Every Time I Went On

My First Experience In The Netherlands Was Very Pleasant, Extremely Pleasant. I Mean, I Got My Residence Permit, Refugee Status, Within Four Weeks Of Arrival. People Treated Me Extremely Well.

Infuriatingly Stupid Analysts - Especially People Who Called Themselves Arabists, Yet Who Seemed To Know Next To Nothing About The Reality Of The Islamic World - Wrote Reams Of Commentary [after 9/11]. Their Articles Were All About Islam Saving Aristotle And The Zero, Which Medieval Muslim Scholars Had Done More Than Eight Hundred Years Ago; About Islam Being A Religion Of Peace And Tolerance, Not The Slightest Bit Violent. These Were Fairy Tales, Nothing To Do With The Real World I Knew.

The Mistake That The Bush Administration Should Admit To Is Not So Much That They Made The Wrong Choices. They Made The Right Analysis; They Made The Right Choices. But What They Did Wrong Was The Execution Of Those Choices. That Was Wrong.

I Cannot Emphasize Enough How Wrongheaded This Is. Withholding Criticism And Ignoring Differences Are Racism In Its Purest Form. Yet These Cultural Experts Fail To Notice That, Through Their Anxious Avoidance Of Criticizing Non-western Countries, They Trap The People Who Represent These Cultures In A State Of Backwardness. The Experts May Have The Best Of Intentions, But As We All Know, The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions.

I Don't Have Much In Me Left For Somalia, Because The Country Is So Broken, It's Not Realistic To Daydream About It.