Friedman Is Back as Midwife to Help Trump Rebirth Middle East

FAIR

It is not often that I check the New York Times Opinion page to see what the paper’s three-time Pulitzer Prize–winning and mansion-dwelling foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman is up to. After all, I feel I’ve already exceeded my quota for masochism by wasting a full year of my life writing a book about the man, source of such ideas as that McDonald’s is the key to world peace, and that Iraqis needed to “Suck. On. This” as punishment for the 9/11 attacks—an event Friedman himself admitted Iraq had nothing to do with.

Employed in various posts at the United States’ newspaper of record since 1981—including as bureau chief in both Beirut and Jerusalem—Friedman has just entered his 30th year as foreign affairs columnist. His imperial imperiousness and pompous dedication to Orientalism came under fire from the get-go from none other than Edward Said . . . in a 1989 Village Voice intervention (10/17/89), titled “The Orientalist Express” . . .

I checked up on Friedman on January 21, the day after Donald Trump’s reinauguration. Sure enough, there was his very first column of 2025, headlined: “President Trump, You Can Remake the Middle East if You Dare.” In other words, it was the latest version of how much better everyone could be doing if they paid attention to the self-appointed secretary of humanity. READ MORE AT FAIR. 

Media Hype Set Up Tren de Aragua to Serve as Trump’s New Bogeyman

 FAIR

A CNN headline (6/10/24) last June menacingly warned readers about the United States’s latest dial-a-bogeyman, guaranteed to further whip up anti-immigrant vitriol in the country and justify ever more punitive border fortification: “This Is the Dangerous Venezuelan Gang Infiltrating the US That You Probably Know Nothing About But Should.”

The gang in question was Tren de Aragua, which formed in Tocorón prison in the Venezuelan state of Aragua, and spread to various South American countries before allegedly setting its sights on the US. Now the organization that you probably knew nothing about has achieved such a level of notoriety that President Donald Trump issued an executive order on his first day of returning to office, declaring the group (along with other regional drug cartels and gangs) to be a “foreign terrorist organization.”

 Although there is approximately zero evidence of a smoking gun on the old terror front, the corporate media are doing their best to bring fantasy to life. And as usual, it's the average refuge seeker who will suffer for it. READ MORE AT FAIR.

Mars, watch out — Trump’s coming for you too

 Al Jazeera English

It was a cold day yesterday in Washington, DC, when Donald Trump was sworn in for his second stint as president of the United States of America. On account of freezing temperatures, the inauguration ceremony was moved indoors to the Capitol Rotunda, and the weather became a primary focus of much pre-inauguration media commentary.

The Reuters news agency reported that this was “one of the coldest inauguration days the US has experienced in the past few decades”, while also providing other crucial ceremony updates such as that “Mike Tyson snacked on a banana in the overflow room”.

I, myself, watched the event on my computer in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, where it is precisely the opposite of cold and where I have spent the past several days battling the scorpion population that has taken up residence in my house. By the end of Trump’s swearing-in, however, I was undecided as to what was less pleasant: killing scorpions or watching the next episode of American dystopia unfold. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH

Trump versus the Gulf of Mexico

 Al Jazeera English

This month during a rambling news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate, United States President-elect Donald Trump announced his latest vision for revising the map of the world: “We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring.”

He went on to reiterate approvingly: “That covers a lot of territory, the Gulf of America. What a beautiful name.”

The Gulf of Mexico, which runs along much of Mexico’s eastern coastline and abuts five southern US states, is a key international hub for shipping, fishing, oil drilling and other commercial activity. The body of water was christened as such more than four centuries ago before either the US or Mexico existed.

Of course, a unilateral renaming of the gulf by the US president would not require endorsement by Mexico or any other country. Additional cartographic adjustments recently floated by the incoming leader include seizing the Panama Canal, wresting away control of Greenland and annexing Canada. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.

Donald Trump and the great Panama Canal tantrum

Al Jazeera English

As he gears up to retake the presidency of the United States this month, Donald Trump has spontaneously begun threatening to retake the Panama Canal, as well.

Per the incoming president’s recent tantrums on social media, Panama is “ripping off” the US with “ridiculous” fees to use the interoceanic waterway and principal conduit for global commerce. As Trump sees it, the Central American country’s behaviour is especially objectionable “knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to Panama by the US”.

Trump has also baselessly alleged that Chinese troops are currently operating the canal. In reality, of course, the Panama Canal was previously operated by none other than the United States, which built the canal at the beginning of the 20th century and only handed over control to Panama in 1999.

As for the “extraordinary generosity” allegedly extended to the country by the friendly local superpower, just recall the US military’s so-called “Operation Just Cause”, launched in December 1989, thanks to which the impoverished neighbourhood of El Chorrillo in the Panamanian capital of Panama City earned the moniker “Little Hiroshima”. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.