SubscribeIsn't paying taxes the same as buying insurance from your government for situations like these?Not really. We're required to pay taxes. The libertarian free-market-hardon crowd resents that -- and by extension they resent anyone who actually benefits from any of the tax-funded services or basic Constitutional rights (unless it can be viewed as helping The Market in some way).
yeah, it's a fabulous vacation when you're over there burying a family member that wouldn't leave Lebanon since they'd lived their whole lives there. The Lebanese I know don't exactly plan a pleasure trip to the homeland, it's out of duty, dumbass.Most of the 50,000 Canadians in Lebanon right now are working or visiting family. I'm sure that's similar for Americans there as well.
(1) HalliburtonThank you,
(2) Dick Cheney
or better yet,
(3) CASH.
"The United States government has an obligation to get thousands of its citizens out of harm's way in Lebanon quickly and safely. That means making it clear to the combatants that we will not tolerate any interference with our evacuation activities.
"The immediate risk to American lives also means this is no time for quibbling over payment for evacuation. Whatever resources are needed to assist Americans in danger in Lebanon must be provided. Americans should not be held hostage by a requirement to sign an agreement to repay transportation costs before evacuation. A nation that can provide more than $300 billion for a war in Iraq can provide the money to get its people out of Lebanon.
"I call upon the President to remove one worry from the minds of stranded American citizens in Lebanon and their families back home by declaring immediately that their country will bear the costs of bringing them to safety."
"[A US Citizen] said she was impressed by the efforts of the Thai government and the International Committee for the Red Cross, but "she was appalled at the treatment they got" from the U.S. government, her mother said.[italics mine]
At the airport in Bangkok, other governments had set up booths to greet nationals who had been affected and to help repatriate them, she said.
That was not the case with the U.S. government, Wachs told her mother. It took the couple three hours, she said, to find the officials from the American consulate, who were in the VIP lounge.
Because they had lost all their possessions, including their documentation, they had to have new passports issued.
But the U.S. officials demanded payment to take the passport pictures ... "
In fiscal year 2003 Israel received a foreign military financing grant of $3.1 billion and a $600 million grant for economic security in addition to $11 billion in commercial loan guarantees. This total aid package of nearly $15 billion makes Israel by far the largest single recipient of U.S. aid. (Source)If Israel didn't get billions annually from your own government they might be a little less dominant.
"With the growth in American students studying abroad in the Middle East, some schools are turning to private security companies to protect their students where they cannot.If travelling abroad, it helps to have emergency service insurance, etc. Many folks book travel on their American Express Cards, so that they can take advantage of their "Global Assist" services. It's all about "being prepared."
Harvard, Princeton and Yale are insured by International SOS and Medex, two private security companies.
Arriving with well-equipped teams, these companies arranged everything for students from land- and air-route evacuations, to hotel rooms, to cold bottles of water at the Syrian border."
"Customer satisfaction with the American government: not quite so high.
The Beirut situation 'has shown how horrible the State Department has been in evacuating people…keeping people informed and not causing a state of panic,' wrote [A.G.] Leventhal in an e-mail to ABC News.
In a public announcement, the State Department stated, 'The U.S. Government is using all resources possible to facilitate the speedy and safe departure of American citizens currently in Lebanon using every means available.'
But luckily for Leventhal, his Harvard status kept him safer, sooner."
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posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:39 PM on July 17, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]