August 26, 2004
friends in the bedou tribe?
On the idea of blending of entertainment and news, I wonder what makes us tolerate it. For instance I went to www.memory hole.com and knew I was about to watch a guy get his head cut off, live. In the midst of my disgust and shock over the video, a tiny dark part of me tingled with anticipatory fascination. Even over here in UAE. What do I mean by that? Just this: I hope to heck UAE remains the peaceful resort country of the rest of the Arab countries rather than a haven for actual acts of terror. i.e., The place that, (if they do at all roam here), the terrorists will continue coming here to relax AFTER carrying out acts not TO carry out acts.
The fascination? Dunno, maybe from my reading of Wilbur Smith's "The Leopard Hunts in Darkness." His Zambian soldier torture scenes leave nothing out and the Berg video held my attention in the same manner. While of course UAE is a peaceful country, according to some news items, Zarqawi is in fact a Bedouin – a tribe which crosses a number of borders here and makes a sizeable chunk of the local UAE pop…. Bin Laden had a bank account here too.
Of course we know that we're dealing with a convicted murderer. Zarqawi was convicted in absentia in his homeland Jordan and so despite the fact that he killed an Amrikan, his number of friends in the bedou tribe may not be all that high.
Two nights now, though, I have tossed and turned. Thinking about family, getting out, the transient nature of the terror threat (Basrah to Yandu is quite a jaunt for a jackal), the fact that his cronies are all well-versed in making and using poison gas weapons, things like this are making this expat. lose sleep. I have family here. what would we do if fit decides to hit the shan?
The fascination? Dunno, maybe from my reading of Wilbur Smith's "The Leopard Hunts in Darkness." His Zambian soldier torture scenes leave nothing out and the Berg video held my attention in the same manner. While of course UAE is a peaceful country, according to some news items, Zarqawi is in fact a Bedouin – a tribe which crosses a number of borders here and makes a sizeable chunk of the local UAE pop…. Bin Laden had a bank account here too.
Of course we know that we're dealing with a convicted murderer. Zarqawi was convicted in absentia in his homeland Jordan and so despite the fact that he killed an Amrikan, his number of friends in the bedou tribe may not be all that high.
Two nights now, though, I have tossed and turned. Thinking about family, getting out, the transient nature of the terror threat (Basrah to Yandu is quite a jaunt for a jackal), the fact that his cronies are all well-versed in making and using poison gas weapons, things like this are making this expat. lose sleep. I have family here. what would we do if fit decides to hit the shan?
