Unfair to charge US citizens for Lebanese evacuation?
The controversy swirling around the evacuation of US citizens from Lebanon reminds me of a great scene from Naked Gun when Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) returns from his “vacation” in Lebanon.
I trusted her and followed my heart. Foolishly, it seems.
I’m just gonna have to learn to forget. That’s why I took my vacation in Beirut - to find some peace.
I was surprised to see that some 25,000 American citizens were “vacationing” with Lt. Drebin in Lebanon, and the controversy about plans to charge them a nominal fee for exit:
Earlier, authorities planned to make Americans sign a note pledging to reimburse the U.S. government before they boarded rescue vessels and helicopters. They were charging the price of a single commercial flight from Beirut to Cyprus, usually $150 to $200, although officials refused to specify.
Before the State Department dropped the plan, Snow defended it by saying the government had to charge evacuees because of a 2003 law.
Is it unfair though? I don’t care who passed the law, but when you enter Lebanon of your own free will, don’t you assume some risk? This isn’t like going to England after all where you could be relatively assured it’s a safe and stable country.
Don’t get me wrong. The US should help its citizens out when they get into jams, but charging them doesn’t exactly bother me either especially when you decide to enter very dangerous areas of the world. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that Hezbollah is not the local tourism board.
Archived in: LebanonJuly 19, 2006 at 10:12 am | Trackback
25 comments
I agree. I don’t think that payment-in-full should be a prerequisite of leaving Lebanon, and it doesn’t seem that way. But if people didn’t pay, as they said that they would, it should be treated as any other debt to the government (e.g. assessed from any tax return).
The Lebanon “vacationers” comprised nearly a quarter of the state of Michigan. I had no idea the UAW recruited in Lebanon. Filter out the persons actually visiting family, and the brats (more below) attending Beirut U. and the question is just what are these people doing over there? Beirut ceased being a cruise port of call back in the 1960’s
It is universal wisdom that the largest Islamic concentration in the US is in Detroit. In spite of the smoke CAIR blows up everyone’s fundament, some of the travelers had a different itinerary. Now the taxpayer is footing the bill for those traveling to these areas whether by folly or dastardly motive.
Aboard the cruise ship, the MSM interviewed several of the students after they received a “Meals with Seals” lunch. One complained that it was “just a sandwich.” Another ingrate CNN featured thought Uncle Sam should have provisioned the entire ship. “Everybody is hungry,” wailed the thankless idiot. I’m surprised she didn’t demand a vegan menu selection. Neither did she share.
Being extracted from a war zone for $200 is a bargain by any measure. The complaining students cheerfully go to a protest, receive a solid head thumping from the constabulary, and amass a fine of that amount for a weekend frolic.
But they’ll bitch about the US doing anything. Maybe if they had to find their own way out…
Presumably these people couldn’t cross into Israel and make their way home from there, although I don’t trust the MSM to research a story completely enough to have established this.
I’m surprised at how many people simply stayed in Lebanon after Israel started in on Hezbollah, et al and now feel quite free to complain to any reporter in sight about their hardship of waiting for the US government to get them out to Cyprus. Charging them the pre-war rate is doing them a favor.
To be fair, there may be many of these folks not complaining and grateful that the US is coming to bail them out, but those never make it to the infotainment that passes for MSM news these days.
Retread, there probably are those that were very happy to get out. The MSM doesn’t want those voices “on air” that fail to promote their agenda.
I still question the voltage running anyone’s system that willingly goes into a hostile zone without an escape route. 25,000 people were visiting Aunt Fatima? Kinda hard to believe. I refuse to accept any tale of ignorance about Hizbollah and not knowing their location. If you are down among them, you have goat s**t on your shoes.
As for the tykes taking up space at Beirut U., wasn’t Harvard bent to the left enough? Some might have been Embassy dependents, but they would have had advance knowledge through that very same embassy.
If they were out chanting Rachael Corrie tunes, here’s a news flash! A 200mm round in trajectory doesn’t care what’s in front of it. BOOM!
