Cut and Run

#32, you’re wrong once again. The ``zealot`` Arabs met the ``mighty`` Persians in the battlefield, and not in the form of a fear campaign of `bogeymen`` built around nonsense. The technological difference in firepower that exists between the US and its so-called foe (which is actually its own creation in the 1980s) is also hundreds if not thousands of times bigger than that which existed between the Arab armies and the Persians. These are facts. Also, the Persian empire was not like the US empire, never before has the entire world been dominated by such a bureaucratized setup of economic, military and political links so your comparison is moot,i.e. of no significance or relevance whatsoever.

Your use of the racist term ``enlightened societies`` describing the house of your masters, is also garbage, when the Islamic societies were laying the foundations of science and math, your ``enlightened`` masters were figuring out how to get rid of their sewage, and failing in their attempts and thus suffering from countless diseases like the Bubonic plague- they were anything but enlightened. Post World War 2, the US has, in a savage manner, attacked numerous countries and destroyed several ecologies- that is not enlightened by any definition of the word. Soon after the Soviets had defeated the Nazi`s, yes the Soviets and not the US and UK defeated them and lost 20 million of their people in the process; the US invented a ``cold war`` by needlessly (again in a savage manner) dropping two Atomic bombs on civilian cities in Japan.

Calling the Iraq war that was based upon fake pretexts that even the officials in the Bush Administration don’t deny now (they call it faulty intelligence), as a just war is truly an amazing phenomenon. You are outdoing the Bush Administration in your support of this war, similar to how the house slaves of old used to; outdo the master in concern for him. I wonder how you are able to respect yourself after selling your soul to the American elite. You are a total slave to them, and for what? A chance to live in the capitalistic heaven, some dollars here and there, a car, a job, etc, what else can they offer you? SHAME on you and people who have no self-respect and sense of truth and therefore act in this despicable manner

#33 masadi: You are crazy with your thoughts. It is you who has sold your soul to your fanatic masters. You are slave to your theory that no one accepts anymore. Your theory of your enlightened society has been discredited. You are just a bipolar rambler. Your thoughts are just stuck on a few jargons…. US elite, bureaucrat, master, slave, etc. You are a liar, a trickster, and a deceiver. And you assume that all on this site accept your evil thoughts and your evil words. You are the darkness that the enlightened society can do without.

You take credit where credit is not due. The origin of mathematics was with the Ionian and Pythagorean schools some 600 BC. This was much before the Islamic world.

As the rag tag Arabs defeated the Persians of yesteryears, it is possible for today’s psychology of terror that your masters promote to destroy today’s enlightened world.

You can continue your bipolar brains in the glory of yesteryears, but the enlightened world always moves forward, and will continue to move forward removing the rubbish that you and your ilk promote.

No, SHAME ON you. You and those like you, who benefit from the freedom of the enlightened world and then incessantly talk about conspiracy, about hate, about bringing down the west. Your type do not belong in the west.

#34, are you capable of forming a decent argument? I mean, your ramblings are not even worthy of a junior high intellect. You mean to tell me that modern mathematics and its development relies more on the Pythagorean school than the Arabs? Even the basic number system got to the Europeans THROUGH the Arabs, regardless of origin. They are not called Pythagorean numerals but Arabic numerals. Geez

Anything is possible in your fantasy world but what is going on in REALITY that is what I am concerned with. Your ``type``, the hypocrites, always siding with thsoe whose tide is up are well know, not only in the West but in all regions- they are the parasites, the leeches that destroy all regardless of truth or honesty, while they seek to benefit themselves even as they kiss the behind of one group or the other, changing with the tide, ``fair weather friends``, back stabbers- HYPOCRITES!

#33 by masadi

[The ``zealot`` Arabs met the ``mighty`` Persians in the battlefield, and not in the form of a fear campaign of `bogeymen`` built around nonsense.]

The difference is accountability, dear Asadi Sahib. In your tirade against the US, how conveniently you ignore the fact that the US has to account for every soldier killed, while its foes simply don`t have to account for its canon-fodder? And no terrorist organization can be held accountable for the civilians killed in a suicide bombing, while all hell breaks loose if a US plane drops a bomb mistakenly.

