"The Gulf Arabs feel like they have this neighbor who has been a drug dealer for 18 years. Recently, this neighbor has been very visibly growing poppies for heroin in his backyard in violation of the law. He's also been buying bigger and better trucks to deliver drugs. You can see them parked in his driveway.
In the past year, though, because of increased police patrols and all the neighbors threatening to do something, this suspicious character has shut down the laboratory in his basement to convert poppies into heroin. In the wake of that, the police declared that he is no longer a drug dealer.
"But wait," say the Gulf Arabs, "he's still growing poppies. He was using them for heroin right up to 2003. Now he says he's in the flower business. He's not in the flower business. He's dealing drugs. And he's still expanding the truck fleet to deliver them. How can you say he's no longer a drug dealer?"
Sorry, say the police. We have a very technical, legal definition of drug-dealing, and your neighbor no longer fits it..."
Thomas L. Friedman: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,522844,00.html
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