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When did we Saudis stop beating your American wives?

14 comments on When did we Saudis stop beating your American wives?

When did we Saudis stop beating your American wives?

: It had to be the oddest advertising meeting since the intro of New Coke: Saudi Arabia starts a campaign of radio ads in America to convince us they didn’t help attack us. Not officially, anyway.

Stung by criticism about its role in fighting terrorism, Saudi Arabia has launched a radio advertising campaign in 19 U.S. cities citing the Sept. 11 commission report as proof that it has been a loyal ally in the fight against al-Qaida….

The ads don’t address commission criticism of Saudi Arabia, which the report called “a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism.” It said Saudi-funded Islamic schools have been exploited by extremists and, while Saudi cooperation against terrorism improved after the Sept. 11 attacks, “significant problems remained.”

Here’s the Saudi press release. Here’s the text of the ads.

14 responses to “When did we Saudis stop beating your American wives?”

  1. Sterling Avatar
    Sterling

    19 cities? Great symbolic number – whenever I hear “19” my mind immediately fills in the missing “hijackers”. (Of course, a mere 15 of them were Saudis.) Riayadh ought to fire its media consultants – I’ll tell them everything they need to know right now, for free: Deeds, not words.

  2. shark Avatar
    shark

    Honestly, if there was ever a press offensive (and I do mean offensive) destined to fail like new coke, this is one of them.
    Fuk Saudi Arabia.

  3. Easycure Avatar
    Easycure

    It’s like when you walk into a room and your 4 year old says, “I didn’t do anything!”. That’s proof they did something wrong, and knew they were doing something wrong the whole time.
    It’s damning evidence in my book.

  4. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    I’m still not sure what is stranger – these ads or the ones for satellite radio on my regular radio…

  5. doggy Avatar
    doggy

    I just heard one on the Laura Ingram(?) show. Kind of weird. They quoted passages of the 9/11 commission report that were favorable to them. I will graciously assume the passages are correct, because I didn’t read the report.

  6. HA Avatar
    HA

    The Saudis have been better allies than Democrats.

  7. Lola Avatar
    Lola

    Oh, they’re at it again, eh? Words are cheap, actions count. They’ll win the Americans over forever when they deliver the precise location of OBL and keep lips sealed shut until the Marines go in to grab him, preferably alive.

  8. Little John Avatar
    Little John

    Alas, Sterling said it before I did, but I did think *exactly* the same thing the moment I read the article: “Nineteen cities? Oh, that’s 1 per hijacker!” Bad, bad, bad choice. You’d think they’d avoid that number like the plague.

  9. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    The Saudi Royal Family loves America

  10. jeremy in NYC Avatar
    jeremy in NYC

    Michael, I think there’s already a lot of criticism of the US ties to the Saudis from both sides. Just to give examples, Michael Moore’s been hitting from the left, and National Review has been hitting from the right.

  11. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    jeremy in nyc:
    Don’t misunderestimate me, I’m not (really) criticizing

  12. jeremy in NYC Avatar
    jeremy in NYC

    Gotcha. I didn’t get your strategery there.

  13. JB Elliott Avatar
    JB Elliott

    I am not sure why they picked someone with a british accent (or pretending to be oh so high class). As if we don’t have enough Europeans telling us what we should think or do.

  14. Emily Letilla Avatar
    Emily Letilla

    Fighting tourism? Who wants to fight tourism? Well, maybe the French, but not the Saudis. They’ve got the desert, but no casinos, and who wants to travel half-way around the world to look at oil wells…. Oh fighting TERRORISM. Oh well, that’s different. Never mind.