Dear Tom Friedman:

Your New York Times Op/Ed piece yesterday, “Dubai and Dunces”, comes very close to sounding rational. If you weren’t always wrong about Iraq, and if the Bush administration’s unnecessary and disastrous war hadn’t sown the seeds of mistrust for all Arabs in the hearts and minds of Americans, your “Arab businessman friend” would make complete sense. He said the US “could not have a better friend and more of a symbol of globalization and openness” than Dubai. But you are always wrong about Iraq. And the Bush administration is the reason Americans are wary of deals with Arabs. So once again, your article comes to us from Tom Friedman’s virtual world. Which is nine-tenths wishful thinking and one-tenth based on your having lived in the Middle East for seven years twenty years ago. The readership for your column has dwindled now that people have to either buy a print edition of the NYT or pay an onerous fee to read the Op/Ed columnists online. That’s because the NYT made a decision based on financial considerations rather than the public good. And that is a very neat metaphor for what the Bush administration has done to the United States. The unfortunate decision to attack Iraq has bankrupted the USA, which, prior to the reign of George W. Bush was in good shape financially and had a good reputation throughout the world. In order to finance the Bush war in Iraq the US has had to sell itself to foreign governments. The US needs $4 billion A DAY in FOREIGN MONEY to make up for its budget and trade deficits. As CNN’s Christine Romans told us on February 22nd, “The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is a major investor in The Carlyle Group, the private equity investment firm where President Bush's father once served as senior adviser and is a who's who of former high-level government officials. Just last year, Dubai International Capital, a government-backed buyout firm, invested in an $8 billion Carlyle fund.” You see, Mr. Friedman, the failed Dubai deal has brought all this information out into the open. Like children who were kept in the dark about their family’s business being bought by foreign businessmen, the American people didn’t realize what had been going on. Stopping the Dubai deal is symbolic. The American people’s eyes have been opened and we are saying, WE DON’T LIKE WHERE GEORGE W. BUSH HAS TAKEN US! It’s the circumstances under which we found out the truth that sticks in our craw. I grant you, this so-called globalization would have been inevitable whether George Bush or Jesus Christ was president of the United States. But George Bush and his cronies have lied and deceived and killed American soldiers for no reason other than stupidity and greed, and Americans don’t like what they are finding out or the way in which they have gotten the news. I have to quote your article, since so many people don’t have the chance to read it. You say, “Dubaians are building a future based on butter not guns, private property not caprice, services more than oil, and globally competitive companies, not terror networks. Dubai is about nurturing Arab dignity through success not suicide. As a result, its people want to embrace the future, not blow it up.” Fine. Or, it would be fine, if on this side of the world, the same could be said for the Bush administration. But our White House has not only fouled its own nest, it has fouled our perception of the Arab world. You end your article with a supremely Friedmanesque statement: “So whatever happens with the Iraq experiment—but especially if it fails—we need Dubai to succeed.” Experiment? IF it fails? Good Godalmighty, you educated moron, Iraq is no laboratory test tube. The war in Iraq and the selling of the war in Iraq as humane intervention is A TOTAL FAILURE! It started out as a huge lie, progressed through massive mistakes and missteps and now has deteriorated into chaos and anarchy that has poisoned the entire region. And that is why Americans didn’t like the Dubai deal. We needed to say NO! to the Bush administration that has squandered our birthright and our children’s future. Pull your head out of your ass for just five minutes, Tom Friedman. Take a look at what the Bush administration has done to us and to the world.