[Joe 6-pack]

Good read...well written. I have three texts I would like to recommend to students of the war at hand, and I'd like to use your fine post to promote them (not that I receive any benefit, other than that bestowed by sharing.)

Billings, Malcom.The Cross and the CrescentSterling Publishing co., New York, 1990.

Grau, Lester W., ed. The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan National Defense University Press, Washington D.C., 1996.

Grau, Lester W. and Jalali, Ali Ahmed, eds. The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan War Foreign Military Studies Office, Ft. Leavenworth, KS, 1995.

[MHGinTN]

Thank you for the recommendations. I would add Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey, by Fouad Ajami, and a book entitled The Saudis, by Katherine MacKay (I think is her name).

[MHGinTN]

The author of The Saudis is Sandra Mackey. Sorry about getting her name wrong. I don't know if the book is still in print. She writes from deep experience having lived in the Desert Kingdom for some time while her husband served the al Saud family.