This is the first time that I recall Friedman making the statement...

[whistle]

...that Iraqi insurgents are fascist. Is that now the MSM position on who comprise the insurgents in Iraq and what their political position really is?

<snip>

January 13, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST - NYT
Ballots and Boycotts
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

<snip>
There is only one thing that will enable the Sunni moderates in Iraq to win the debate, and that is when the fascist insurgents are forced to confront the fact that their tactics have not only failed to prevent the elections, but have also dug the Sunnis of Iraq into an even deeper hole.

By boycotting the elections, not only will they lose their unfair share of the old Iraq, they will also have failed to claim even their fair share of the new Iraq. The moderate argument among the Sunnis can prevail only when the tactics of their extremists have proved utterly bankrupt.

For all these reasons, the least bad option right now for the U.S. is to forge ahead with the elections - unless the Iraqi Shiites ask for a postponement - and focus all of America's energies not on appeasing the fascist insurgents, but on moderating the Shiites and Kurds, who are sure to dominate the voting.

<more> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/opinion/13friedman.html?th

Compare Friedman's eight basic rules of journalism to the guidelines which define a fascist regime/political policy:

<snip>

How do you define fascism?
A primer for telling one side from the other in the coming war
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
03/09/03
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Politics/fascism.htm
Bush Busta, a Weaselish sort, was engaged in a favorite activity of the Usenet’s mustelids: he was dismantling a right winger in debate. The right winger, a lofty sort who likes to refer to himself as a "capitalist pig" had loftily proclaimed that Saddam was a fascist.

Busta wanted to know what made Saddam a fascist, and asked if El Cochino could describe fascism, and how Saddam fit into it.

"Read the newspapers", El Cochino loftily proclaimed.

"Newspapers define fascism?" Busta wanted to know.

American papers don’t like to talk about fascism much.

I started thinking about that. What is fascism?

Mussolini said that fascism should more properly be called "corporatism" since it was, under Mussolini, a blending of state and corporate power. Mussolini ought to know; he was the first fascist leader. As an economic system, fascism was widely admired in the west (Churchill considered Mussolini "a great man" and liked the economic aspects of fascism). In America fascism was, unsurprisingly, extremely popular among the upper class. The leading advocates of a fascist economic system to fight the depression – Germany in the late thirties had beaten the depression – were the Bush family and other elite clans. There was even a weird kind of half-assed coup attempt staged against FDR by those same interests in the mid thirties. Fascism isn’t a puppet of the ruling class. It is an extension.

Definition one: it is an economic system in which corporations (or the wealthy elite) are essentially the government and vice versa.

But there are other elements.

For example, it takes a republican form of government. A monarchy can often be similar to a fascist state, with an aristocracy instead of CEOs as the financial support for the throne. Fascist states often have some of the attributes of a republic familiar to Americans: a popular vote (albeit it often a sham), So definition two: it’s a republic, not a monarchy.

Fascism places the state foremost. The country does not serve the citizen; the citizen serves the country. The notion of plebeian sovereignty is utterly foreign to a fascist regime. This, of course, means that fascism is noted for its extreme nationalism, often taking patriotic displays and political art to absurd levels. The best-known example is Hitler’s Germany, which featured incredible national architecture, mass rallies, and the flag and national symbols every where. The leader (fascism usually has a single individual at the top who may or may not exercise absolute authority, and may even be a puppet) is equated to the nation. Mussolini WAS Italy. Hitler WAS Germany. Franco WAS Spain. Definition three: fascism has extreme nationalism.

Everyone thinks of Hitler when you say the word "fascism", but in fact, he was an atypical example. Hitler’s self-aggrandizing and increasingly lawless regime didn’t really fit on any of the political charts. While fascist regimes are, because of the lack of accountability, usually thuggish and corrupt, they don’t necessarily become the genocidal nightmares of mass death that Germany inflicted on the world in the 1930s and 1940s. Definition four: Nazism was fascism, but fascism isn’t necessarily Nazism.

Fascist regimes are hostile to liberalism, intellectuals, trade unions, and dissent. Such regimes usually erect these groups as "inner enemies of the state." Sometimes racial or ethnic groups, those that are a visible minority within the country, are singled out as "the rot from within." This usually leads to institutional persecution and abuse. And foreign nations are often pointed out as an imminent danger to the Fatherland, and if the regime has the military power, they will often attack other nations "out of self-defense." Definition five: Fascist regimes erect enemies, inside and out.

While considering themselves traditional and conservative, fascist regimes usually are neither, often invoking a golden past that is either romanticized beyond any rational historian’s view, and painting an idyllic past, often one eventually corrupted by the target groups. They proceed to blame these groups bitterly for this wonderful past that never was, and vow to restore the Fatherland to its greatness.

