Arafat is a politician, too, and under the same pressures. He denies paying terrorists. If he hasn't, he should be fired. Has to deny it, though. Pro forma. And, he's not a nice guy.

Heck, as far as paying bad guys go, half the bad guys in the world have been on the CIAs payroll. Noriega, for instance. Ollie North. Well, not the CIA, but he US payroll.

The US was supplying Saddam with military support before, during and after the period he gassed the Kurds.

And Arafat has some unique political pressures. He has limited control over some of the more ferocious Palestinians, has to tap dance a lot to hold them in some semblance of control. He will need to dissemble, a lot, and does probably more than he has to.

The Palestinian police killed those Israeli soldiers they got their hands on a while back. That's blood unfairly spilled, and not OK. It would have been nice to have a couple of trials, one for the police that killed the soldiers, one for the Israelis that shot that kid for the cameras.

I can't help but think, though, that if the Israelis had honored their 1967 agreements, maybe, just maybe there wouldn't have been an OBL, all these wars, all these struggles.

I know I, for one, would have NO sympathy for the Palestinians in that event.

And, Arafat dresses funny. I can understand that headdress if folks wear it over there, but he seems to be the only one. Looks about as good on him as fatigues do on Fidel. Not an attractive guy in any sense of the world.

Arf