New college program brings Saudis to U.S (or how stupid can we get?)

AP via Washington Times ^ | September 10, 2006 | Garance Burke

[Elkiejg]

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- Thousands of Saudi students are enrolling on college campuses across the United States this semester under a new educational exchange program brokered by President Bush and Saudi King Abdullah.

This will quintuple the number of Saudi students and scholars in the United States by the academic year's end. And big, public universities from Florida to Oregon are in a fierce competition for their tuition dollars...............

....Clark Kent Ervin, a former inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said the U.S. government has yet to ensure proper safeguards are in place to do effective background checks on all applicants.......

"Not only are the students fully funded, but they're also paying out-of-state tuition."

Kansas State boosted efforts to court Saudi officials in the past year, flying administrators and department heads to the Saudi Embassy in Washington. It's paid off: Last month about 150 Saudi students started classes there, each funded to the tune of about $31,000......

"It's an opportunity to increase understanding of Saudi Arabia for the United States and of the United States for Saudi Arabia."

As Kansas State students enjoy a string of home football games this month, they also are preparing for the campus' first celebration of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

"We really want to make this special. We're going to truck in halal food from Kansas City,"

Mr. Holland said. "The Saudi government is trying to place the students in a variety of institutions across the country, but where you get the competitive advantage is how you treat the students when they get here."...........

"These 15,000 students will really jump-start education, and that will be a great addition to the kingdom," Mr. Goodman said. "At its base, it's about mutual understanding."

[SmoothTalker]

Being too PC can kill you.

[SmoothTalker]

Being too PC can kill you.

[dcwusmc]

PING

[bert]

...Being too PC can kill you....

There is a vast difference between being politically correct and defending a staunch ally and friend against an onslought of ignorant gibberish.

[Clintonfatigued]

FDR was far from perfect, but he never initiated a student exchange program for Nazi students or Tojo supporters. And Bush, a supposed conservative and hardliner on national security, signs off on something like this.

Mind-boggling.

[B.O. Plenty]

Transgressions of the few, indeed. There are 1.2+ billion muslims in the world, and it is estimated that 10% of them are "radical". If my math is correct this calculates to a minimum of 120 million people whose stated aim is to kill us all. A lot of them are Saudis. If being mad at people who have promised to kill us all, and have, for years been killing Americans, is being a bigot, then I am guilty.

I assume that you are an American infidel...and as such, you are a target for beheading by the minority of a minority of Saudis...It won't matter much how much you believe that they are just like us when the knife slices into your neck.

Good luck in your appeasment of those who would kill us...

[Old Student]

"Well, they are close to the modern Western ideal - they have PERFECT separation of Church and State, better than it was in Soviet Union. ZERO churches in Saudi Arabia."

If you intended that sarcastically, you missed the tag. Saudi Arabia has precisely ONE church. 100% of the Kingdom's population is Muslim. Wahabbi Muslim, actually, an even stricter sect than either Shia or Sunni. Everyone is required to be member, and to follow their rules. The Muttawin are the Religious Police. One of their better, more sensible acts, a few years ago was to drive the children at a girl's school back into the burning building because they weren't wearing their veils. This made it absolutely clear that rules are more important than common sense.

[bert]

That trick won't work.....

Again I claim your ignorance is a problem. We were debating Saudi's not the whole of Islam. If you want to argue a losing posiion at least get your facts straight.

Neither will putting words in my mouth to knock down work. I don't recall saying the Saudi's were just like us. The fact there are differences is the reason they are being sent here to school. We can teach them many things and they are very well aware of that situation. There is a vast difference between learning and imitating.

Face it ....you just don't know what you are talking about.

[A. Pole]

Saudi Arabia has precisely ONE church.

Excuse me. The Mosque is not Church.

[patriciamary]

Are you willing to take that chance?I am not.

[William Terrell]

Mr. Goodman said. "At its base, it's about mutual understanding."

It's about a war with Islamic terrorists indistinguishable from "peaceful" Islamics, you miserable turd!

'cuse me. I was going to say something kind, but the Devil got me. Sorry.

[William Terrell]

If you knew that two or three of the guests (friends, acquaintances, strangers) you are inviting to a party will be possessed at some point to kill you, would you give the party?

[bert]

Well, if I asked a very trusted friend to review the guest list and insure they are all upstanding people I wouldn't need to worry about that...

That's what W did...... he and the King are working it out. I trust both implicitly.

[William Terrell]

I said a couple would be possessed to kill you, regardless of how well they were vetted.

Oh, I'm just sure that both Mr. Bush and the King are poring over the dossiers of 15,000 people at this very moment.

[political1]

I went back to school at UAB when I was 30, and the first class I had to take was that dreaded Algebra. I n the class was a set of twin girls. Blond hair blue eyes. Good looking. They chain smoked. They said to me one time that I couldn't guess where they were from. I couldn't believe it they were Saudi Arabian. They had been here in Alabama for 3 years. Before UAB they went to a private high school called Indian Springs which had dorms. Like a lot of rich kids their parents sent them off to boarding school, but why here in Alabama I will never know.

[Old Student]

"Excuse me. The Mosque is not Church."

Excuse me, but in the sense in which you used it in the post I was responding to, it most certainly is. You want to argue with me, how about something substantive?

[A. Pole]

Excuse me, but in the sense in which you used it in the post I was responding to, it most certainly is.

I find it it deeply insulting. The mosques are NOT churches.

[Old Student]

A church is a place where many people go to worship god, and where some go to be seen and heard. So is a mosque. So is a synagogue. You may be insulted, but you're also wrong. Further, as I said before, there is only one religion allowed in Saudi Arabia. Not no religion, as in the former Soviet Union, and not religious freedom, as in the USA. Your point that Saudi Arabia was a good example of separation of church and state is flatly wrong.

[muawiyah]

I've known many Saudis.

[muawiyah]

Until they were taken to Israel there were blond Jews in Yemen. This is the middle of the Old World. Everybody's gone through the place.