By Aaron Duffy

There is an old Bedouin legend that goes like this: An elderly Bedouin leader thought that by eating turkey he could restore his virility. So he bought a turkey, kept it by his tent and stuffed it with food every day. One day someone stole his turkey. The Bedouin elder called his sons together and told them: “Boys, we are in great danger. Someone has stolen my turkey.”

“Father,” the sons answered, “what do you need a turkey for?”

“Never mind,” he answered, “just get me back my turkey.” But the sons ignored him and a month later someone stole the old man’s camel.

“What should we do?” the sons asked.

“Find my turkey,” said the father. But the sons did nothing and, a few weeks after, the man’s daughter was raped.

The father said to his sons: “It is all because of the turkey. When they saw that they could take my turkey, we lost everything.”

America is that Bedouin elder, and for 20 years people have been taking our turkey.

There’s a lot more to fear than the threat of another terrorist attack. The times are complicated and world events are happening at a relative lightening pace. As America’s foreign policy with the Middle East grabs more and more headlines, it is now more crucial than ever that the public gets the most accurate information from the region. This has been a struggle with many reporters in the Middle East who aren’t plugged in and are easily misled in an area of the world where very few Americans have traveled. It is important to know where to find information and opinions that successfully unravel the complexities of this area of the world so that we can have the proper perspective of what, in actual fact, is going on so we can make well informed decisions.

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman has proven himself to be a trustworthy authority on the Middle East. “If I bring anything to the game (journalism),” Friedman said, “it’s a lot of experience in that part of the world, the Middle East and on the issue of globalization. I always try to shape my opinions by going places and looking at them first hand.” Winner of the 1989 National Book and the Overseas Press Awards for his book, From Beirut to Jerusalem and ten years later wrote, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Friedman is no stranger to the Middle East and he understands how the people in this part of the world “tick.”

Friedman, who has been a frequent guest on many hard news talk shows since September 11th, admits that he has won an audience of dedicated followers by “slowly building up a reputation as someone who is fair and as someone who is accurate. People know that when they deal with me that I will get the quote right, that whatever I think will be based upon fact and not some punch in the nose free style kind of journalism. I have my opinions,” he said, “but I think that everyone knows that my door is always open. I will always listen to counter arguments.”

His column in The New York Times appears twice a week and it is syndicated to 700 other newspapers worldwide. What follows is TeenSpeak’s interview with Mr. Friedman, who we have deemed a trustworthy voice.

Today, the US has a stake in a lot of pretty tough neighborhoods in the world, such as the Middle East, India, Pakistan, China and various areas throughout Eastern Europe. What do people in these areas think about Americans?

Friedman: Well it’s hard to generalize - but I suppose you could describe it as a kind of love-hate relationship. There’s enormous attraction to American schools, educational institutions, universities, movies, clothes, music, culture and Disney world - all the things that America presents to the world that are enormously alluring. At the same time there is resentment of American economic and political dominance, military dominance, and that produces a kind of love-hate relationship and you see that coming out in many ways in all of these areas.

Do they distinguish between us, as Americans, and American policy?

Friedman: I think generally. Certainly on a personal basis, whenever Americans, young and old travel to those areas (it has certainly been my experience) they are received warmly and without hostility, but that is not how people receive American policy many times in many of these areas. So in answer to your question, yes, they do distinguish.

How has our role in the world, or lack of one contributed to the terrorism that we experienced on 9/11?

Friedman: I don’t think it has contributed much at all in the sense that there is nothing we have done in Saudi Arabia, for example, that would in any way justify murdering 3000 innocent people and blowing up the World Trade Center in New York. There are people in Saudi Arabia who don’t want American troops to be present in that country. But the fact of the matter is that our troops are present there at the invitation of the government of Saudi Arabia and they were sent there initially to defend Saudi Arabia from invasion by Iraq during the Gulf War. So, if you listen to bin Laden, of course there is a connection and he wants to justify what he did to us on the basis of American troops being present in Saudi Arabia. But there is no moral connection - there is no conceivable equality between our having troops based in Saudi Arabia in a very limited way in a limited location at the behest of the Saudi government and the murdering of 3000 Americans.

What, aside from economic self interest has blind-sided us from seeing the inherent problems in these countries?

