Editorial: Portrayal upsets the kingdom

Monday, Dec. 31, 2001 | 8:20 a.m.

The Saudi Arabia kingdom is in a snit.

As the New York Times reported a week ago, the Saudi Arabia kingdom's top officials are launching a media counter-offensive against what they view as an unfair portrayal of Saudi Arabia in the United States. Newspaper editorials and television commentators have noted that the kingdom for years has condoned terrorist activities by Saudis -- looking the other way as long as the bombings didn't occur in its own back yard. In response to criticism that the kingdom tolerated Islamic extremism, and helped foster the environment that led to Sept. 11, Prince Bandar bin Sultan recently had this to say to an interviewer with the television news network CNBC: "The truth of the matter is, we think he's evil, bin Laden. We think people who follow him are evil. We have pain for what happened in America. We are condemning what happened. You guys are refusing to accept us ."

What the Saudi kingdom doesn't want to hear repeated is that of the 19 hijackers who committed the suicide hijackings on Sept. 11, 15 came from Saudi Arabia. And don't forget that Osama bin Laden himself is from Saudi Arabia. Saudi terrorists also have played a role recently in terrorism directed against U.S. targets abroad: the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and last year's bombing in Yemen of the U.S. destroyer Cole.

Despite the kingdom's pleas of unfair treatment, the fact is that Saudi Arabia previously has been able to skirt the same level of scrutiny that the U.S. government dishes out to other authoritarian regimes because it is such a large producer of oil. (Of course, U.S. dependence on autocratic regimes in the Mideast, such as Saudi Arabia's, wouldn't be necessary if greater auto efficiency was required of automakers, but that would be grist for another editorial.)

The Saudi Arabia kingdom bears responsibility for allowing terrorism to flourish. The truth hurts -- maybe that's why the Saudi kingdom is doing so much yelping these days.