Airplane of the Damned II, Night of the Damned

So Kuwait International is an... Experience.  Little third country nationals zipping around with baggage carts, oh so eager to grab your bag and schlep it anywhere, for $2.  Normally, I wouldn't mind, except my only bag is a small backpack, just enough crap to get me from A -->B (albeit with F-->K thrown in.). Not to mention that between Afghanistan, Qatar, and now here, I've had my fill of little brown body odor machines stumbling through mumbled engrish, often enough with really shitty attitudes.  Actually, the third country nationals are actually pretty helpful and have decent attitudes.  They totally get the service industry.

The Qataris, and increasingly the Kuwaitis, are increasingly becoming arrogant assholes.  They don't seem to realize that the only reason people even speak to them is because we really need their oil and natural gas, and would just as happily deal with Belgians as with them (and Belgians have better beer.)  The people in Qatar really treat Americans like dirt, like we are a huge inconvenience that they have to put up with.  Granted, their economy is going like gangbusters, and if it weren't for the fact that we provide a huge umbrella of "we have a base here, don't fuck around here," they'd be the largest island province in Iran, or Iraq, or Saudi.  Or perhaps the field full of US Patriot missile batteries surrounding their base is totally for show.

Sadly, the Kuwaitis are falling into the mentality of "hey, thanks for liberating our country, but now our economy is stable and you need to go home."  Add into that, about 90% of the troops transiting through Kuwait have a hard time divorcing them from the dipshits to the north who they've just spent the better part of a decade trying to help, while those same dipshits tried to kill us.  So mistrust on our side, compounded with "Yankee go home" on theirs.

Now I am on a KLM (Delta) flight traveling to Bahrain, apparently so I can pick up the "stupid stops in the Arabian Peninsula hat-trick."

We stop in Bahrain, then to Amsterdam.  Finally, a country where the native tongue (Hollandaise, I believe) doesn't sound like klingon, men don't wear dresses (except in very specific 'districts') and where the cocktail menu doesn't look like an add for Jamba Juice.  Yes, I will be having booze for breakfast.  

Shit.  They're handing out customs form for Bahrain.  We weren't supposed to deplane there, but there's no reason for the customs forms otherwise.

I wonder if there's a box to declare my hatred and utter contempt for all middle-eastern culture, languages, food, and governments?

--Chuck