Friedman: Certainly economic self-interest has played a role. We kind of looked at a place, like Saudi Arabia as just a big dumb gas station where you are just supposed to drive up and pump the oil - but be indifferent to what’s going on in the back of the garage or behind the scenes or anywhere else. Because of that, we kind of took the view that what we didn’t know wouldn’t hurt us. Of course, it turned out that what we didn’t know hurt us very badly. We really weren’t following what was going on in Saudi schools and mosques and charities, etc. That’s not only economic it’s cultural. We are a big country. People who have power, often just don’t think about it. People who don’t have power, tend to think about it all the time. We have a lot of power and we interact with a lot of countries and we don’t get under the hood of a lot of countries. Partly it’s because we are so dominant, we just don’t have to - so, it’s not only economic self interest, sometimes it’s because we are too strong for our own good.

So it should have been our responsibility to be more sensitive to what we were doing in these countries?

Friedman: I think that the truth is that we were pretty sensitive to what we were doing in Saudi Arabia. You know the American troops that operate there are very limited in their ability to move off the base. Women who move off the base have to wear basically the same robe covering and veil as Saudi women, in fact there’s a US woman air force pilot who is suing the US Air Force over just that issue. So the fact is that I think we have been quite sensitive. Your question kind of suggests that this is somehow our fault - that the reason why they may dislike us is our fault. And I often hear that - why do they hate us. I tend to turn that on its head and ask why do I hate them? I don’t hate them. Why am I frustrated with them? Maybe that has to do with their own dictatorial regimes, their own enslavement of their women, their own lack of democracy, their own lack of transparency. Maybe we’re not the problem maybe they are the problem.

If you had to write a boilerplate statement about the terrorists mission on September 11th, what would it say?

Friedman: It would say senseless murder.

What about from their perspective? What was their mission and strategy?

Friedman: I think that their mission and strategy was to hopefully terrorize as many Americans as possible and trigger some kind of conflict between America and the Muslim world. That’s what they were trying to do. There are people who do believe in a war civilization and they really wanted to trigger some kind of harsh American response, and through that harsh response turn us into the biggest recruiter of all for Osama bin Laden. Fortunately President Bush responded in a much more selective, and I think strategically wise manner and we didn’t become bin Laden’s recruiter by simply stomping through the Arab world and Muslim world killing a lot of people.

Do you feel that Osama bin Laden has opened a Pandora’s box of possibilities for other countries in the Middle East, India, Pakistan, China, etc. to demonstrate their grievances?

Friedman: He has definitely raised the bar. He’s stretched people’s imagination as to the kinds of things that one could do against the United States. This is something that we have to be very concerned about. We’ve taken a lot of measures to try and defend against that - to stretch out own imagination defensively in tandem with the way he has stretched the imagination offensively. What he has done I find very worrying about the way he has pushed out the boundaries of violence and terrorism.

You have visited a lot of these troubled areas. Do you feel that we have to watch our backs?

Friedman: We always should be looking in the mirror asking how are we behaving. Are there things that we can do to ease our way in that part of the world? Culturally, we should be sensitive to other people’s faiths and their traditions - I certainly try to be when I travel to these countries, whether it’s how they relate to their own religion, their own tradition, to women, - I am sensitive to all of those things. I just draw the line at one thing. People should and can believe in whatever pathway to their God they want, but they must teach their children that the realization of their religious vision be done peacefully.

What has to happen before America is no longer the target of such hate from some of these countries?

Friedman: Well a lot of the reason that we are the target of hate is because these countries are in turmoil. They are countries run by dictatorial leaders who know that they are not legitimate leaders - they haven’t been elected in any kind of free or fair election, and often they turn the hate of their press or their politics on the United States as a way of deflecting it off of themselves. That’s a big part of the problem - It’s not who we are, it’s who they are and the role that we play in their own politics is kind of the conspiratorial scapegoat. We are like the geopolitical piñata for a lot of these countries. Their leaders and their press sometimes need to come and bash us just to release the tensions that are building up in their own societies because these are authoritarian societies where people don’t have a voice. They are free to do only two things - criticize America or criticize Israel.

It’s kind of like a sports competition where everyone wants to knock down the best team.

