political : SAUDI ARABIA TO SEND 15,000 POTENTIAL TERRORISTS...UH, STUDENTS TO THE U.S. [+] serious ballot by cranky ACTIVE Tue Sep 12, 06 - Sun Jun 07, 09 U.S. Schools compete for thousands of Saudi exchange students MANHATTAN, Kansas (AP) -- 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. 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. Elite Saudi families traditionally sent their children to schools in the United States, but their numbers fell sharply after Congress restricted visas following the discovery that 15 of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudi, said Rachel Bronson, an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. 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. * * * * * * * * No word on how many of them are planning to enroll in flight school. So, lets get this straight: It's okay to strip search old ladies at the Butte, Montana airport, but allowing thousands of twenty-something, Wahabi-influenced male Saudis, without appropriate background checks, to come and live in the U.S. for several years is a good idea? Not that "twenty-something, Wahabi-influenced male Saudis, without appropriate background checks" fit ANY kind of profile. What do you think? Is this a good idea? This is a good idea. It will foster mutual understanding This is a bad idea. There is too much risk involved You have to be shitting me. Ballot #101771 : SEE RESULTS Comment: show your vote with comment?

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