[The technological difference in firepower that exists between the US and its so-called foe (which is actually its own creation in the 1980s) is also hundreds if not thousands of times bigger than that which existed between the Arab armies and the Persians. These are facts.]

Also, I`m sure you know the difference between an open war and a guerilla war. So let the Al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist organizations come out in the open and fight a war and we shall see how long they last. As you said, these are facts too, which you chose to bypass.

#23 urstruly: I wouldnt be too hard on the Paki authorities for this one. The way I understand it, someone downloaded this poem off the Internet and included it in the text book, since it was thought to be a good one. But probably missed out on the fact that the first letters of each sentence spelt President GWB. Or maybe overlooked it since the poem was `good`. In any case, I dont think one can indoctrinate anyone in this way - if people dont get the connection to GWB, they dont get indoctrinated, if they get the connection, they will either laugh it off or get pissed (as seems to have happened).

One change to the process of writing text books should be to not lift stuff off the internet, esp anonymous writers. Always include poems of established writers.

#26 bolta_aaina: I think HP is right wrt Afghanistan. At some point, the Americans will have to pull out or make a deal with the Taliban - unfortunately Pak will be back in control or ensure that there is chaos again. While the US and world media is focusing on US problems in Iraq, it is Afghanistan that is more important - given that Osama and co are still operating in Pak/Afghan region.

If only the US had not gone into Iraq, but focussed on Afghanistan/Pakistan, the world would have been much better off and the US would have had more support from the rest of the world.

#36, what you state has NOTHING to do with the facts; it’s just based on the ``holy`` picture of the US that you’ve come to accept, based upon indoctrination by the corporate media, the great “American Celebration” that they are busy with 24/7, which has nothing to do with the facts or reality. It was General Tommy Franks, the commander of the invasion who said ``We don’t do body counts,`` - that is the fact. When the US fires dozens of cruise missiles (more than 40) into the heart of the city in order to ``assassinate`` Saddam- that does not amount to premeditated mass murder of civilians in your estimate? Or when it knowingly drops 4, 2000 lb bunker busters on a civilian restaurant in the heart of a civilian neighborhood to kill Saddam based on flimsy intelligence, that is somehow more ``holy`` than a suicide bomber blowing himself up. No they both are criminals, the suicide bombers however are ``lower level`` criminals than those sitting in the Whitehouse, the ``higher`` criminals. Remember Madeline Albright said that the half a million Iraqi children killed directly as a result of the sanctions in Iraq was a price that was ``worth it``; or should I remind you of cancer rates that have gone up 700% since the first Gulf War due to Depleted Uranium used by the US in its armaments. Or should I tell you about the slaughter of thousands of fleeing civilians on the ``highway of death`` during the first Gulf War? Or the fact that according to research carried out by John Hopkins University, Columbia University and Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, over 100,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq, with the vast majority of them having died in US air strikes and not as a result of suicide bombings! These my friend, are the cold hard facts!

Your and behram1`s comparison of the Arabs armies vs. the Persian empire, and the ``rag tag`` as behram1 puts it, so called Al-Qaeda- a creation of the CIA, vs. a US that spends more on its military than what the rest of the world combined spends simply doesn’t hold, it is simply nonsense.

Re: # 29

good one.

Re: # 30

Even after four years of the best men, best soldiers, best armaments, best equipments and what have you, these supposedly few men living in caves are still roaming the mountains in their ``chappals`` is something difficult to digest.

They might be existing at one point of time, but they are no more now. Only their ghosts are being kept alive to continue an imaginary war which only benefits a few arm merchants.

Re: # 38

The picture, particularly at Afganistan/Pakistan border is so tricky that it defies any kind of logic. Osama is alive, Taliban is regrouping etc. One thing could be that Prez.Musharaff is playing a double game which many would like to believe. But I dont think he can dare double-cross the US on whose his survival depends. The second could be that Musharaff is not in full control..may be his own establishment down the line is helping these elements..which is quite likely. And the third could, which is gaining more credance as the time passes, is that this all Al-qaida business is a hoax. It existed one time, no doubt but now it does not exist anymore. Its ghost is being kept alive to justify the US presence in the region and further expansion in the Middle-east in future.

