Huntington's Clash of Civilizations Thesis

hamidm2 mian#314: ``........... and really, pakistan doesn`t need to do anything extraordinary - they simply need to stop blowing things up and everything will be just fine ........... and there is nothing you or i can do to stop that - it is all up to the likes of masadi ...........``

....actually, this is not true......people are blowing up stuff all over the place.......more explosions take place in india than in pakistan......in fact, more happens in kashmir and the northeast of india than in all of pakistan........

......if the usa wasn`t an ocean away and did not have a strong police force, it would break the record of explosions......far more people are pissed off at the usa than at any country.....

.......so there will always be people wanting to blow things up, everywhere........the difference is that in most countries there are economic outlets for individuals, as well as economic stability in the govt. to counter these things......this is what pakistan lacks...

...and who creates these economic outlets......people who are empowered and who have benefited from the system (like you, i an urstruly).......if such people, after benefitting from the system take off to dearborn michigan, that, i suppose is ok.......but once they reach there, then they lose the right to complain about lahore, unless they, themselves are willing to do something about it.........

........so, once again, i give you the offer: are you willing to quit your job and join me, and put your money where your mouth is? ............anyone can be a critic..........

Re: # 311

romair mian,

..... ``just out of curiousity, exactly what have you done to improve anything in pakistan``.............. to be truthful - nothing, except buying a winter retirement home in islamabad and not adding to the trash on the streets when i am there ........ and the only other thing i intend to do is get a membership at the islamabad club - the only reason i haven`t done it yet is because i am afraid that it will be converted to a training camp for jihaids by duffers like masadi .........

........... and really, pakistan doesn`t need to do anything extraordinary - they simply need to stop blowing things up and everything will be just fine ........... and there is nothing you or i can do to stop that - it is all up to the likes of masadi ...........

...... if it makes you feel any better, there are plenty of folks, much much smarter and capable than you and i, who are doing wonderful stuff in pakistan ......but most of them have one leg either in dubai, or in toronto, because of the suiciders and homiciders who suffer form the masadi complex ...........

p.s. ... and how do you know urstruly is not doing anything ?....... he is picking up where sayyid qutub and masadi left off

Re: # 309 by hamidm2

Hamid,

You have indeed seen great things and more power to you and your gardener. Masadi has seen mostly bad things and more power to him too. Good or bad, the fact remains that the nexus between corporations and politicians exists ..... to a larger extent in some parts of the world and to a lesser extent in others.

Re: # 310

GT,

i am a very simple minded person - instead of reading commentaries by tweedy professors and social(ist) `scientists`, i just look around .......... and what do i see?

....... when i arrived in this country the average middle class folks lived in a 16-1800 square foot house and i don`t remember seeing a three car garage .......... thirty years later a 3000 sq ft house with a three car garage is the norm ........... macomb county in michighan is still inhabited by uaw workers huge houses, cabins `up-north`, a boat or two and at least one snow-mobile .......... they still get health insurance, overtime, dental care and make 60-100K a year for working an average of 37 seconds out of a minute putting on tires on moving car - in between they have time to read the newspaper ........... of course some of these people are loosing their jobs to their brethern working for the japanese transplants in the south who work harder and earn their money (which is just as good, if not better).............

...... and of course, there is my lawn/snow/sprinkler guy from domeli, district jhelum, rawalpindi division, who has a kid at harvard business school and another at u of m law school ............. (sorry, but my kids are tired of hearing about him too !)

hamidm2 mian:.....one keeps seeing comments from your side, regarding pakistan - where it should be and what it is and isn`t doing........just out of curiousity, exactly what have you done to improve anything in pakistan......(sending a few dollars a year to a charity doesn`t count)........

....if you haven`t done anything and aren`t even willing to live there, then don`t you lose the right to criticize the people who actually are living in pakistan, and trying to do something.....whether they are doing what you want or don`t want, at least they are taking the trouble to live in the place......

so instead of asking others in pakistan to do something, which will end up on goldman sach`s list(s), why don`t you go to pakistan and set up that something which will end up on such lists?

......i have always felt that the biggest problem pakistan has is that there are too many talkers and not enough doers......you and urstruly may have completely opposite ideologies, but deep down inside you are the same.........you both talk the talk, but never walk the walk..........both criticizing those in pakistan who are doing things with which you disagree, but never doing anything yourself to solve the problem.......

and before you (or either of you) say it is not possible, i would like you to let you know that there are people who have made such efforts......i went back for six months, looking for funding for company which i wanted to set up.......nobody was willing to fund it.......if all goes well, i will be back again in a few months, this time in a partnership with a multinational software company to do some projects there.......

infact, i am willing to give both urstruly and you the offer to work on these projects with me.......the two of you can quite your jobs and join me.......so how about putting your money where your mouth is?

