Ivy Leaguers Leave Lebanon First and Fast Through Private Security Firms

[elehhhhna]

Let No Ivy Leaguer
Be Left Behind

COUNTERPUNCH NEWS DESK

From the ABC News Website: Investigative

Ivy Leaguers Leave Lebanon First and Fast Through Private Security Firms

July 21, 2006 9:47 AM

Ingrid Anid, Astrid Hill & Lara Setrakian Report:

When fighting broke out in Lebanon, college students studying there for the summer anxiously awaited their turn to evacuate. As it turns out, if you were an Ivy League student in Beirut, your turn came first.Among those enrolled in the summer Arabic program at the American University of Beirut, students told ABC News, those from Harvard, Yale and Princeton were in the first group evacuated – by high-end private security firms. Students from other American schools were left behind, waiting it out for days while the U.S. embassy formulated its plan.

A.G. Leventhal, a Junior and Near Eastern Languages concentrator at Harvard University, was enrolled in summer classes at AUB when bombs began falling on southern Beirut. Leventhal was immediately contacted by Harvard and informed of the International SOS service, which would begin evacuation the next day.

While Leventhal and his cohorts were being bussed or flown to safety, other students were told to stay put as bombs falling nearby shook their dorm rooms.

http://www.counterpunch.com/cpnewsdesk07252006.html

[ret5hd]

1. well, i think you are just fanning the flames of "class envy".

:sarcasm:

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Well, since they paid for it, I don't see this as all that bad.

it's not like the government said "We'll take the Ivy leaguers first, the rest of you can stay".

The simple fact is that the Ivy Leaguers paid for their transport out; they had thought ahead by getting insurance and engaging a rescue company far ahead of the game for their students.

Is that so bad?

Maybe instead of bitchin' at the Ivy Leaguers, the rage and anger should be directed at other schools that didn't provide for their students; and at OUR government for being so goddamn inefficient and negligent.

Bitchin' about the Ivy Leaguers is like bitchin' about a guy who gets his car fixed after a crash because he had insurance while the uninsured guy's car has to go around with a great big dent in it.

[northzax]

3. strange what happens

when you buy evacuation insurance. Yes, Harvard has such a policy on its students travelling abroad. Heck, I went to a school several rungs down from Harvard economically and we still had evacuation insurance. I had classmates get evaced before even the embassy dependants were from places.

And you know what it cost a semester? 5 bucks. that ain't class envy, that's smart envy.