Great post, great web log; I've quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.c...rms-
arafat.html
The step father appears to be as clueless as the rest of the Arabists of the State Department as well as those of the British Foreign office. The Arabaist conotattion in my opinion stands for a clueless romatic, a person who bought into the Arab myth, culture and many lies. Sir Lawrence, a sex pervert and a man who ran from his own shadow, sodomized by the Turkish Pasah in Jordan, when captured, was your typical Arabist. getrude Bell, the woman who single handedly carved out Iraq and made it a stae, daughter of a wealthy british industrialist had a crush on Faisal, the man who became a king. Their knowledge of the past was as good as their ability to figure out anything in the present of their time. One thing to say for President Bush, when he realised that Arafat was lying to him about the Karin A, the 50 tons supply ship captured with 50 tons of Iranian weapons in the Red Sea he understood that the duplicitous murderous thug that U.S intelligence were familiar with, was not a changed man as the step father believed. Most people do not change. other than his many criminal activities the one of looting the aid money that was so handsomely delievered for the Palestinians, ended up in various dubious investment and secret bank accounts. maybe much of what we see now could have been averted if he put that money to work for his people rather than to end in the hands of his double crossing wife who cavorted with a Lebanse Phalangist-exile in Paris, to put away these fortunes and benefit from them for her own personal use. Those who studied the history of the Arabs, like Professor Fouad Ajami, an astute and a prolific Lebanese scholar, know that without an exception, there was not one single honest leader in the Arab world and it will take a long time for one to come. Arafat was just a very bad version of the usual variety and a sex pervert on top!
I agree with everything you say, TJ, except I have to say that my stepdad is a terrific guy, highly intelligent and a ton of fun to be around. That said, we disagree quite a lot on foreign policy.
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