I would argue the same about most Arab groups in modern society. Not only the military but also industrialists have a hard time. Arabs are fantastic businessmen and traders, but they have a very difficult time with manufacturing and complex processes. This is to say, Arabs lack organizational skills necessary to manage industrial or military campaigns.
In America we have 100 years of industrial skills and the WW2 when military skills were largely developed.
The challenge for the Arabs is to see if the cadres of western educated young men can use their education to bring about change. They are opposed by formidable conservative opponents who allow no change at all.
The current situation is the result of the battle between the future and the past. This thought is the basis for the discussions between W and Bandar.
Having gone to graduate school with Arab and Persian students alike, and then worked in an industry that does a lot of business in the Mideast, much of this rings dead-true.
Freepers, if you read nothing else today, read both parts of this article. Twice.
It isn't just the training material. The culture encourages the hoarding of everything. They look at everything as a zero sum game. " If you succeed, I am diminished." This is why anti-Saddam Arabs are nonetheless furious that we would take him out. If we succeed, they feel "humiliated", because it was us, not them, that took Saddam out. This attitude is a recipe for never-ending poverty.