Friedman: Yeah, we are kind of like the Michael Jordan of geopolitics. Everyone wants to beat us - everyone measures themselves against us. Most of the league, like the NBA, however, doesn’t want to injure us and they understand that we are the league. But at the same time, we, like Michael Jordan have to understand we are nothing without the other 27 teams of the NBA. We may be the straw that serves the drinker, we may be the star that holds the league together, but the league needs to be aware that it’s great to compete with us but let’s do it within some civilizational bounds. At the same time, we have to understand that we need the world too, and we just can’t do it alone.

So how can we be better good will ambassadors around the world?

Friedman: Again, the easy cliché answer is that we need to be politically and culturally sensitive to other people’s needs and aspirations, but more importantly we need to stop being such pigs. We are 3 to 5% of the world’s population; we consume 25% of the world’s energy. Part of that is because we are such a dominant economy. The strength of our economy benefits many other economies. But certainly one thing we could do is to make ourselves more energy independent through conservation and through greater efficiency in how we use energy and oil in particular. I think that is something that would be good for us and good for the world.

What are the ethical and realistic responsibilities of the world’s greatest superpower to help countries that do and don’t want our help?

Friedman: Well the countries that don’t want our help - there’s not much we can do. To those countries that do want our help we need to always keep looking to give a hand up and a hand out to people who are left behind. We are the greatest beneficiaries of today’s international system and therefore, we have an enormous interest I think, over anyone else, in sustaining the system. Part of sustaining the system is with a hidden fist because somebody needs to beat back the bad guys. Part of it is with a hidden hand and that is standing (open) markets and trade so other people can work and grow their way into the system. And the last thing is with an open hand, a hand out and a hand up to bring people in who are left behind, the know-nots and the have-nots because if we don’t visit a bad neighborhood, it will visit us. That’s one of the real messages of September 11th.

So, should we try to do this alone or as a multinational coalition?

Friedman: I think it’s always better to do it as a coalition, but the reality is that you will never have partners unless you show yourself ready to go it alone. We will always be more effective if we have partners, but we will never have partners unless we show people that we are ready to go it alone.

The Israeli/Palestinian situation continues to deteriorate. What needs to be said and done that hasn’t already been said and done?

Friedman: Nothing. We are basically at the end of the road. I am personally all out of ideas. I think Yasir Arafat has really blown it as a Palestinian leader. And I think that we are now into the realm of biology, not in the realm of diplomacy. I think people are just waiting for him to pass away.

How do you feel that your role as a journalist has helped to bring about change?

Friedman: I don’t have any grandiloquent views about my role as a journalist. I am just one columnist for The New York Times trying to make sense of things the best I can. You can agree or disagree with what I said from Kabul, but I always say, give me credit for one thing, I said it from Kabul and I said it after looking around, taking my own measure of the lay of the land and then deciding what my opinion was. So the best opinions are grounded in good reporting. Those are the ones that when you shape it right, express yourself the way you want, you can have the most force and power.

How do you gain people’s trust?

Friedman: This is my column and my column is my currency. It’s out there all the time, and over time, people get a sense from reading your column that you haven’t been misleading them, that your opinions are based on solid reporting, that you’re batting more things right than wrong - and over time that builds up. The more you build credibility with people in your column, actually the more powerful you become. That’s really key to a columnist becoming influential. You are not influential because you are in The Washington Post or The New York Times or The Los Angeles Times, a lot of people are there. You are influential only if people perceive over time that other people are reading your column and taking it seriously. If that’s what people perceive, then they are going to want to be in your column because they will understand that your column is a valuable currency - that if they don’t talk to you, they will be far more disadvantaged than if they do. I’m just this little guy from Minnesota, and I am not tall dark and handsome. I can’t sing or dance and I can’t play the guitar. I can’t bribe you into talking with me.

Under Secretary Charlotte Beers is charged with the responsibility of sending a better brand message of who we are as Americans around the world. If you were in her position, what would your brand message be?

Friedman: I think who we are is basically a very open and generous people who are trying to build a society where more people in more places on more days achieve their potential whatever that potential may be. This isn’t heaven. We’re not perfect. But, there isn’t another country in the world that I would want to live in. Our message has to be that we are ready to work with other countries that understand that about America and respect that about America. We are always ready to welcome people to our shores who understand that and recognize that about America. Those who don’t understand that will find that we are slow to anger, but like all democracies - when we do get angry, we can make a fist. We can work together here. This isn’t Afghanistan. When a democratic society like the United States makes a fist, it can be a very powerful thing.