The Fight Against Terrorism, The Fight Against Wind Mills

As Cervantes would've said, this story is not mine. So there will be similar errors and subfuscations in my telling. A friend just came back from a 'Gulf State' where they had a meeting of sorts for muslims, of sorts. A group wanted to add a paragraph about condemning Israel's actions in Gaza to the final declaration, but they were told, by the American (of sorts - Muslim) organizing committee that the meeting - a meeting that had the title ''Is political Islam a threat to the West?" for one of its panels - was NOT a political gathering and so it wasn't appropriate to speak about Palestine. There was much food and drink, the whole thing was a great Hollywood production of exquisite script followed to the letter, one that could put Obama's inauguration in the shade (bear with me). She also met a certain American Abraham (religious persuasion insignificant) who ended up in the same plane with her heading, let's say, to the most beautiful city in the world (yes, you can read into my partiality).
This Abraham had 5 hours to spend in the most beautiful city in the world before he took another plane to the US and asked my friend whether she had time to show him around. My friend did not, and her refusal probably set the tone for the rest of the day's events. We will never know what happened to Abe in those 5 hours. But by the time he got to the airport he was very tense, so tense that once he boarded the plane he decided he didn't like the look of one passanger. Later in the police station his excuse was that this particular man had a coat on - oh horror of horrors!- although the weather was warm. He insisted on getting off the plane. The plane was searched and nothing found. The flight was delayed for two hours.

In the greater scheme of things, I think Abe, corresponds to the Harlequin in The Heart of Darkness, flailing his arms about, his mind 'enlarged' by all the conferences he attends about political Islam that are not political.