Magic of metaphors : Op-Ed Journey of Thomas Friedman

hamidm: If Friedman is getting Fried by both Hamidm and Madani, then I assume it is OK that I havent read any of his stuff.

Re: # 16

ahmedmadani sahib,

....... i fully agree with you - tom friedman is the quintessential consultant and would also make a fine prostitute ..... as long as the client pays the full hourly rate, we will tell him anything he wants to hear .....

Re: # 17

bj mian,

.... you idiot! ... i am not blaming any messenger - the only messenger i blame is gabriel, who garbled al-lah's message and landed us in this fine mess .......... i just don't like hindoos with bad hairdos and tom friedman who has an eerie resemblance to romair ........ that's all

.... the problem with you hindoos is that you suffer from a terrible sense of insecurity and, like stuart smalley, have to keep on seeking affirmation by comparing yourself to us miserable pakis instead of real people like the swedes and chinese .......

now, repeat after me :"I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me"

The success of thoma friedman is due to his name, many confuse him with Milton Friedman the economist

Hamidm2 miaN,

You can keep blaming the messenger - but for how long?!!

Sooner or later, you have to deal with the message.

And the message is highly depressing!

Pakistan's Embattled Mosque Reopens With Fresh Momentum

By Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 14, 2007; A20

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Three months after a bloody commando raid shuttered a haven for radicalism in the heart of this mild-mannered city, the Red Mosque is open again. And in some ways, little has changed.

At prayers this month, calls for Islamic revolution once again echoed from the minarets. Worshipers talked of overthrowing the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in favor of a Taliban-style government. Many wore the red knit prayer caps long favored by Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the firebrand cleric who was killed in the last hours of a nine-day standoff that transfixed Pakistan and seemed to embody the country's struggle with religious extremism.

But here's what was different at the Red Mosque: The crowd that turned out for prayers, relatively modest in size before the siege, spilled out of the mosque and into the courtyard. It continued down the street and filled an adjacent park. Afterward, impassioned worshipers talked about how they had come to honor the "thousands" who had died. (Government estimates put the number of dead at 103.) They walked the adjacent grounds where the girls' madrassa, or religious school, once stood, sifting the rubble for bits of bloodstained masonry. And they said a special prayer for the Red Mosque martyrs, at which point almost everyone began to weep.

The government had hoped that raiding the Red Mosque would strike a powerful blow against radical religious groups in Pakistan.

Instead, the mosque has become a memorial, a rallying cry and a propaganda tool for those groups, giving them more recruits and fresh momentum to unleash vicious attacks. Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have both dwelt on the Red Mosque in recordings that call for jihad against Musharraf. Their pleas have been answered in a surge of violence that has claimed more than 1,000 lives and has turned even more Pakistani territory into hostile terrain for the country's army.

Until a couple of weeks ago, the government could at least boast about the tactical victory of retaining control over the mosque itself. But after an aborted reopening in July that ended with the government-appointed cleric fleeing an angry mob, the mosque was returned to the group that operated it before the raid.

On Oct. 3, policemen peeled back layers of barbed wire, and forklifts hoisted away the roadblocks that had encircled the mosque for months. Hundreds of followers of Ghazi and his brother, the imprisoned Maulana Abdul Aziz, streamed in, many flashing victory signs.

"Inshallah" -- God willing -- "this mosque will be exactly the same as it was before. If it is not the same, then we will make it the same," said Abdullah Rahman, 20, an electrical engineering student with a scraggly beard and a red knit cap. "Ghazi was martyred because of the truth. Jihad is the truth. So if the same situation comes again, we will be ready to face it. Even more ready than before."

Syed Ali Hussain, also a student, agreed. Two years ago, he said, he believed "Islam was a religion of terrorists." But after listening to leaders such as Ghazi, he came around to their point of view. The United States and Musharraf, he said, are like burglars who break into a house and then are surprised when they are met with violence. "If the owner of that house defends himself, he should not be called a terrorist," said Hussain, 23, who spent the first two days of the siege in the mosque but was then sent home because there were not enough weapons. "Newton once said that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

While the faithful said their prayers, vendors set up shop in the mosque's courtyard, selling a pamphlet written by Umme Hassan, Aziz's wife. The cover features an elaborately doctored image of the mosque under fire from attack helicopters and tanks. The mosque burns, blood drips down the page, and the headline reminds readers, "The martyrs say to you: Don't forget our sacrifice."

Within the pamphlet, Hassan, who ran the girls' school, offers her version of events. She tells how the government provoked the standoff and how her girls suffered once it began. They ran out of food and water after just two days, she writes, and anyone who ventured out into the open to find new supplies was instantly shot.

The government has told a much different story. The confrontation, the government says, was instigated entirely by the mosque's clerics, who were abducting prostitutes and police officers as part of their campaign to enforce Islamic law. Security forces were only reluctantly sent in to keep the peace, and once they laid their siege, they did everything possible to spare innocent lives while they battled heavily armed radical fighters. The clerics were well prepared for a fight they knew was coming and had stocked up on food and water, as well as weapons, officials have said.

