I will paraphrase for all.

basically it's an apologetic piece designed to educate the clueless right wing about how our foreign policy creates our enemies.

Right. He's explaining the "bleedin' obvious" to us, but as he points out, it's real news to a lot of people.

STF wrote:I'll take something written by someone from a country where the penalty for getting raped is being stoned to death with a grain of salt.

Why get so defensive?

Should I dismiss the majority of this board because they live in a country that sends mentally handicapped people to be executed?

This article is not attacking America.


Or perhaps you are being defensive because you are envious of others ability to actually read?

STF wrote:I'll take something written by someone from a country where the penalty for getting raped is being stoned to death with a grain of salt.

Get stuffed, will you? How many Pakistanis do you know? I'm half-Pakistani myself, so I guess that you'll choose only to believe half of what I'm writing, O civilised one. Bigot.

Mohsin Hamid is a friend of a friend of mine, and an excellent and intelligent writer (check out Mothsmoke). He's witty and in public can be provocative without being sanctimonious. My friend tells of a launch that they both attended for a biography of Captain Cook. The biographer painted Cook as a great explorer, rather than the plunder-happy murderer that some of us think of him as. So at the Q&A, Mohsin posed a question.

"So did Cook kill anyone?"
"Well, yes..."
"How many people did he kill?"
"Ah, well, not too many."
"One, two, three...?"
"No, more than that."
"Ten, twelve?"
"Ahem, well, more than that."

Of course, it was fucking hundreds!

I liked the article. Thanks Galanter. His description of how Pakistan changed tallies well with what my mother tells me, although she was from Hydrabad rather than Lahore.

Earwicker wrote:

STF wrote:Should I dismiss the majority of this board because they live in a country that sends mentally handicapped people to be executed?

Totally off subject, but people in other parts of the world understand that the U.S. death penilty is a state by state law correct? you can not be put to death in Wisconsin thank god...

yaledelay wrote:

Earwicker wrote:

STF wrote:Should I dismiss the majority of this board because they live in a country that sends mentally handicapped people to be executed?

Totally off subject, but people in other parts of the world understand that the U.S. death penilty is a state by state law correct? you can not be put to death in Wisconsin thank god...

Nor Illinois for now.

yaledelay wrote:

Earwicker wrote:

STF wrote:Should I dismiss the majority of this board because they live in a country that sends mentally handicapped people to be executed?

Totally off subject, but people in other parts of the world understand that the U.S. death penilty is a state by state law correct? you can not be put to death in Wisconsin thank god...

Nor Illinois for now.

El Protoolio wrote:

yaledelay wrote:

Earwicker wrote:

STF wrote:Should I dismiss the majority of this board because they live in a country that sends mentally handicapped people to be executed?

Totally off subject, but people in other parts of the world understand that the U.S. death penilty is a state by state law correct? you can not be put to death in Wisconsin thank god...

Nor Illinois for now.

Wisconsin is for now also... scary but true...

yaledelay wrote:

STF wrote:Should I dismiss the majority of this board because they live in a country that sends mentally handicapped people to be executed?

I never wrote that. WTF?

STF wrote:

yaledelay wrote:

STF wrote:Should I dismiss the majority of this board because they live in a country that sends mentally handicapped people to be executed?

I never wrote that. WTF?

yeah, sorry the quoting thingy was being screwy...