Watching the clashes at Lal Mosque in Islamabad unfold on live Pakistani TV stations is rather bizarre. The phenomenon of 24-hour news cycle is now a world reality. I think the government here became aware of the political impact of carrying out the "operation" on live TV: today it was reported that the army removed all media representatives from the area of the mosque. Other parts of the capital were rather normal. Yesterday, I gave my talk around 6:00PM at the International Islamic University near Faysal mosque (who designed that mosque?), and there was normal traffic. Police is always ever-present here, so I did not notice much difference. From the second I arrived here, I thought about the title of Anour Abdul-Malek's book: Egypt: Military Society. We can safely say that Pakistan is a military society.