Yeah, it is surprising in that sense. I lived in the UAE a long time ago, and I’m used to the ‘lazy native’ attitude.
However from what I understand in Saudi, the military is where the few of them with any drive go to accomplish something. They do a lot of training with our people and buy state of the art western equipment.
I think when Iraq took Kuwait in a walkover it put the fear of Allah into them. They really got on the ball after that.
That's a little extreme. All they needed to send was ground pork.