150 Bucks Gets Ya Out: The USA Evacuation in Beirut

Why is it that Israel is sending in ground troops on the day that the USA decides its finally going to evacuate the Americans in Lebanon? Again, with another situation we are slow to respond. First katrina and now this. Everyone else has evacuated their citizens. Now Israel decides it wants to send in ground troops? That seems pretty idiotic to me and its going to put Americans who so far have been very lucky not to have been hurt. The cost of this evacuation? 150.00 per person. If you can';t afford to pay, they are offering low interest emergency Repatriation loans LOL Imagine that..15Mil a day goes to the country next door, and we have to pay 150.00 to be securely taken out of a war zone. Pitiful.

Thousands Evacuate Lebanon Amid Fighting

Zeina Karam and Hamza Hendawi, The Associated Press

July 18, 2006, 5:39 PM PDT

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A cruise ship sailed into Beirut late Tuesday to begin shuttling thousands of Americans to safety from Mideast fighting, amid fierce criticism that the U.S. effort had lagged behind Europe's.

The commander of the Fifth Fleet said the ship would begin boarding evacuees at dawn.

"We're trying to move quickly, trying to move large numbers of people as fast as we can," said Vice Adm. Patrick Walsh, the top U.S. naval officer in the Middle East. A larger commercial vessel also would be used, he said. A Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. government was considering hiring as many as four more cruise ships to carry Americans.

Thousands of Europeans already have fled the country, which is under fierce Israeli air attack.

Earlier in the day, 320 Americans, mostly children, students and the elderly, left by military helicopter and a European ship. U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey D. Feltman told The Associated Press more than 1,000 Americans would depart Wednesday.

The White House defended asking Americans to reimburse the estimated $150 cost of their passage, and the ambassador said the evacuation's slow start was intended to safeguard Americans

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US government charges for evacuation



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