I2F,
It has long been one of my favourite movies. The book version (Seven Pillars of Wisdom) is even better. Go for the 1922 text - it is not available in the US due to copyrights. I bought mine from a place in England - I could dig up the contact info if anyone is interested.
What the movie does not get into is things like the Balfour Declaration, Sykes-Picot, and other contradictory promises, which has a lot to do with the problems we are having over there now. The US came into that whole mess rather late in the game, but we now take a lot of the blame for a lot of different reasons.
The Brits screwed the Arabs, but the Arabs also did it to themselves. Or rather, some Arabs did it to other Arabs. The Arabs did not (and still do not) think like one people. Then throwing Islam into the mix adds a few more variables and tends to divide them even more.
This is one reason why going in to Iraq was a bad idea. We like to think of things in terms of good guys and bad guys, and the situation is just not that simple.
Steve
P.S. - It's going to be fun...