The only thing that does supprise me is the lack of sensors on rounds that pick up MSM video and audio transmissions. That would take to sport out of the BBC’s and al Reuters’ reporter romps. There are more of them than al Jeezera reporters in the Hizbollah encampment.
Most of them are going back to Dearborn.
Rich Galen has further perspective today:
http://mullings.com/currentissue.htm
I think Rhod pretty much hits the nail on the head.
Pick up on what PM Harper saw when he diverted his plane to get the Canadian refugees. He expected to pick up about 350 people who were boarding a ship in Lebanon. Those who couldn’t fit his plane were to fly on another plane the Canadian government was chartering. Canada has chartered another six other vessels. (Throw the Journos from the plane 7/20/06 OTB.com)
The liberal canadian media is going bonkers, but not asking what in hell 50,000 “citizens” of Canada are doing in Lebanon. Isn’t that a valid question for them.
And for us where is our media? Lets see the visa stamps and credit card receipts. Sounds like it’s a trip to meet Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. Follow the money guys!
Damn, Woodchuck. Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet? You and I are the only ones who remember those guys.
I think I can name that tune: Casablanca.
Wow! Are you guys, like, OLD or something?
Old like an ancient Pigpen from Charlie Brown, dust all around me.
Actually, VW, it wasn’t Casablanca. Probably The Maltese Falcon where they appeared together. And Helen, mind your manners around your elders. Damn kids.
Well, Rhod and Woodchuck, I’m more of a Claude Rains fan. One of the greatest lines in movie history is the description of his heart as “his least vulnerable point”.
But I’m with you guys on the fishy notion that there are 25,000 Americans visiting or vacationing in Beirut.
Dingy Harry looks like a buffoon with his “mini Katrina” remark. Why we don’t aggresively use his own words against him I do not know. It seems the Democrats are their own worse enemies so why not exploit the advantage that factual reality and reason give us?
Yes, Rhod…….I’ll try to remember after I find out where my car keys are and what I went to the store for…..
Rhod, you’re right, it was the Maltese Falcon. But for Retread, we can “round up the usual suspects.” Meanwhile, Helen is snickering and calling us “Q’tips.”
Sporer, for the same reason one doesn’t drink beer in waders or squat with spurs on, the Republicans keep their mouths shut.
I’d be willing to bet some portion of my long-term care insurance payout…maybe a sawbuck, Helen, as Sporer and VW noted, that American (and Canadian) citizenship is such an amorphous condition today that the local Beirut Hezbollah ward healer is also a Ford Motor Company shop steward.
Within another decade WGBH will attempt a mini-series dramatizing the plight of the Lebanon escapees. Liners and American naval vessels depicted as rusting tubs with dripping walls and leaking steam valves, manned by sweat-stained, toothless, drooling freebooters. It’s tailor-made for Public TV.
I’m listening, Rhod.
#16, Rhod
The plight of the Lebanon escapees angle is what made Casablanca pop into my head.
I imagine the lawsuits filed on behalf of these poor unfortunates against the US government will make up part of the in-depth investigational report by WGBH.
#16
And they’ll cast John F. Kerry as Indiana Jones, riding to the rescue on the conning tower of a sub.
LOL!
Of course the sub will get lost and end up in Cambodia.
Man, this is like brainstorming for a screenplay. Lawsuits, whips, leather jackets, magic hats, Cambodia and continuing fantasy. Just right for Kerry.
Peace Mother Cindy Sheehan has to be written in here somewhere but not even Public TV fans would believe her as the love interest for Granite-Jawed Hero Kerry so she’d have to be Hand-Wringer-In-Chief, displaying all the emotion our hero is too manly to show.
Retread:
I see something else. Pitchforks, angry townfolk, Sheehan with braided hair and wearing an embroidered dirndl, rescuing Kerry from a burning windmill. This is a money maker.
Only if that’s a Vietnamese windmill. He was in Vietnam you know. Sheehan wearing an ao dai, smiling with betel stained teeth, waving lai dai to him.
But we have to get him off the sub and into boonie rags.
That’s a hell of a segue.
Betel nuts. Forgot about them.