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| India-Pakistan |
| The sixth mistake |
| 2015-04-09 |
| [DAWN] As Cicero said that "a nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. "For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear." Watching Mian Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... 's calm unruffled demeanour of late indicates that he has made up his mind on the Saudi/Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... crisis. He can see the dangers churning in the whirlpool into which Pakistain is being sucked, by invitation. He must have calculated the predictable sectarian backlash between the Shias and the Sunnis within the country and on its border with Iran. But he is bowed by the burden of the debt his country owes to Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... and his family to the House of Saud. He knows thon the lamsse is a rain-check, issued by affluent desert tribals who wish to encash it with the Saudi equivalent of interest The Saudis expect their kindnesses to be repaid in military kind. Being a politician, Nawaz Sharif will appear to manoeuvre, prevaricate, stall, but to understand his true mind, one should remember that he began politics under Gen Zia, and once aspired to be ameerul momineen. If our parliament is bereft of classicists, so are the United States and Saudi Arabia. Had they opened their Cicero, they would have read his warning of the six mistakes that mankind has made century after century. The last mistake in Cicero's list reads: "Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #6 Bobby, I think the Dali Lama borrowed and slightly rewrote a couple of those. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2015-04-09 15:10 |
| #5 #2 smacks a little too much of "inshallah" for my taste Besides Cicero ended up with a sword in his neck - maybe he should have done a little worrying, then a little scurrying.... |
| Posted by: Mercutio 2015-04-09 14:56 |
| #4 By the way, here are all six of Cicero's mistakes - “Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: 1. Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; 2. Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; 3. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; 4. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; 5. Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; 6. Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.” |
| Posted by: Bobby 2015-04-09 13:55 |
| #3 Looks to me like Cicero was foretelling modern-day leftist progressives. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2015-04-09 13:51 |
| #2 Martinus Maximus, c. 2015 - Some drownings are more propitious than others. Some call for a holiday... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2015-04-09 09:45 |
| #1 Big fan of the ancient Greeks myself. Heraclitus, circa 500 bc 'You cannot step into the same river twice.' phil_b circa 2015 'That doesn't stop you drowning every time.' |
| Posted by: phil_b 2015-04-09 04:42 |