Posted on 06/20/2004 5:50:01 AM PDT by Max Combined
WASHINGTON -- If the recent past is any guide, the beheading of American Paul M. Johnson Jr. is unlikely to trigger a mass exodus from Saudi Arabia. Most Americans in the kingdom have not heeded repeated State Department warnings that they get out, security consultants and analysts said. "You can't expect 30,000 Americans to pack up and leave," Nawaf Obaid, a security consultant to the Saudi government, said in London. Secretary of State Colin Powell said he does not want American workers to flee Saudi Arabia because that would reward the people whose violence in recent weeks has killed Johnson, two other Americans and more than two dozen other foreigners. Speaking a day after the State Department strongly urged Americans in Saudi Arabia to leave, Powell said, "If they leave, then the terrorists have won, and I don't think either the Saudis, the Americans or these brave folks who work in Saudi Arabia want the terrorists to win."
Of course, the pay is exceptional. But you'd expect many families to come back home at the very least.
Also tax-free
I'm hearing otherwise. The "tipping point" is past, Saudi's about to become abandoned.
"Saudi's about to become abandoned.
And all that oil and oil revenue left to the Islamic Fanatics?
That doesn't seem like a good idea. Didn't we learn anything from Iran?
The non-arab workers in Saudi have had it. Management and the princes may not admit that, but the foreign workers feel they no longer have ANY safe refuge there. That makes it untenable. They are leaving and will leave. (Please note that I'm inferring from a very limited correspondence and my own sense of group dyanamics.)
Where does one go to apply for a job in Saudi Arabia?
It's going to be harder and harder to feel sorry for them when they get their heads cut off --- they know that's the risk they're taking to go after all that money. Fools' gold.
"Maybe it would be a good idea for all the foreigners to leave
Then we would see the Saudi kingdom whithers and die"
True, but the oil and Islamic fundamentalists would not wither and die; they would still be there.
Never say that things could not get any worse, because things can always get worse.
The fact of the matter is that Saudi Arabia is full of Islamic nuts, it also has much of the world's oil, and we need that oil or we will suffer big time economic problems.
The Royal Family are a bunch of a$$holes, but they are our a$$holes, just like the Shah was no great shakes, but he sure beat the heck out of the fellows who replaced him.
I think now that they have killed those four terrorists in Saudi, things will settle down as far as the killing and kidnapping of foreign workers. Those four guys seem to have been responsible for much of the recent violence.
Monster dot com.
I wish I knew - I'd apply myself.
Have you ever been stalked or hunted?
Obviously not.
I have been a split second from death with an Uzzi stuck under my chin in a foreign country, and it's not a pleasant feeling.
Just remember that there are no police to protect you, they have guns and you don't, they care less about your life than the ant they just stepped on.
Think really hard about how much that money is worth to you.
I drive everyday in Houston traffic and lots of people die in Houston traffic.
The odds of a Islamic terrorists killing you in Saudi are pretty darn low, especially now that some of the main guys responsible have been killed.
In Houston, you drive a while, and then you go to a haven -- your home, your work, a restaurant. In these safe, familiar places you can relax, play, not pay attention, be laid back, don't have to be "on" all the time. You don;t have sleep with one eye open, rousing to alert at every change in the ambient. Relaxed, safe, cozy. That's livable. That's life.
And even in Houston you don't have people deliberately trying to drive you off the road so as to kidnap you and kill you. You can survive most car accidents.
I'll bet that's what Paul Johnson thought, too.
Ever been to Riyadh?
Ever been to the MidEast?
You can't tell the good guys from the bad guys, and the good guys today might be bad guys tomorrow.
NEVER trust a Muslim! Period!
You are an infidel, and deserve to die!
Take the total number of Americans in Saudi Arabia.
Take the total numbers of those who have been killed.
The odds are good that you will not be killed while working in Saudi. That's why most Americans are not getting out.
I bet the folks that get killed on the Houston roads everyday think that their odds of getting killed in a traffic accident are pretty slim of getting killed in a car wreck too. Somebody has to be Leroy.
I have never been to the Middle East, but I did spend quite a bit of time in Colombia. I got shot at there too. You pays your money and you takes your chances. I don't plan on living forever.
Odds are mathematics.
Terrorist try to instill terror to make people think that being in the middle east is more dangerous than it really is, just like folks who run the Lottery try to make folks think that they have a better chance of winning than they really do. After all, someone wins the lottery, don't they?
Many more people die in car wrecks in Houston than are killed by terrorists in Saudi.
If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.
It is silly to spend all one's time fretting about what might happen. Worrying all the time about getting kidnapped, when so few Americans have been kidnapped would be like worrying all the time that a meteorite might hit you or lighting might strike you at any time.
If Americans were dying like flies over there, then you might have a point, but since very few Americans have been killed in Saudi, it is not something that I would worry too much about.
If the terrorists can get a ton of publicity by killing a few Americans and thereby panic all Americans into leaving the country, then they will have successful with the terror, just like they were successful in terrorizing the Spanish into voting the way the terrorists wanted them to vote.
"It's going to be harder and harder to feel sorry for them"
So far, there is only one who had his cut off, true?
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