NYTIMES: U.S. UNIVERSITIES COMPETE FOR SAUDI STUDENTS

ON THE WEEKEND AMERICA SADLY COMMEMORATES THE 5-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11, WORD COMES THAT 15,000 SAUDI STUDENTS WILL BE STUDYING AT AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES THIS YEAR AS PART OF A PROGRAM PAID FOR BY THE SAUDI ROYAL FAMILY



U.S. Schools Compete for Saudi Students - New York Times

What is going on with the White House?? Do you think the Saudi government is choosing the most secular of students or those Wahabbi influenced acolytes who will be given priceless training by the gullible, easily bribed Americans?

How come Americans can't study and practice their religion in Saudi Arabia? Americans and other foreigners working in Saudi Arabia are walled off from the local population.

Thousands of students from Saudi Arabia 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.

The program will quintuple the number of Saudi students and scholars here by the academic year's end. And big, public universities from Florida to the Kansas plains are in a fierce competition for their tuition dollars.

The kingdom's royal family -- which is paying full scholarships for most of the 15,000 students -- says the program will help stem unrest at home by schooling the country's brightest in the American tradition. The U.S. State Department sees the exchange as a way to build ties with future Saudi leaders and young scholars at a time of unsteady relations with the Muslim world.

But, gullible Americans will do anything for a buck...

Administrators at Kansas State University, an agricultural school surrounded by miles of prairie grass, say the scholarships are a bonanza for public education.

''The Saudi scholarship program has definitely heightened our interest in that part of the world,'' said Kenneth Holland, associate provost for international programs. ''Not only are the students fully funded, but they're also paying out-of-state tuition.''

Despite the fact that Saudi Arabia is tacitly supporting our country's troops who are in harm's way, we are now teaching the elite sons and daughters of the royal Arabian kingdom

By January, U.S. government officials say the program will expand to 15,000 students, which means Saudi Arabia will send more foreign students to the U.S. than Mexico or Turkey. As funding for the scholarship program expands, those numbers are likely to grow.

But, this is all about "understanding" you see. The same sort of "understanding" that led us to allow 15 of the 9/11 hijackers into the United States so we could teach them how to fly airplanes into our buildings.

''This is a critically important bilateral relationship,'' said Tom Farrell, a deputy assistant secretary for academic programs at the State Department. ''It's an opportunity to increase understanding of Saudi Arabia for the United States and of the United States for Saudi Arabia.''

Don't forget, it is illegal to bring a bible into Saudi Arabia but we will make sure that the Saudi students are given a properly religious meal...

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

But, it's all in good fun, right? Since when does America's generosity come back to us?

But some officials say efforts to fast-track educational diplomacy with Saudi Arabia could use additional scrutiny. Clark Kent Ervin, a former inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, says the U.S. government has yet to ensure proper safeguards are in place to do effective background checks on all applicants.

This special program for elite Saudi Arabian trust-fund babies SHOULD BE STOPPED NOW.
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Washington Post also runs the story without asking if any of these students harbor sympathies for the 9/11 terrorists
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Discerning voices like Michelle Malkin are talking about the 9/10 mindset.