My great grandparents came from Lebanon, too. They were escaping from the Ottoman boot.
Lawrence of Arabia is one of my favorite CDs. It really shows what the arabic problem is : strong tribalism. The scene in the damascus city hall with everyone shouting at once clearly illustrates why the british divided and conquered the arabs, tribe by tribe. You see it today in Iraq with its 50 tribes, all vying to be numero uno.
Yes, yes, they want a new mohammed, their MAHDI. Nonsense. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. No, our democratic ways may seem foolish and weak to the death cult arabs but GWB gets his gonads yanked on every day. Which is just as it should be.
Today it's the AG getting whacked, tomorrow it'll be someone/something else. As president/leader in a democracy you can't get away with SQUAT w/o being held accountable. Which would you rather have : blind obedience to a fuhrer, a saddam, or a leader that you can say : NO! You can't do this, or YES! We're with you on that.
That's the beauty of our congress. All money bills originate in the House. The leader may WANT to do this or that, but if the PEOPLE say NO, then he'd better do it out of his own salary, if he can afford it.