I am very happy for the parents of the students released in Egypt and flying home and I am very glad they appear to be unharmed. My question is why were they there in the first place?
No doubt we will hear things about learning tolerance through experiencing foreign cultures and other such niceties. I am all for that and I agree 100% that it is a great experience for young people and really, for everyone. My problem is the timing. I do not recall hearing anything about student trips abroad to places like the Ia Drang Valley or the villages around Khe Son in Vietnam in the 60s. They had common sense and knew to keep their kids out of harms way.
If the students were there when the original protests took place they should have been pulled out of school and flown home immediately. If they just recently went over there then their parents are incredibly naïve or stupid for not waiting for things to settle down completely.
I truly hope to some day be able to travel to Egypt but I will be traveling there when the chance of protests with people number in the 10s of thousands has gone away and things are relatively peaceful. Until there is a stable government to replace Mubarak then it is foolish to travel there for anything other than your job.
