Posted on 12/18/2005 12:26:34 AM PST by nickcarraway
Urgently trying to improve relations with the United States, the Saudi Arabian government has been promoting a scholarship program that has more than doubled the number of Saudi enrollments at American colleges and universities since last year.
The program, aimed in part at reducing widespread hostility in the Saudi public toward the United States, has reversed a steady plunge in Saudi students here that started immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The Saudi government offered 5,000 students full four-year scholarships, complete with living allowances. About two-thirds of the 5,000 students enrolled in American schools this fall, the State Department said, and the number would have been higher had the United States been able to process all the visa requests.
The academic relationship between the countries has been an area of concern for senior officials. James Oberwetter, the United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said in an interview that the drop "in exposure the population has had to the United States" was not helpful for the Saudis "at a time when they need to be looking outward instead of inward."
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, he said in an interview.
Still, after the Sept. 11 attacks and the revelation that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, stories of mistreatment and hostility toward Saudis in the United States began flowering in the Saudi press and in public discussions. They continue today.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Great, more murdering Saudis in the U.S. to help promote friendship? I think not, many are just plants here to disrupt and destroy and kill.
The saudis are our enemy. Saudis led the 9-11 attacks. If not for the oil the Saudis would be ignored for the scum vermin they are.
Didn't the Saudis just give millions to Harvard?
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