"UAE they strongly suggested that he not leave the resort areas."
This one made me chuckle. I was in Washington DC in October and got a very similar warning!
I go to the UAE (well Dubai to be specific) a couple of times a year. In fact I will be there this coming Friday. It's a safe, clean modern country of such spectacular ambition that it blows your mind. It is to the Middle East as Hong Kong is to China. An example of how it all could work if we put our minds to it, despite our differences. The real danger from this furore over nothing is that Arabs who have bought into the US message that it is a war on radical islam, not a war on Arabs per se, will begin to have doubts...
So many have no clue how they are making it harder for good guys to accomplish the mission. They are so frightened, and so full of hatred, that they don't care about the thousands of Americans and British and others who are embedded with Arab organizations in Muslim countries and dependent upon those people for their continued survival and the successful prosecution of the war.