When were you in Bahrain? I did a deployment there. By far the best Muslim country I've been too!
Between 2000 and 2002 I had 4 dets, thankfully the transient barracks at ASU weren't completed yet so we got to stay in town every time! Security with us got a whole lot tighter after 9/11 obviously. Loved Bahrain, broke my heart to see them destroy the Pearl Circle. Did you ever go over the bridge? There was a GREAT steak house on the right just past the Saudi check point. I always drove, pissed off the locals quite a bit.
Bought 3 rugs at Ethnic Crafts in downtown Manama, spent too much money at the gold sooks too.
UAE was off the charts, Dubai was out of control, streets paved with gold. The Burj was almost completed when I was there last, saw the first islands Mahktoum was building in the Gulf, unreal. Like Bahrain, there were 2 classes of people: those who owned Ferrari's and those who washed Ferrari's.
We had a lot of business throughout the middle east at that time, some of those countries weren't happy to see us land there as you know.
You an ancha-clanka too?