards Palestinians in the Occupied Territories who’ve died at the hands of their terrorist captors. That is scary enough, the parallel universe that seems to pervade all that the American and Israeli authorities do to Arab, semitic and Muslim peoples the world over; however, the lengths at which authorities went to blame even the victims for their murder at the hands of those same authorities (for how can a man both hang himself, stuff rags in his own throat and remained undetected for several hours long enough for rigor mortis to develop in a cell that was under 24 hour scrutiny by security guards because said occupant of the cell possessed the super human capability to break loose over power his guards and eventually find his way to the US mainland to wreak further havoc on innocent Americans) is a further nail in the coffin of US legitimacy and credibility.

Rear Adm Harris said he did not believe the men had killed themselves out of despair. “They are smart. They are creative, they are committed,” he said. “They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”

Or how about this wildly insane comment from a former Bush Administration official who seemed to have the intent correct, i.e. publicity, although assigning it incorrectly to the victims

“It does sound like this is part of a strategy – in that they don’t value their own lives, and they certainly don’t value ours; and they use suicide bombings as a tactic,” Colleen Graffy, the deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, told BBC’s Newshour yesterday. “Taking their own lives was not necessary, but it certainly is a good PR move.”

What Guantanamo Bay became  and perhaps still is today was a battleground for a disgraced titular warrior and leader of the free world, George Bush and now Barack Obama, to play out fantasies of getting even with a perceived foe at the expense of the Nation’s Constitution and way of life.  He descended into the depths of every type of illegal and immoral activity to satisfy a blood lust to exorcise demons of inferiority and insecurity and in term projected that all onto the national consciousness that have seriously affected our judgement and moral compass until the present.

Islamophobia is ok, but anti-semitism? Hell no!


It started with the ban on minarets in Switzerland which was supported by a majority of the Swiss in a referendum held last week.  It quickly progressed to cemeteries when a leading Swiss politician said in a television interview that separate cemeteries for Muslims (no problem singling them out) and Jews (big problem singling them out) were not acceptable and should be banned as well.  That didn’t go down to well with members of the Jewish community in Switzerland which numbers about 20,000, one tenth the population of Muslims living in Switzerland.  The Jewish reaction to the politician’s statement was swift and immediate enough to get him to back down on his original comments regarding a ban.

What Swiss Jews did was acknowledge the inevitable with respect to minorities living in Europe, a breeding ground for internecine fighting and wars; once you begin down the slippery slope of racism, it gathers a momentum of its own and envelopes everyone and everything that is different than itself.

“We don’t have a situation of the extreme right in Europe attacking Jews because they are content to attack Muslims,” Philip Carmel, the international relations director for the Conference of European Rabbis, told Reuters.

“But the Swiss example is classic: it’s not just Muslims who are going to be targeted by the extreme right.”

What’s sad is without the comment about Jewish cemeteries, most likely members of the Jewish community would have remained silent in the face of Switzerland’s steamrolling racist juggernaut, but when it reached the Jewish community objections from that quarter were raised.  Perhaps their thinking was if they remained silent and out of sight they would not be affected; but that’s clearly not the lesson history teaches  about such societal tendencies.  Let that also be a lesson to the Muslim community of anywhere in the world that if they too accept oppression directed towards any ethnic community anywhere in the world, it is sure to progress and include them in its racist tentacles.

Three Cheers for Pittsburgh City Council’s respect for the 1st Amendment


This story is an example of government truly protecting the Constitution in the face of abuse of power on the part of law enforcement.  A citizen  was simply told he couldn’t “flip” someone off and was ticketed when he did.  Fortunately he didn’t let it stop there and instead chose to exert his rights and in the process was supported by the city council where he lived.  Here’s his story.

A man who flipped the bird to a Pittsburgh police officer three years ago is speaking out after the City Council tentatively approved paying $50,000 to settle his lawsuit.In April 2006, David Hackbart was trying to park on a busy street in Squirrel Hill when, he said, the driver behind him wouldn’t budge.”After inching back toward him to give him the message I was trying to park, he wouldn’t (move). I got very frustrated and I flipped him off,” Hackbart said.

