One of the things that you enjoy as you read through Thomas Friedman's Longitudes and Attitudes is his magic use of words and expressions in his book:
War of necessity and war of choice: this to describe war like Afghanistan that is a must do for revenge and toppling Saddam, respectively.
Poverty of money and poverty of Dignity: This to explain the conditions of young Arabs and Muslims. I consider it a lethal combo if we do not reverse the situation.
Bin Ladenism: People who are doing or willing to do Bin laden Jihad/terrors.
Bin Ladenates: those people who support Bin Ladenism but would not carry an act of terror. I would describe a third term Bin lade-non. This describe people who resented Bin laden terror attacks and do not want to see further attacks. But they would like to see major shift in American policies that will cause Bin Ladenism and Bin Ladenates to dissolve. I think the silent majority of Muslims belong to this camp.
Arab Robin Hood: This term to describe Bin Laden. He is an authentic person who gave up a life of riches in Saudi Arabia to go live in a cave and fight the Soviets and Americans. To counter this authentic message of hate, you need an authentic messenger of progress, tolerance and modernism.
World of order and world of disorder: the first describes the western states and the last most others particularly the Arab and Muslim world. I consider the west the world of less disorder and not order.
Arab Yugoslavia: A term Tom used to describe Iraq and he was right.
The third bubble: the first bubble is stock market bubble, second bubble is corporate ethics bubble and the third a terrorism bubble.
A world without walls: With all this technology of travel and communications the world became without walls.
Technologically closer world and culturally very divergent: This prove to me that we need a new political and social system that strengthen our unity as humans.
War of ideas: The war on terrorism is mainly war of ideas rather than guns.
Magic Kingdom: This term is used to describe Saudi Kingdom. They are the closest allies to America and meanwhile support its furious enemies. It present itself as the prime state to present Islam while in fact it is full of greed and hypocrisy.
Chicken A L'Iraqa: Which a term he use how to scare your enemy of being wild but not crazy. Tom used this term to encourage president Bush to scare Saddam but not to invade Iraq. Unfortunately Saddam loved it when you challenge him in front of the world. Even if you defeat Iraq and he survives he would consider it a victory. I think president Bush has this cowboy appearance which works very well with these tyrants in the Arab world. However he would need a lot of help from Americans advisors and Arab moderates. We do not live in a simple world anymore.
Bush Policy: I quote Tom "Bush Policy today is to punish its enemies with the threat of democracy and reward its friends with silence of democratization. That's a surefire formula for giving democracy a bad name." I say to Tom let us trust and verify as President Reagan used to say. I do not think president Bush will stick to the old policy of America after 9/11.
