Editorial: Conscience is nowhere to be found

Friday, Dec. 14, 2001 | 9:34 a.m.

The face of evil was captured perfectly in a videotape released Thursday. Osama bin Laden, in an informal meeting that was videotaped sometime in November, casually talks with two other men and a Saudi sheik about the devastation that he has unleashed. Bin Laden was proud, at times laughing, as he discussed the suicide hijackings that left more than 3,000 innocent people dead. It was chilling to hear bin Laden, an engineer by training, recount matter-of-factly the preparations for the hijackings:

"We calculated in advance the number of casualties who would be killed based on the position of the tower," bin Laden said. "We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. ... Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit, and all the floors above it only."

It's difficult to imagine that anyone three months after the Sept. 11 hijackings would still have doubts about bin Laden's role in orchestrating them, but if they did, this videotape certainly would have eliminated any uncertainty. The real question is whether the videotape finally will silence the Islamic extremists and bin Laden apologists who have suggested that he wasn't responsible for the terrorist attacks.

More importantly than rendering the Islamic extremists mute, however, is the need for Arab governments to speak out forcefully against the vision of hate offered by bin Laden and terrorist groups in the Mideast. Many of the Arab nations have condemned the terrorist attacks, but their deeds haven't matched their empty rhetoric. From the first day of the terrorist attacks, Arab nations have been reluctant to get involved in helping the United States track down and crush terrorist organizations, including bin Laden's al-Qaida group. Then again, maybe that shouldn't be too surprising. For years Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations have looked the other way and allowed terrorist groups, with their hatred of America and Israel, to flourish.

President Bush previously has told the leaders of other nations that they're either with us or against us in the war on terrorism. Well, we think it's time that the fence-sitting nations again be asked to make that choice. Then we can see who our real friends are.