Hackbart, 35, of Butler, wasn’t done using his middle finger.”I heard a voice outside the car telling me not to do that and that frustrated me too. So, I flipped that person off and that turned out to be a police officer,” Hackbart said. “I tried to explain to him it was constitutionally protected, what I did. He did not want to hear it and gave me a citation.”The incident launched a federal civil rights case, which was postponed indefinitely at the request of lawyers on both sides. The case has tentatively ended with the City Council’s approval Tuesday of a proposed $50,000 settlement. Another vote is scheduled next week for final approval.Hackbart said his lawsuit was about change — not money.”Put some sort of policy in place that the officers are trained better and there is some sort of supervision in officers writing tickets so people don’t have to go through what I went through,” Hackbart said.Hackbart said there’s lesson for all to learn from his obscene gesture.”I don’t advocate people using the middle finger for (any) reason, any situation, 24 hours a day, but if someone ran across a certain situation in mind, at least he knows his rights,” Hackbart said.Of the proposed $50,000 settlement, Hackbart said he would receive only $10,000. His lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union would split the remaining $40,000.

To all responsible for protecting Hackbart’s first amendment rights, and a way of life we claim to want to preserve and which drove us to invade two countries a heartfelt thanks for your diligence.  You too are soldiers in our war on terror.

Fellatio as policy in the Middle East


That’s what Thomas Friedman gave as the reason for our invasion of countries in the Middle East in his much ballyhooed interview with Charlie Rose several years ago.  (The clip above.)  It seems however that Friedman either forgot his bravado laced interview or considers it insignificant when writing his latest Mid East pronouncements, which appear here.   In this latest tripe Friedman passes for an editorial (can you believe he gets P-A-I-D for writing this stuff?!) Friedman talks about the “narrative” and describes it thusly

The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand “American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy” to keep Muslims down.

Friedman forgot to mention himself as one who promotes the “narrative”; even by his own accounts we invaded Muslim countries and killed scores of innocence not for any grand or noble political designs for us, Americans, or for them, the citizens of those countries, but rather we reaped all of that havoc ‘because we could’ and to get them to Suck. On. This. That mentality is what drove the pornographic rage that we’ve only seen snippets of that took place in Abu Ghraib.  (I’m sure all the citizens of Iraq, and some other Muslim countries too, have heard all of the stories our democracy has said we here in America aren’t eligible to hear or know about.)  Friedman mentions Abu Ghraib, but only in passing, in the midst of  extolling all the good things American soldiers did or are doing in Iraq as occupiers mind you of a country that initially was no threat to the vital interests of the US or her allies.  While chiding “jihadists” for ignoring the latter, Friedman did himself and his article a disservice but doing the same with the former.

As usual, Glen Greenwald does a pretty good job of dismantling the Friedman fantasy/hypocrisy.  Among his zingers to Friedman’s piece are lines like these

And note the morality on display here:  Hasan attacks soldiers on a military base of a country that has spent the last decade screaming to the world that “we’re at war!!,” and that’s a deranged and evil act, while Friedman cheers for an unprovoked war that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and displaced millions more — all justified by sick power fantasies, lame Mafia dialogue and cravings more appropriate for a porno film than a civilized foreign policy — and he’s the arbiter of Western reason and sanity.

That’s only one of several well placed punches to Friedman’s devilishly childish arguments in his latest op-ed.  Steven Walt of the infamous Walt-Mearsheimer duo which brought the world the book, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, and brought upon themselves an undeserved ignominy, weighed in on Friedman’s article as well with less than sterling results, in my opinion, because of his emphasis on “numbers” of casualties amassed to make the case for why “they” hate us. The comments section of his article is why his article lacks the strength of moral certainty to oppose Friedman’s op-ed.  Simply put people don’t care about the whys and wherefores these days and using that argument about why Muslims hate us without mentioning that we launched a war of aggression against them based on lies that our government made and upheld in order to invade and total decimate their culture, and that we continue to justify our occupation based on these debunked lies is disingenuous, in this writer’s estimation.   Walt is an academic so perhaps that’s why he relied so heavily on numbers in his “refutation” of Friedman’s article, but in so doing he let Friedman off the hook for his, Friedman’s, obscene insistence for war and his cheerleading for it when he knew ostensibly that he was lying.  If Walt had simply said that, any claim to legitimacy on the part of Friedman, would have been irrevocably lost.

Friedman is an apologist for wars of aggression and he wants the victims of such wars to engage him in semantic pedantry which is why he issues this weak call out  at the end of his article.   It’s a waste of time for him to issue it and even more a waste of time for others to answer it.  What Mr. Friedman needs to be reminded of is the importance of ‘the rule of law’, something he nor any of his supporters really had a handle on for the last 10 years. Friedman is the newspaper world’s hate radio pundits; not much substance and  a lot of hot air.  His bias and hatred for the people he generally writes about borders on the sophomoric, not at all worthy of the New York Times, or if you insist that it is, then both are not news that’s fit to be printed.  May I suggest citizenship journalism instead?