speaking of tom friedman, this morning's column shows why you just shouldn't go there, how at the moment of the invasion of iraq (among others) he entirely discredited his own basic position. ok, so the false narrative absorbed by islamists is that the the west (u.s./us) is at war with islam. what true narrative should be put in its place? it's the tale of

two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny — in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

truly? so that's what we were doing in iraq, at abu ghraib, bagram, guantanomo? the purely selfless act of rescuing and freeing muslims? try this: "most of the Muslims being killed today are being killed by jihadist suicide bombers in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Indonesia, [but] you’d never know it from listening to their world." ok well. total up the casualties in iraq and afghanistan imposed by u.s. or "nato" forces and compare to the al qaeda death toll.

surely we can do better than explaining our situation in terms of a clash of two entirely self-serving fantasies? probably you need to ditch the "narrative" conceit and actually try to develop a sense of the complexities and contradictions of each of these situations. the instant explanation of everything is a friedman specialty and it gives you the sense that in 700 words you just came to understand the whole world. but as the term 'narrative' suggests, you just read a short work of fiction.