In the News, Week of Dec 19th
The weeks reading, straight off the razor wire:
WEDNESDAY
On the great strides the Saudis are making on their journey out of Medieval times:
JEDDAH, 18 December 2005 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah met yesterday with the participants of the 5th National Dialogue Forum “Us and Others”…
— “You vacuum, I’ll dust,” he said.
The United States had long been the nation of choice for wealthy Saudis to educate their children. Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to Washington and a graduate of Georgetown University, noted that two-thirds of his nation’s cabinet ministers had been educated in the United States. “We have a kind of umbilical relationship with American universities…
— …and with your airlines.”
He urged the students, most of them recent high school graduates, not to socialize only among themselves but to get to know Americans. “Learn the ways of American life,” he told them. “The American people are friendly and hospitable.”
— Travel to Baghdad, and you will see.
TUESDAY
And from the ongoing saga of Hurricane Katrina:
Ms. Pereira said she lost more than her mother and her home – she lost her “false sense of protection,” the notion that the government would be there to help in a crisis.
— Hang onto the “false” part…
MONDAY
From a US general re: the security situation in Iraq:
“A gun on every street corner, although visually appealing, provides only a short-term solution,” the general wrote in the journal, Military Review…
— And at this time of year, without a gun on every corner, it’s just not Christmas.
Maj. Gen. Thomas R. Turner II, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, said that within six months he expected Iraqis to lead [military] operations in about half of his division’s area of responsibility in north-central Iraq, an area the size of Louisiana.
— And, oh, the fun they’ll have in New Orleans.
— Scot Crawford
