[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).

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

Thank you for including me on your ping list. I'm sorry I haven't had more time to read and reply to your posts, but I do appreciate the pings. I'll make my way back to these sometime. Please keep pinging me. :)

[FReethesheeples]

Thank you for your erudite & scholarly additional comments, such as Fouad Ajami's books and Mackie(?) and your addtional comments @ #24 and below.

Ajami was on two panels I saw recently; he's a most fascinating and insightful thinker & observer of the arab scene, going to very current sources, like Saudi (High Religious) Court rulings and Egyptian Newspapers & editorial opinion to give us a current & historical feel for the mind-set of the various Islamic & Arabic communities.

He gave the exact verbaitm talk using the parable in "Shooting an Elephant" by George Orwell (author of 1984 & former communist), in which the great white hunter goes tothe east & as a rite of passage, at the urging of the Natives, shoots an Elephant, which is devroured byt he natives, who then aalso prod\ceed to abuse the Hunter for having shot the very elephant they consume.

We are, "Going in to the East," and they will never be our friends, but we must EXPECT such, and be PREPARED accordingly.