Deconstructing Tomas Friedman
Tomas Friedman, well known for his trademark predictions that the “next six months will be crucial” in Iraq (predictions he made for years) and for his apparently composing books on global trends based on conversations with a single taxi driver in some foreign country has another fine example of reasoning in his column of May 11th.
He’s writing about Hezbollah and says:
On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah fighters directed by Nasrallah abducted two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in an unprovoked attack across the Lebanon0Israel boardre, on the pretext of seeking a prisoner exchange.Yo, Tom: if he was “seeking a prisoner exchange” than that would tend to imply that Israel had Hezbollah prisoners which would tend to imply that Israel had engaged in some military activity against Hezbollah would tend to imply that ... Hezbollah’s raid was not “unprovoked.”
Let me know if any of the words I’m using are too big.