Smoking and the smoking gun

Tom Coates of plasticbag.org attacks the ill-informed anti-European predjudices expressed recently by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times. As one commenter notes, Tom Coates has probably spent much more time analysing that piece of nonsense that the original author spent scribbling it.

I find something worrying about many American conservatives, including some bloggers. Perhaps it's a consequence of the disarray of the American left, but there's a level of puffed-up self-confidence bordering on hubris; a refusal to consider that any of their ideas could or should be questioned, the idea that anyone that disagrees with them is an 'idiotarian'. And when it comes to the issue of war on Iraq, well, as Tom Coates says in his addendum:

This article has been discussed by a wide variety of different sites from all sides of the political spectrum. I want to openly deny at this stage an allegiance with either the pro or anti-war lobbies. I have yet to fully make up my mind about the need, the expediency, the pragamatics or the morality of a potential conflict. What I have made up my mind about is that it's too bloody serious an issue to let people sloganeer, to have individuals try and shut down necessary debate or to dismiss opposing viewpoints as the products of selfish, diseased or un-Christian degenerates. Thousands of people are likely to be killed as a result of this action - it's immoral not to agonise over whether it's the right decision or not.