Re: # 309 by hamidm2

Hamid,

People can get their way through and to an extent they have done so over time. But you cannot totally ignore the nexus between huge corporations and governments. Furthermore, this nexus does not always produce results which are good for the unwashed masses. In fact almost always it is the other way round. Adam Smith wrote about it in 1776 .... Rajan and Zingales wrote about it in 2004 (?) ..... Paul Baran wrote about it somewhere in between. Competition coupled with democracy have a natural tendency to check the efficacy of these networks .... I am not convinced of other processes (Paul Baran is, he advocates socialism). So, ceteris paribus, systems which induce more competition and democracy should perhaps see lesser ills from such networks. So do disagee with masadi for all you want, but do not throw away the baby with the bathwater.

And on a sidenote, I am very happy that Goldman Sach`s is high on India. I hope it pleases my mother. She lives on a pension, refuses money from me and my sister, is unable to fix water seepage in many parts of her house, is fed up of rising food prices, cannot afford to buy books anylonger, cannot borrow books from the local library as the library is closed, worries a lot about the rising price of medicines etc. etc. ..... Heck I should simply send Goldman Sach`s report to the stupid old lady.

Re: # 308

kulharee,

..... you are right .... but what pisses me off is that a lot of pakis, including usually brialliant people like ahmedmadani sahib, are influenced by these ranting fools and raving lunatics ............ and what pees me off even more is tha fact that while we wallow in our misery the horrible hindoos are getting on with the job of living and laughing all the way to the bank ............

..............an indian collegue just dropped of Goldman Sachs` january 22nd ``global economics paper #152`` on my desk which is very bullish on india ...... on the other hand, goldman sachs employees are forbidden from even travelling to pakistan where you can get blown up by masadi`s ideological brothers and sisters........ these people should be exterminated without prejudice ..........

Re: # 307

Hamid Sahib. Masadi Sahib is a pseudo-academic motivated by hatred of the west without a leg to stand on. This is fairly common in people with mediocre education and low self-esteem.

masadi mian,

.......... i don`t have the time to respond to your impotent rage since i am busy propping up the system that gives you so much heartburn, but everything i have to say has been said by bernard lewis ........ he has rigthly pointed out that folks like you are inspired by sayyid qutub who in his two years in america could not get laid and therefore developed this insane jealousy and mad hatred for this great country ............ george bush has said it even better : ``they hate us for freedom, for our way of life, our beautiful women, our lone star beer and our twenty four ounce porterhouse steaks`` ............. even ahmedmadani knows it - he is just playing you for the fool that you are ...........

p.s. you should read bernard lewis - a man who knows what he is talking about - instead of wasting your time on some outdated commie named mills

Re:ahmedmadani#287

[..You have some point. Are you management grad from IIT or Tech grad. ? Tech or management is considered of higher status?
You can write about IIT college. Do your white people work under you new about IIT ?
Please answer correctly or do not. I am curious about IIT college why its so valued. They say all (95%) IIT elites of India just use IIT as stepping step to exit India. Is that % correct....]

Madaniji, I did my B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Delhi and came to the US in the eighties. Over here I did my M.S and Ph.D in Industrial Engineering and joined the IT division of a company after graduation. People in the company had started to hear about IITs at that time (early nineties). Even then, everyone respected that background quite a bit. Starting as an analyst, I moved up the ranks quite quickly and a few years later got promoted to a manager position. I had Americans working for me along with Indians, Chinese and Pakistanis. Afterwards, my boss, an American, switched to another company as a Chief Information Officer. A couple of years later, he recruited me to work for him in the new company at a sr. director level and lead an entire department with people belonging to all kinds of ethnic/racial/national backgrounds.

In the new company, IIT is very well known. In fact, my boss was recently recruiting a VP level position. Among all the resumes that came in, he found someone who was also from IIT Delhi. He immediately forwarded that resume to HR to bring that person in and we ended up hiring him. The fact that the person had worked in IBM for 20 years hardly registered with him, but the IIT brand caught his attention.

In general a MBA degree in India is more powerful that a Tech degree. Its probably true in the US as well, although Tech degree people are doing great too. It just depends from person to person. About the 95% number exiting India is concerned, that was in the past. Nowdays, only 15-20% IITians are exiting India since the Indian job market is so good. In fact a lot of people are returning to India to make their careers there.

#290 by masadi on February 7, 2007 9:30pm PT


Stumped by well established facts, the idiot is reduced to attacking the source which happens to be American. If you are smart enough to check the sources used by the Population Reference Bureau to come up with the data sheet on world population, listed at the back,


since YOU made the claim that the US census bureau is collecting data on poverty in Pakiland and India, it`s incumbent upon YOU to produce a link or something to back up your claim..

remember..other people can get away with passing off BS as facts but a accomplished researcher like you is held to a higher standard...

zeemax mian, I have answered your question about Qutb on the other thread, sorry missed it as the peons of the West, whose tails are on fire, had me busy here...