USA rests on the premise that wars and conflicts elsewhere in the world benefit it. It gained enormously after WW-II. Then it had the god-sent foe in the form of USSR and it continued to battle it in Europe, Afganistan etc. for four decades. Now it is at loggerheads with Islam. You can mind my words that for another two-three decades it will keep on grappling with this real or imaginary foe. After that, China will be ready. It is will then lock horns with China for another three-four decades. Then it will catch hold of some other chicken.

That way this American Century will pass off peacefully.

#43 right on again! Back in the 1950s, C. Wright Mills, American Sociologist, wrote about the Military Metaphysic- the military definition of reality deeply espoused by the US power elite, based upon the transformation of its economy post world war 2 into a ``permanent war economy`. See this http://war.asadi.org

You are right on about China as well, look at the Neo-Cons of the Project for the New American Century, authors of the Iraq war, people like Rumsfeld and they are at it about China now. The CIA translated a Chinese book titled ``Unrestricted Warfare`` written by a couple of Chinese colonels and they are using that in a typical FOX NEWS manner to suggest that China is going to wage an Al-Qaida style war on the US, some are even linking it to 9/11 ! All throughout this war nonsense of the US elite, the U.S. ``elephant`` under ``permanent threat`` by ``ants``, human suffering becomes a mere background noise, legitimized by slogans of democracy and freedom. These criminals, and criminals they are by any definition of the word- have perfected the art of ``polite`` killing and their cheerleaders on here like behram1 talk about ``enlightenment`` even as they justify their barbarism clothed in moral symbols. Keep up these fantastic posts, we must challenge their military metaphysic and their lies or we become part of the same drift to the coming ``human hell`` (as C. W. Mills put it).

#44

The problem with USA is that its arms lobby is very powerful. To the extent that it controls almost the whole of administration.

Otherwise America and Americans still command a lot of respect in the world..even in Islamic countries. But only if it changes its way and goes to the other countries with the right message of democracy, freedom of tought, liberty, justice and brotherhood. Instead, it prefers to show its muscles every now and then and nobody except the arms lobby benefits from it.

Re: # 35 masadi: That is exactly the point, which you are beginning to understand. Arabs were just a ruthless invaders of the Persian empire, stole everything the Persians had and passed in on as merchants.

[You mean to tell me that modern mathematics and its development relies more on the Pythagorean school than the Arabs? Even the basic number system got to the Europeans THROUGH the Arabs, regardless of origin. They are not called Pythagorean numerals but Arabic numerals.] Calling it Arabic numerals or Arabic script shows the extent of their ruthlessness. They were the world`s most ruthless occupiers of the Persian territories, and robbed and pillaged the Persian enlighted history. And that is a fact.

Mathematics started with Paythagoras, a Greek....Persians gave astronomy to the world......And the Arabs became slave merchants....They were always merchants. Giving something innovative to the world requires brains, which they never had and they still do not have. Even God must be surprised that after sending over 124,000 prophets to educate the Arabs they are still not enlightened.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL01Ak01.html

What `staying the course` really means
``Far from bringing democracy to Iraq and defeating ``Islamofascism``, the 150,000 US troops there are acting as the Praetorian Guard for a real ``Islamofascist`` regime that is already in power. And if the US ``stays the course`` with its utterly paradoxical and self-defeating strategy, much of the rest of the Middle East is also likely to end up in the hands of theocratic extremists who rule by terror, torture, and armed might.`` - Robert Dreyfuss

Ref: #42 by bolta_aaina

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GL09Df01.html

Taken for a ride in the `war on terror`
``Pakistan is under constant pressure to keep up its end of the bargain with the US in the ``war on terror``. In return for juicy material rewards, Islamabad has to deliver on a plate al-Qaeda-linked suspects. This it has done with zeal, in quantity if not in quality. Now US intelligence has cottoned on, and is turning away Pakistan`s ``useless`` prisoners.``
Syed Saleem Shahzad