Israeli and Kuwaiti students tell me things me things I didn't know and in one case, didn't suspect.

[yurbud]

I have both Israeli and and a wide variety of Arab students passing through my college classes, so I'm always curious to hear their opinion about what is going on over there (though many of the Muslims are understandably reticent).

Recently, an Israeli girl said the United states has a bunch of military bases in Israel. That makes sense, but it's the kind of thing I thought Israelis wouldn't talk about like the existence of the Mossad. The latter has become kind of a joke. Sixteen years ago in Europe, an Israeli girl wouldn't not admit to me the Mossad existed. Last month in class, I heard two Israeli kids talking about one of them joining the Mossad after college. Since she was Iranian too, I said something like she would be a good catch for them, we talked about it a bit more, then said, "But I thought the Mossad doesn't exist." She said totally straight-faced, "It doesn't."

The other surprising observation was a a Kuwaiti. We were talking about the first Gulf War in the context of all the things we have done to leverage oil deals, and I said the Kuwaitis must be grateful for our invasion and as far as I know, we didn't put the screws to Kuwait because we already had favorable oil deals there. The Kuwaiti girl said, "Oh no, they used it to get an even better deal." I was trying to say something nice about Papa Bush, and the one person I thought would agree didn't.

[harveyrunner]

1. If you talk to a wide range of people ANYWHERE in the world you will find out

what is really going on. You just can't find it out by talking to selected people, listening to the media or this administration. That is why the Bloggers are so important.

[yurbud]

2. South African studentsaid she used to love talking about politics, but had to shut up when she got

here.

She said Americans get angry if you disagree with them and yet know nothing about the rest of the world.

[bobthedrummer]

3. William M. Arkin's "The Underground Military" originally published 5-7-2001

is an interesting read for those that haven't seen it before. It supports what a lot of people have known for years about the deployment of US forces overseas-not to broach the subject of US "contractors".
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27c/532.html