Truth, Lies and TLF (Giddyup!)

It may be a sign of the looming Apocalypse that in his column today Thomas L. Friedman quotes Victor Davis Hanson. Favourably. In a piece from the National Review.

That's at least three out of four horseman, no?

But lest you think TLF has finally gotten religion (so to speak) re the reality of the Arab Spring (a season about which he gushed with wild abandon not that long ago), some lapses in analysis show that we're still dealing with the same old addlepated Tom. For instance, there's this:

The young Egyptians who drove the revolution are desperate for the educational tools and freedom to succeed in the modern world. Our response should have been to shift our aid money from military equipment to building science-and-technology high schools and community colleges across Egypt.

Yeah, that would work. Especially since I'm sure you could count on the junta and the Muslim Brotherhood to ensure that that's where the moolah went. Then there's this:

In Pakistan, we pay the Pakistani Army to be two-faced, otherwise it would be only one-faced and totally against us. In Bahrain, we looked the other way while ruling Sunni hard-liners crushed a Shiite-led movement for more power-sharing, and we silently watch our ally Israel build more settlements in the West Bank that we know are a disaster for its Jewish democracy.       

But we don’t tell Pakistan the truth because it has nukes. We don’t tell the Saudis the truth because we’re addicted to their oil. We don’t tell Bahrain the truth because we need its naval base. We don’t tell Egypt the truth because we’re afraid it will walk from Camp David. We don’t tell Israel the truth because it has votes. And we don’t tell Karzai the truth because Obama is afraid John McCain will call him a wimp.         

The truth? Oh, please. Tom wouldn't know the truth about Israel (and the idiocy of lumping it in with Pakistan, Bahrain, Afghanistan and Egypt) if it bumped into him in the VIP departure lounge of the Singapore airport and offered to buy him a Mai Tai. Or whatever he's drinking these days.

The truth is that an Iron Veil has descended on Egypt and other parts of the Arab/Muslim world. How about dealing with that truth for a change, Tom?