But the government's version is not the one many people have chosen to believe.

In addition to the longtime followers of Ghazi and Aziz, huge numbers of newcomers have been attracted to prayer at the Red Mosque. A week ago Friday, the Islamic holy day, crowds were estimated at 20,000. This Friday, they remained much larger than usual.

"I had never said my prayers here," said Ubaid ur-Rehman, 25. "But today I came because there was great cruelty here. When it comes into my mind what happened here, my heart is filled with sadness."

Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said the government was forced to reopen the mosque by a Supreme Court order. Turning it over to its former management, he said, is only "a temporary arrangement."

For now, however, the followers of Aziz and Ghazi are making themselves at home. The new clerics -- one is a relative of Aziz, and the other is a teacher at the boys' madrassa -- have vowed to repaint the mosque its signature red after the government redecorated with a soft yellow.

At prayers this month, they played a recording from Aziz that was made in prison.

"Hundreds of people died here because they wanted to achieve Islamic revolution," Aziz's voice thundered over the loudspeakers. "This was the start of the Islamic movement in Pakistan."

But for all the rhetoric, the crowd was peaceful.

Many were in a jubilant mood when they arrived but turned somber as they gazed at the weedy field where the girls' school once stood. The school bore the brunt of the fighting, and the government demolished what was left when the siege ended.

After the formal prayers ended, the new clerics asked everyone to sit down in the field to remember those who had died. The sobs spread through the crowd, quietly at first, then like a torrent that swept up everyone, young and old alike.

"Just as Ground Zero is sacred, this place is sacred as well," said Parwaz Abbasi, a middle-aged businessman. "There was a great massacre here."

Afterward, a group of forlorn-looking men remained to wander through the rubble, occasionally bending down to scoop up a handful of soil, bring it close to the face and inhale the scent of martyrs.

Re: # 15 Hamid as cosultant you can appreciate how he packages his drive through observations and markets. That is called businessmanship amrketing of high order.

sometimes pakis and hindoos exchanging insults reminds me of two men with bad comb-overs making fun of each other's hairstyles .......

.... anyway, i must thank arjun for keeping track of romair's inanities over the years ....... i wish somone would do the same for tom friedman - an empty suit who picks up some silly idea based on a drive-by view and then goes around pontificating on it as if he was a fuckin scholar or womething ...... how romairesque! ........ and what really bothers me is that people actually think the man knows what the fuck he is talking about ..... like they say, a fool is born every minute ......

'It is either possible to appreciate Friedman's idea, or to know a fact, but never both at the same time'...... how true

arjun # 6 "I can understand your frustration to...in NYC, you're the cab driver and your rich wall street passenger is probably jewish...what's the matter? he didn't tip you well? maybe if you took a shower once in a while.. "

huh? I am sure you are being funny here, and I give you a passing grade for that. I also realize that this is an era of talking in sound bites and cliches, and I give you passing grade on that too. But could you please point me to which aspect of my post #4 do you disgree with?

Tom Friedman is much more reasonable in his arguments than many other American journalists. There are others who I respect a lot less - to name a few Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, George Will, Bill Bennett, Bill OReilly and Ann Coulter. The trouble I have with a lot of these folks is that they demonize those who don't share their world view. I was horrified when Ann Coulter mocked Senator Max Cleland's Vietnam war service by saying that his disability occured because of an accident and that he was no hero. Here's a gal who professes to honor and respect our troops, yet she smears a silver star veteran who lost three limbs in Vietnam.

Re: # 7,
I would agree with arjun on that one!

Re: # 7

arjun:

ROFL.. is this from when you coined the slogan "pakis are delusional

Ahmedmadani sahib, I forgot to add...

I hope you have a good Eid!

#8 ahmedmadani

Ahmedmadani sahib, you are well-intentioned but mistaken. Here are the realities:

(1) The K problem is not solved because it can not be solved because at its root it is a problem of religious fanaticism (and anybody who denies that obvious reality is intellectually dishonest). Therefore, the K-problem has not been solved because such problems can not be “solved� except the way you guys have “solved� them in Pakistan – and the Indians have given up trying to solve it because they do not like your solution.

(2) The K-problem is not hurting India more than Pakistan, the reverse is true.

(3) The oil/gas pipeline carrot will not work with India – because most Indians think that the country of Pakistan and its leaders are dishonest crooks who do not have the ability to even acknowledge the wrongs they have committed – what to think of setting those wrongs right. Therefore, relying on Pakistani “good faith� is little different from asking the local bully to safeguard your daughter’s honor!

(4) The above facts do not change no matter who leads (or more likely, grabs power in) Pakistan.

