Not that unusual

Submitted by Jim Eckert (United States), Jun 10, 2004 at 09:54

"There is something vaguely preposterous about Alamoudi, a Washington-based bureaucrat, engaged in international intrigue of this sort, but it does seem typical of the Qaddafi regime's abiding incompetence."

It smacks of the old-style British sense of who can do what. Remember, the Brits sent a man to Russia to try to hold off the Bolshevik revolution: W. Somerset Maugham.

We shouldn't overestimate the importance of experience in espionage. A practiced liar is a practiced liar anywhere. Experience is important, but it is not everything. Maugham felt that if he had been in Russia six months earlier, with far more money, history might have turned out differently.

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