Blood Is Thicker Than Anything Else In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the mainstream media and much of the public seemed to express concern for the families of the victims. But almost all the sympathy stopped when they learned that the two suspects, a Jordanian national and a Saudi citizen, were legal U.S. residents. Most media coverage continued until after their capture, but with little sympathy for them. Reportedly both confessed to being part of Al-Qaeda’s plot and were described as “courageous.” When one of them said that Islam permitted him to kill innocent civilians for political purposes, he was praised by President Bush. The media also reported that “Saudi officials were eager to extradite both men.” One of the two, Zacarias Moussaoui, was described as “a convicted felon who had been a Saudi citizen for eight years” and who had a pilot’s license. He is reported to have trained for jihad at an extremist Islamic school in Minneapolis and was said to be in training for the September 11 attacks. He was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole. The other man, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, an Egyptian born on July 22, 1972, was reported to have “lived in the United States for the past 14 years.” Two years ago, the media described him as “a handsome, charismatic young Muslim who speaks flawless English and is believed to be deeply involved in” terrorist operations. His father was an official in the Egyptian government. A Saudi citizen, Yousef had been “charged with plotting a series of attacks in this country,” was under “house arrest,” and was “free to leave the country. The government [had] granted him political asylum.” His father is reported to have spent ten years as an official in the Egyptian government. Yousef’s name has appeared repeatedly in the world press as a key suspect in the terrorist attacks of September 11. It would seem that there is much difference between being legal residents of a country who are protected from imprisonment, and illegal immigrants who would face immediate deportation, which would probably include indefinite detention in a prison where they could be legally tortured. The Saudi men were treated as though they were more guilty than the September 11 victims whose lives they ended. In contrast, the September 11 heroes were heroes only in that their lives were destroyed by terrorists. This double standard makes it possible for the media and U.S. government to demonize anyone who supports the Palestinians in their struggle for survival while still maintaining their status as “good citizens.” All Muslims are described as “terrorists” by mainstream media, but Muslims who are in the forefront of attempts to destroy Israel are called “peaceful,” while any attempt to defend themselves is characterized as “terrorism.” Anyone who is “of Palestinian descent” is deemed deserving of sympathy, even though many of them are not citizens of the U.S. and have no legal rights there. The Saudi Arabia connection: Terrorists One of the problems caused by the widespread belief that the September 11 attacks were perpetrated by Osama bin Laden was the perception of an attack on the United States by Arab terrorists. Arab countries were criticized for not having punished them, even though they clearly had not been in control of the terrorist attacks and no evidence pointed to them as having had any links to them. If there had been any evidence implicating these countries in a terrorist plot, they would have responded with harsh measures to punish those who had financed and/or supported them, as well as those who had carried out the attacks. They would also have arrested and put on trial all suspected militants found within their borders. After all, both Afghanistan and Pakistan have long histories of attacking their neighbors, which has included the use of terrorism as a means of destroying the national boundaries between countries. These two countries are notorious for exporting militant groups, as the Saudi Arabian government has done in the past. For example, when the mujahideen began receiving a lot of the support from the U.S. in the war against the Soviet Union, Pakistani authorities had to be informed and were required to cooperate in turning the money over to them. In fact, these nations have a documented history of carrying out terrorist attacks and of using terrorist organizations as proxies for achieving political goals, such as getting independence from the Soviet Union. According to a report in a September 20, 2001 edition of UPI, “Militant forces that include Muslim [Arab] militants from Saudi Arabia carried out hundreds of attacks in the mid-1990s that killed more than 1,400 people in over 60 countries.” The report, by William Branigin, a former Washington Post foreign correspondent, claimed that after the Soviet Union broke up into 15 separate nations, [T]here were indications that some factions were using terrorism as a weapon against Russia and other successor governments, according to terrorism experts and U.S. and European counter-terrorism officials who would speak only on condition of anonymity. … “Muslim terrorists have killed a million people in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan,” said Paul Williams, the former spokesman for the U.S. Treasury Department’s office of foreign operations. “The Saudis have contributed money and a lot of the ideology.” “‘You don’t do terrorism, you’re terrorists,'” said Fahim Abed, director of political affairs for the Organization of Arab Struggle for the Liberation of Ogaden (OASLO). He said Islamic extremists were among the armed groups operating in the disputed region of Ogaden in southeastern Ethiopia, which he blamed on a joint Somali and Ethiopian government-sponsored war in Ogaden. … [Abed] said a variety of small anti-government militias were active throughout the Ogaden, and Islamic extremists have been part of this mix. “The Islamic extremists are not the ones that are getting the weapons, they are just using the weapons. The local men know where to go and when to use them.” Many experts believe Islamic extremists received assistance from Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, especially before bin Laden’s public identification in a February 2001 video message. However, these experts have expressed concern that bin Laden’s public statements against the U.S. in 2000 and 2001, as well as U.S. attacks on countries that had given him a safe haven (such as the bombing of an al-Qaeda base in Sudan in 1998 and the bombing of Afghanistan in 1998), may have caused him to become more cautious. Since then, it is widely thought that bin Laden has moved out of Afghanistan into Pakistan, with the help of the Pakistani government, where his presence is harder to locate and where he is free to operate. He continues to fund and organize terrorists, including his old associates. The Sauds and 9/11 Many in the U.S. media seem to believe that all the members of bin Laden’s family must have played a role in the attacks of September 11, although no evidence of this has been uncovered. Similarly, the idea that somehow Pakistan must have been involved in the attacks is a popular belief among many in the American media, though it has never been given serious attention and there are few facts to suggest that it ever could have been involved. In contrast, the idea that the Sauds might have been involved with the 9/11 attacks is mentioned by the media almost daily, as though such an idea would be entirely rational. In fact, Saudi Arabia denies this accusation and says that it has not been able to find the Saudi flight school suspect because he never actually went to a flight school. Yet this is the accusation against the family whose members were born in Saudi Arabia and who have maintained their residence there. There is not a single shred of evidence to support the claim that any of the people involved in planning and carrying out the September 11 attacks were citizens of Saudi Arabia. The entire focus of the investigation has been on a small group of alleged Al-Qaeda members who have been apprehended and who the government has identified as the chief suspects. The idea that Saudi Arabia might have been involved in these attacks is pure speculation, not supported by evidence, and has never been given serious attention. If the family that sponsored the September 11 hijackers did not come from the Saudi royal family, it would make no difference. The issue here is one of double standards that create a bias against anyone who is Muslim. In order to maintain control of the American people, those in power have had to create a double standard, one that demonizes the vast majority of Muslims, who are often described as potential terrorists, but one that allows most non-Muslims to maintain a belief in the benevolence of American civilization and the “good character” of its citizens. The double standard is enforced by media and government officials, who constantly point out instances in which Islamic terrorists are involved, whether they are a direct threat to national security or merely in what is considered to be a local conflict. Meanwhile, American crimes are rarely mentioned, even though they occur in much greater numbers, such as a local crime wave, but are typically only covered when they involve people of color and/or the rich and powerful.