Westview; There are lessons for us in the ignominious failure of American Middle Eastern Studies.(Brief Article) From: The Report Newsmagazine | Date: December 17, 2001| Author: Byfield, Ted | COPYRIGHT 2001 United Western Communications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

For more than half a century the United States government has been pouring what now totals hundreds of millions of dollars into something called "Middle Eastern studies." For the last 10 or 20 of those years, sceptical people have been asking what the government was getting in return. The answer to that query is now distressingly clear: not much--and certainly no warning whatever of the impending disaster of September 11.

Exactly how this travesty of waste and incompeten...