The danger inherent in op-ed writers like the New York Times' Thomas Friedman is that they fashion themselves as King Makers or at the very least as policy movers. Thus, we see Friedman's latest attempt to hoist the Saudi proposal up from its absurd supine position in the blood and muck of terror and lies often financed by the Saudis themselves into a legitimate policy for the U.S. What prevents Friedman's editorial efforts from finding their way to fish wrapper as is deserved by his paper medium is that the real policy makers actually take the bait, hook, line and sinker.

The core of this problem is that people, and this includes those "policy makers" at Foggy Bottom and Pennsylvania Avenue, neither consider the real factual implications of the Friedman and Friedman-like assertions nor do they hold such opiners accountable for outright lies and misstatement of historical fact. We do.

Example:

Friedman's entire world view, and especially his view of the Middle East or what might be termed the "Islam" issue, is simply stated as follows: What creates violence and mayhem in the world is not a universal political ideology akin to Marxism masquerading in an Islamic turban but rather the difference between those who share in the post-modern dream world of the global village and those who do not. The have-nots are jealous and angry at those who have and more importantly, the have-not leaders, despots that they are, use this anger and jealously to project the violence that would otherwise overthrow them onto those nations that do have.

Friedman terms this the battle between the Olive Trees and the Lexus. Now, there is no coincidence that the olive tree is a key symbol in the Middle and Near East.

To this descriptive analysis of the problem, Friedman pins his treatment modality of choice. If only we, those that have, could by friendship, foreign aid, cajolery, threat and even force, enlighten the have-nots and their leaders that the Lexus dream is very much attainable via modern pluralistic democracy, then all of this terror, violence and mayhem would just melt away in the self-interest to maintain the warranty of the newly acquired luxury sedan. The fact that Friedman and others of his ilk ignore is the rather important point that just like the communists before them, the Islamists have no intention of embracing pluralism or democracy. Pointing to a few "reform" Islamists in a few academic or political positions in the West, will not change the hearts and minds of a billion Islamists dreaming of One Islamic Universal State preaching the good if not murderous word of the prophet.

To make his point, Friedman simply distorts reality, as did so many liberals when they defended communism and socialism during the heyday of the Cold War. Thus, in a November 20, 2001, op-ed, Friedman proudly pointed to India as an example of a huge Moslem minority (12% of 1 billion people) among a Hindu-dominated population living peacefully in the heart of a thriving if not noisy democracy. This was simply factual hogwash. Indeed, in several NBNs, we made this point at the time (see NBNs "A True Believer" and "Terror in India;" see also "Finally a Poll Worth Noting"). Freidman's entire world view is based on the very false premise that there is such a thing as a peaceful democratic Islam. While there most certainly are a handful of such Moslems, notably in the United States, Islam itself, the Islam practiced by over a billion Moslems, is hardly that.

One needs very little additional evidence of this. Notwithstanding, we can see it every day. Thus, in India, Moslems and Hindus are at war after Moslem terrorists set a bus alight burning men, women and children "in protest" over the proposed building of a Hindu temple on a purported holy Moslem site. Of course, this is precisely what Moslems have been doing the world over in places like Israel and Bosnia. Whether the Holy Temple Mount, the grave site of Samuel the Prophet or the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Moslems take ownership of other religions' holy sites and then murder those who would return them to their original faith.

But alas, we will read no mea culpa from our King Maker at the New York Times. He is too busy making sure he is the center of attention generating yet another false dream that if only we could embrace the Saudi proposal we could find our way to a peaceful Islam.