Monday, February 13, 2006
Al Gore in Saudi Arabia
...where he proceeded to pander to his hosts by trashing America:
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia - Former Vice President Al Gore told a mainly Saudi audience on Sunday that the U.S. government committed "terrible abuses" against Arabs after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks [...]My God. Has the man lost it completely?
Gore said Arabs had been "indiscriminately rounded up" and held in "unforgivable" conditions. The former vice president said the Bush administration was playing into al-Qaida's hands by routinely blocking Saudi visa applications.
"The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled, that is a mistake," Gore said during the Jiddah Economic Forum. "The worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States."
Gore told the largely Saudi audience, many of them educated at U.S. universities, that Arabs in the United States had been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable."
"The worst thing we can possibly do"? No. Far worse would be do is to encourage the very people who are exporting terror, worldwide, and teaching their poison in the United States right now. Far worse would be to forget that 15 of the Sept. 11 hijackers were, in fact, Saudis -- some of them on expired visas, which diligent law-enforcement should have caught.
And far worse would be to bad-mouth the United States, at a time of war, outside the country, speaking to the very people who helped launch that war against us. We don't air our dirty laundry in public, Mr. Gore; some criticisms must be kept within the family.
I can't believe I voted for this man.
