Job Discussion Forums

[johnslat]

Dear Cleopatra,
While you are entitled to your opinions about whom to fear, I'll stick with my
opinions about Pakistan.
And, although I know it won't change your point of view at all, here's a link to an article that expresses what I think. A sample:

"Moreover, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a modern country with a young, well-educated, politically aware population that takes less interest in President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's international showboating on the Holocaust-Israel issue than in "Zero Degree Turn," a government-financed television documentary about an Iranian diplomat who saves his French Jewish girlfriend during World War II.

Pakistan, on the other hand, teeters on the edge of becoming a failed state; and its hundreds of religious schools, which flourish because the state educational system is inadequate, are well known for their advocacy of jihad against the West."


http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/05/opinion/edbullietweb.php

Regards,
John

[Cleopatra]

Thanks John, as well as giving me a good laugh, that article you linked to was also an eye-opener for me. It finally made me understand why Thomas Friedman is considered an intellectual by the standards of the US press.

So the author of this article (who seems never to have been to Iran, though he did visit Islamabad on a junket once) considers Iran as 'modern' because he read somewhere that some Iranian 'youths' enjoyed the Iranian version of
"Schindler's Lists"!

For rigorous, sophisticated analysis of international social and political affairs, one should always turn to US newspapers.

[johnslat]

Dear Cleopatra,
Having been to both Iran and Pakistan, I do at least have a little "on the ground" experience although I am well aware that spending a few weeks or even months in a country can hardly qualify anyone as a "expert."
However, it may make me a tiny bit more of an expert than someone who has never been to either place.
No, I'm not referring to you. For all I know you've immersed yourself in both societies and know far more than I do about both.
Regards,
John

[Cleopatra]

[johnslat]

Dear Cleopatra,
Cross my heart - there really was no "attempt at sarcasm" in my last. And regarding my opinion' having "not really departed from CNN/NYT-speak", well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. I don't automatically dismiss everything those organizations say as being wrong, just as I don't accept everything that issues forth from, say, Al Jazeera, as being right.
I suspect I'm like most of us in that I agree with opinions that agree with mine, no matter what the source might be.
I admit it - I "cherry-pick" the points of view that seem to correspond most to what I think is true. So the source is, for me, really immaterial.
Regards,
John

[lall]

[Mia Xanthi]

007 wrote:

[Cleopatra]

[johnslat]

Dear Cleopatra,
Well, I certainly agree with your point, " . . . that Iran isn't anywhere close to having nuclear weapons, and that even if they were, there's no reason the world could not learn to live with them, the way we have learned to live with American, Pakistani and Israeli 'nukes'." though, of course (and I believe you'd agree with this) how much safer/better a world it would be if we didn't have to learn to live with any nukes - American, Russian, Israeli, Pakistan, Indian, etc.
But unfortunately there's no way to get the genie back into the bottle.
Regards,
John

[Cleopatra]

Lall,

If you have issues with me, please take them to PMs. I will not be responding to your 'hurt' here.

Mia,

I may have said it before, but if the US and/or Israel attack Iran, all bets are off. It is entirely possible that the Iranians would retaliate by attacking the oil facilities of the GCC nations. They would feel themselves justified in so doing,
because these countries are all US clients, many of whom host US military in their ports or territories. The Iranians would certainly seek to close the Persian Gulf to all shipping.