(5) Pakistan is a small country which has been acting like a match for a bigger country (India) in arms build-up and is paying a price for that folly economically. Until the mindset of its leaders changes, it will continue to pay that price. In reality, it is Pakistan which is bleeding – in fact, gushing rivers of blood!

(6) Musharraf is not very smart no matter how well the USA likes him. Had he been so, he would not have made a fool of himself in Agra during July 2001, when he had the best opportunity to make a positive difference. Like virtually all Pakistani leaders, he has a narrow vision and a primitive mindset blinded by religious bigotry.

(7) We (the Amrikkans) are not interested in any of your problems – though it will be nice if you had a democratic setup. Just hand over the troublemakers and their cronies to us and we won’t bother with you. If you refuse to hand the troublemakers over to us (like the Afghanistanis refused in 2001), we will come after you and get them ourselves. We have already paid you a good price for all of that – including bailing you out from your economic mess over the past few years – so expect no more payments or concessions of any kind from us – especially if we end up doing the job ourselves.

Re: # 7 Arjun you need to calm yourself and lower your excitement your blood pressure. The K problem is not still solved and its hurting India more than Pakistan. If India needs oil and gas from middleeast and central asia you need pipelines to have cheap transport. You can not have access to A.Stan all things can change if K problem is solved. Romair is still right best person to make give and take is general Musharaff. No civilian president will dare to talk of give and take as he and his party will get beating at elections. If general promises then he has brains and strong wrists to carry out, army will not object to make give and take related concessions. W.STan problems are of short duration and american induced, Army does not have mind and heart in american ordered operations.Again Romair has suggested good solution that is withdraw army and tell americans to solve the problems as we have no means without offending also new elected rulers will not agree , that excused can not be over ridden by usa. Wheather one likes or not general is there to stay for 10 years. He will be elected again in 2012 for 5 years then in 2017 he will retire due to old age. He is smart man a street fighter from Karachi , by giving long rope of corrouption forgivence PP chairman is go to end herself. You see nature of two general, Zia was simple man he killed Bhutto and bad publicity while by his kindness he is killing bb and ppp. He has given problems in religious parties so only he has immerged victor in late political games. MQM is solidly behind him and now PP has blundered and has chosen short cut to demise of PPP. As Romair said the economy is doing fine and stock market is reaching peaks all time. If govt finally let gas prise to float there will rich b.stan people like Quawaitis and that problem will go. Key to B.Problem is letting gas prices go international and B.Stan become Saudi Arabia of Pakistan Punjab and Sindh ( sindh will be ok as they produce lots of energy) will suffer high prices but B Problem gone. With conceding to Americans Freedom of operation in W.Stan and letting gas prices float B. Problem gone. Then Army can start attention to east and south problem makers and attention to K. You may not like that idea but that is future. General can give some relief but elected people will harrass india all time as elected people have to follow popular ideas. Still 10 years to solve before general departure or both countries will be facing sure big war, all atomic bombs flying and nuclear diseases due to nuclear stuff flowing in air.Then China will get involved if pakistan is attacked and china missiles will destroy many big cities of India. If india wants that they can have after 2012. The state of things may be bad but future will be much worse.

speaking of credibility, this is what the interactor formerly known as romair said 6 years ago..good thing he doesn't interact here anymore because it would be embarrassing for him to read some of his own words.





I had stated at the time of the coup, that India would be well-advised to negotiate with Pakistan on Kashmir, when Pakistan was at its weakest. It could have gotten a really good deal. I will say again, India should negotiate now, lest Pakistan`s position continue to get stronger. If Musharraf can keep some checks for ten years on the corrupt politicians who will get elected in one year`s time, Pakistan could be different place in a decade. At that time, it is quite possible, Pakistan will not want to negotiate in Kashmir, and will be more than happy to let India, ``bleed`` there.

Pakistan literally has the US media at its footsteps, with an international audience. Musharraf is a hero in the USA, and has an extreme amount of goodwill going for him. The benevolent, educated, liberal dictator taking on the militant mullahs, seems to be the image here (quite a bit of truth in this image). This is a Bhagwan-given opportunity that has never been provided to any South Asian leader. Pakistan should keep pointing out that while it is trying to help the US, India`s attacks are greatly harming its efforts. It should also continue to offer Vajpayee invitations to visit Pakistan. And it should openly state it would like to discuss with the Indians, in the UN, all Pakistani and Indian accusations of terrorism against each other.

The only thing worse than losing an internal or external war is being involved in one definitely.





yes...6 year down, pureland is a completely different place..there is a civil war, the jihadis are on the warpath, the paki army soldiers who aren't surrendering or getting their throats slit are having to kill a whole bunch of their own civilians..if all this isn't enough, pureland is being bombed by US jets when they don't fall in line.



and India? well, as the world sees it, india is in a completely different league than pureland..

and kashmir? even the normally deluded pakis realize that kashmir ain't gonna banega pakiland...

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