Bush Critics Misrepresent Saudi Policy

Herald News, Sunday, December 15, 2002
By GREGORY J. RUMMO


THE DEMOCRATS' LATEST media-facilitated attempt to embarrass President Bush missed the intended target and instead produced lots of collateral damage.

Their aim was to make it appear that the president was turning a deaf ear to allegations of Saudi Arabia's support of terrorism due to Bush's big business oil interests in the region.

But instead of embarrassing the president, they shot themselves in the foot, along with all of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia's foreign-policy adviser Adel al-Jubeir condemned the tactics as a "feeding frenzy" and charged that the United States' allegations of money funneling by the Saudi Royal Family to finance the Sept. 11 terrorists amounted to nothing more than hate-speech.

"I have never seen this side of Americans, which borders on hate. I have never seen such visceral attacks, and the attitude that if it's Saudi, it must be bad," he said. "The atmosphere in the United States, unfortunately, is that it's a feeding frenzy, it's let's bash the Saudis time. We are guilty before we say anything. We are guilty as charged. Nobody looks at the evidence."

We have been subjected to "severe and outrageous criticism which borders on hate," he said.

The Arab News, published in Saudi Arabia, characterized the media attacks as "unfair and visceral attacks against the kingdom, U.S.-Saudi joint efforts against terrorism and President Bush's stand against critics of Islam."

A Dec. 3 editorial in The Gulf News, "Another Nail in the Coffin of Arab-US Ties," stated "The latest slurs by certain members of Congress on the name of Princess Haifa Al Faisal, youngest daughter of the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, are indications of just how low some political manipulators are prepared to stoop."

USA Today reported the details of Saudi Arabia's year-long internal campaign to crack down on the possible funding of al Qaida. The Dec. 4, front-page story reported that "the Saudis had frozen 33 bank accounts worth $5.6 million, had begun auditing all its charities, had questioned more than 2,000 Saudis and were still detaining more than 100."

Why not give the Saudis the benefit of doubt? Saudi Arabia has cooperated with the United States in the past. They allowed us to stage operations in the Persian Gulf War in 1991 from within their country.

Add to this the reports that have circulated since Sept. 11 about behind-the-scenes diplomacy going on between the United States and Arab nations in the Middle East to garner support in the war against terrorism, and the Saudi foreign policy adviser may not be blowing smoke.

Al-Jubeir was also very clear to denounce Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network as a terrorist organization, reminding the world in his hour-long news conference from the Saudi embassy in Washington, D.C., that his country had also become a target of bin-Laden's and that Saudi Arabia froze the assets of al-Qaida in 1994, long before any other country.

Many Americans feel that this moment of truth was long overdue. It's been over a year since the terrorist attacks in our country. Why now? Why only after pressure was applied in an embarrassing way did a high government official finally denounce al-Qaida publicly?

"Face" is a large part of Eastern culture. Emotion is rarely expressed in public, yet the lack of its display does not necessarily imply ambivalence or silent consent. You might think that is a stretch, especially in light of the TV coverage of crowds of Arabs whipped into frenzies, chanting anti-American slogans and burning our flag. Yeah, that's pretty emotional I'd say. But those are the kooks - the extremists - that according to al-Jubier and Bush do not represent Islam or the Arab world at large.

"We will be vigilant, determined and merciless," al-Jubier said in the fight to root out terrorists in his country.

We can only hope so. It's not easy to figure out who the bad guys and the good guys are in this war. We need all the friends we can get in that area of the world if we are ever to defeat terrorism completely. n

Gregory J. Rummo is a syndicated columnist and author of The View from the Grass Roots. Read all of his columns on his homepage, www.GregRummo.com. 

E-Mail Rummo at  GregoryJRummo@aol.com