Nor are they by any stretch of the definition conservative, even though they embrace the term avidly. While conservatives believe in orderly and deliberate procedures and resist change, fascists seek to upset the existing order and institute wild and far-ranging change, often inverting the entire structure of society. Conservatives are often attracted to rule of law, whereas fascists disdain it, seeking to rid the courts of independent "liberal" judges, and eliminating as much of the public’s right to redress as they possibly can. Definition six: fascism is not conservative, but is rather radical and reactionary.

Fascism depends on propaganda, rather than information. This stems, in part, from the discontinuity of its self-described features (conservative, traditionalist) and in part because its aims are often at variance with the public weal, and, quite simply, it has to lie in order to get any public support. Thus, it will corrupt the media if the media was free to begin with, and set about redefining public institutions and government apparatus and actions to suit itself, an activity made famous by the George Orwell term, "Newspeak". Definition seven: fascism depends on propaganda and lies for public support.

So, let’s recap. Fascism:



Is an economic system geared to the needs, not of the people, but of the wealthy elite.

It is a republican form of government

It features extreme forms of nationalism.

While Nazism is a form of fascism, fascism is not Nazism.

Fascism creates "enemies of the fatherland" in order to gain public support. These "enemies" usually include liberals, socialists, trade unionists, and conspicuous minority groups.

Fascism is not conservative, although it often claims to be traditional.

Fascism will replace a free press with propaganda.

<link> http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Politics/fascism.htm

Also find at: http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm

The Fourteen Points of Fascism

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4. Supremacy of the Military
5. Rampant Sexism
6. Controlled Mass Media
7. Obsession with National Security
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
9. Corporate Power is Protected
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14. Fraudulent Elections

Wake up America, the New World Order is fascism and it is us!

[Journeyman]

1. I'd say Friedman's just a lazy journalist. . .

who picked the first pejorative term that came to mind and applied it to a group of people he little understands.

[reprehensor]

3. No, he's just a shill.

;)

You are denigrating the five or six good journalists left in the world when you call a professional shill like Tom a 'journalist'.

I wonder if Tom is on the 1st Family of Crime's payroll...

[Kolesar]

4. Friedman has credibility for years of reporting from the middle east

However, labeling them as "fascists" shows that he is still prone to a cranial-rectal impaction. Good catch on the part of Whistle.

[Journeyman]

5. I stand corrected. . .

On further reflection, Friedman's just a lazy ass with no credibility.

;)

[reprehensor]

2. Tom is just silly.

The common term that conservatives like to throw around is 'Islamo-fascist'. Looks like Tom just shortened it.

He wouldn't recognize a fascist if he looked in the mirror.

If Bush was serious about curtailing Islamist influence in the world, then he would denounce the House of Saud, and work toward establishing real democracy there.

Of course that would probably end up in a religious state like Iran.

If Bush was serious... Ha! Who am I kidding? He's a corporate meat puppet!

[punpirate]

6. Friedman chooses to...

... define all Sunnis as fascists, where, in fact, not all Sunnis are Ba'athists, which I think he intends to suggest here.

In strict terms, the Ba'athist government of Hussein was dictatorial and somewhat totalitarian, but hardly fascist, since Hussein did not tolerate much cooperation with outside for-profit corporations, preferring instead the socialization of industry in Iraq. By contrast, Allawi, a former Ba'athist, is actively seeking a fascist government which uses propaganda, police power and outside force to prop him up in exchange for corporate influence (mostly US corporate influence) upon his government.

Friedman, as so often in the past, has simply gotten it wrong, in his attempt to validate all US actions as legitimate.

[KittyWampus]

7. Not Every Militant In Iraq Is A "Freedom Fighter". But To Label Terrorists

'fascists' is just plain incorrect.

[The Zanti Regent]

8. Mr. Likud, why is the pot calling the kettle black?

If Tommy wants to know what a fascist is, all he has to do is look at his ugly face in any mirror.

[UL_Approved]

9. A slip, or an attempted paradigm hijacking?

Is this just a bumbling idiot with a computer, or is this the start of a new line of propaganda to feed people?

Looks like the Jewish-Soviet conspiracy in its early stages, just rearranged to apply to our situation.

[neweurope]

10. Interestingly I first heard the Bushistas referring to Muslims as

"Islamo-fascists" when people who were regarded as serious enemies (other than us bloggers) by the government said they were afraid of the government turning fascist.

It's an old ruse and it works: Call the other what you yourself are. Just yesterday or the day before somebody posted something about the freepers calling Democrats fascists, saying they went right by the book "Mein Kampf"... The freepers have already picked it up. And today we heard for the first time ANSWER being called terrorist - "they support Hussein". Watch how that one will gain momentum.

------------------

Remember Fallujah
Bush to The Hague!