(Wall Street Journal) Simon Henderson - The "American way" is very different from the "Saudi way." Under the House of Saud, the people of Saudi Arabia--including foreign workers and visitors--are subjected to juryless trials, lashings, and public beheadings. The Saudi way of public diplomacy is to deny everything; for months Interior Minister Prince Nayef simply said the Sept. 11 hijackers had stolen Saudi identities. A Jan. 9 story in U.S. News & World Report said two senior Saudi princes had been paying off Osama bin Laden since a 1995 bombing in Riyadh, which killed five American military advisers. U.S. and British officials told me the names of the two senior princes. They were using Saudi official money - not their own - to pay off bin Laden to cause trouble elsewhere but not in the kingdom. That is "the Saudi way."
2002-08-14 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive