I love reading Thomas Friedman because like him or not, agree with his opinions or not, he is a great journalist and is at a stage where he can speak his mind. I wanted to email him directly but didn’t feel like subscribing to the New York Times for a one time email. I loved it when he spoke out against GM. I laughed even more when I went to GM’s pseudo-blog response. By the way, GM’s take on a blog is a closed-for-comments website with ramblings about how great they are and lots of links to their products. Can you spell shameless marketing and trying to be hip when you are apparently a dinosaur?
Anyway, back to Thomas and particularly an article where he points out many good views I agree with about the disaster in the Middle East. Our government said this was the birth of a new Middle East. I didn’t understand either what new M.E. they were referring. It has been torn for decades. I agree there will be no "new" M.E. as long as the "more modern countries" take a neutral and peaceful stand and stop shuffling arms to that part of the world while asking for peaceful solutions. However, one question Thomas asks has an answer. He asks: "When will the Arab-Muslims world…start getting (pride) from reconstructing a society that others would envy, an economy others would respect, and inventions and medical breakthroughs from which others would benefit?" I will rewrite what a Lebanese friend of mine told me. If a lot of these same Arab countries were educated, trained, and got their start in business in the U.S. and Europe, they would have evolved evolved at the same rate. Give any third-world country a highly educated population trained abroad, and you will see a remarkable success story.
The problem with the M.E. is that if we don’t start treating both sides fairly, we push the poorer Arab nations toward hard core fundamentalists units, recruiting uneducated people to do their dirty deeds. As long as one side educates one part and another more desperate side recuperates desperate souls, there will be a lot of turmoil.