The Middle East Forum has some interesting articles but is rabidly isolationist, pro Israel and also strongly anti European. A glance at the list of director's names might indicate why. That it is also highly critical of Arabs is therefore no surprise.
On a different note, my experience of training with "internationals" was that the Middle Eastern guys were all present due to family influence rather than ability or merit and had no intention whatsoever of learning anything, rather that they were there to be taught. This rather subtle point was brought up during a night out with some of our instructors who were at their wit's trying to teach these goons. It subsequently became very obvious that the onus was on the instructors to "teach" the skills into the trainees' heads with no expectation of effort required on the trainees part. Thus any failure was that of the instructors inability to teach effectively rather than of the students' failure to learn. How do you deal with that?
They were not issued with licences, grades or pass/fail results, merely a "certificate of course completion". I had it on good authority that a failure or chopping a stude mid-course would result in losing the contract as an indication of the school's failure to teach!
They sent one such steely-eyed hero back to the Royal Saudi Police armed with said certificate as a "helicopter pilot" having gone through the motions of a year-long approved CPL(H) course yet still only "safe" to make a single solo circuit (with his instructor a bag of nerves) after a full hour of dual revision - at the end of a 150 hr course!
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 6th Nov 2010 at 14:12.