#299 your comments about IMF/WB are true but these institutions are dominated by the Western financial institutions, and therefore the US power elite and their colonial partners

#283 by philosopher

``The future belongs to Islam``

Each and every one of the Hindus understands the insidious nature of muslims who are blinded by the hatred spewed from that BullSht of a book from 7th century.
That`s why Hindus have aligned with BNP in UK and I feel where ever hindus are in sizeable chunk they will form alliances with groups who are against muslim immigration to western countries.
I have lived major portion of my childhood and youth in the old city areas of Hyderabad. Living so close to Muslim ghettos, I had witnessed ``muslim hospitality`` up close and personal during those countless number of communal riots. With the mental and physical scars as my witness, I can clearly see how lives can become hell in any community, city or country where Muslims become a sizeable population. Indeed many indians feel so too....

Re: # 298
Appreciate your encouragement, some times I get depressed by bad writing by some people but now I feel better somebody appreciates who is not slave of elite mentality. Kindly comment about my remark about World Bank and IMF, all big banks (MNC) city bank, Bank of england do same.
Thanks have good day Mr.M.Asadi.

#278 by SR Re: # 273 masadi {``...Somebody else`s take on Huntington...``} He is not alone by any means. There is a fervent ongoing blog campaign amongst combative conservative circles. Following is an apt example... What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad.

Very interesting. However, these fervent blog campaigners should be asked as to which Book of Jihad was Elizabeth I using who invented `Privateering` as an officially sanctioned form of Piracy. Barbary States were doing exactly as the English, Dutch, French, Spanish and the Americans had been doing since upto 200 years earlier.

Some interesting excerpts from Wiki:

History of Privateering

England, and later the United Kingdom, used privateers to great effect and suffered much from other nations` privateering.

In the late 16th century, British ships cruised in the Caribbean and off the Spanish coast, trying to intercept Spanish treasure fleets bringing gold and silver from Mexico. This early privateering was justified by an attack by Spanish ships on Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins, who were trying to sell West African slaves to Spanish colonies, which the Spanish considered illegal.

At this early stage the idea of a regular navy (as distinct from a private ship) was not present, so there is little to distinguish this activity from regular naval warfare. The privateering certainly had the support of Elizabeth I, who on occasion lent ships to or bought shares in expeditions. Attacking Spanish ships was part of a policy of aggressive competition with Spain, and helped provoke the first Anglo-Spanish War. Capturing a Spanish treasure ship would enrich the Crown as well as striking a practical blow against Spanish domination of America and a spiritual blow against Catholicisim.

The Anglo-Dutch Wars
In the first Anglo-Dutch War, English privateers attacked the trade on which the United Provinces entirely depended, capturing over 1,000 Dutch merchant ships - more than twice the size of the English merchant fleet at the start of the war! During the subsequent [[Anglo-Spanish War (1654)|war with Spain), Spanish privateers, including many based in Dunkirk, reversed the favour and captured 1,500 English merchants, restoring Dutch international trade. British trade, whether coastal, Atlantic or Mediterranean, was also attacked by Dutch privateers in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch wars.

The Eighteenth Century
During the Nine Years War, the French adopted a policy of strongly encouraging privateers, including the famous Jean Bart, to attack English and Dutch shipping. England lost roughly 4,000 merchant ships during the war. In the following War of Spanish Succession, privateer attacks continued, Britain losing 3,250 merchantmen and with Dunkirk privateers alone seizing 959 prizes.

Famous British Privateers
Probably the most famous British Privateer was Sir Francis Drake, particularly so in that he had such close contact with the sovereign. He was responsible for much damage to Spanish shipping, as well as attacks on Spanish settlements in the Americas in the 16th century. He also was instrumental in turning back the Spanish Armada from its attack on England.

Sir Henry Morgan was one of the most famous of all Privateers. Operating out of Jamaica, he carried on an audacious war against Spanish interests in the region, often using cunning tactics. His operation was prone to excessive cruelty of those he captured, including torture to gain information about booty, and in one case using priests as human shields. Despite reproaches for some of his excesses, he was generally protected by Sir Thomas Modyford, the governor of Jamaica. He is probably most famous for the enormous amount of booty he took, as well as landing his privateers ashore and attacking land fortifications, including the sack of the city of Panama with only 1,400 crew.

The USA
The United States Constitution authorized the U.S. Congress to grant letters of marque and reprisal; the Confederate Constitution likewise authorized the Confederate Congress. Robert Morris, the first American millionaire, partly became wealthy by privateering, and George Washington owned part of at least one privateer ship. The American government issued privateering licenses to merchant captains during the Revolutionary War due to the relatively small number of commissioned American naval vessels. The American privateers are thought to have seized up to 300 British ships.

The USA was not one of the initial signatories of 1856 Declaration of Paris, which outlawed privateering. However, the USA did offer to adopt its terms during the American Civil War, when the Confederates commissioned privateers from many nations.

So only when the confederates got the Republicans` goat by hiring mercenaries, then they decided to outlaw `privateering`.

But all that has now been renewed in the case of Blackwater ... USA`s privatized army.