Dear Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman:
This week you visit the United States for the first time as the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, no doubt hoping that the United States will embrace you for your grand promises of religious and social moderation and economic liberalization.
As a member of the 9/11 family community, I believe it is important for you to understand why these long overdue promises of reform ring hollow to our community and the American people. In fact, they serve as a stark reminder of your government’s craven campaign to evade accountability and justice for the very misdeeds you now seek to be rewarded for addressing, decades too late.
Because you were very young on September 11, you likely do not appreciate the degree to which your present promises of reform are undermined by the Kingdom’s disingenuous and continuing campaign to evade an honest accounting of its role in the rise of al Qaeda and the murderous September 11 terrorist attack.
Osama bin Laden was a product of the very Saudi extremism you have acknowledged, as were 15 of the 19 hijackers. Saudi government funded charities and citizens provided the bulk of al Qaeda’s money. Radical clerics on the government payroll recruited and fundraised for bin Laden, while preaching hatred of the United States from their government posts at government mosques. Saudi government money exported that same hatred across the Muslim world, indoctrinating young men in jihadi violence and providing bin Laden with recruits. Even more directly, Saudi government agents in the United States provided critical aid to the 9/11 hijackers, as confirmed by recently declassified FBI records.
Instead of dealing with these truths honestly and confronting the compelling evidence the 9/11 families have amassed, your Kingdom has paid an army of lawyers and lobbyists a fortune to avoid the courtroom altogether, by asserting “sovereign immunity” and begging U.S. policymakers to protect you. Those lawyers and lobbyists are getting far too rich to be honest with you about this reality, but these tactics only serve to alienate the American people and confirm the Kingdom’s guilt. For Americans it’s pretty simple – allies don’t hire foreign agents to lie and deceive.
Your legal position was always outrageous from an American perspective. We have shown that Saudi officials were aiding the hijackers, that Saudi money was flowing to al Qaeda, and that al Qaeda’s support for terrorism grew out of the extreme, Saudi-promoted Wahhabi ideology. Yet your government insisted it did not have to answer to us, the American victims of that terror, and at the same time tried to convince the American people to accept your Kingdom as a legitimate ally and partner.
In September of 2016, Congress sent a clear message that America was not pleased with the Kingdom’s underhanded tactics, passing the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act to ensure that nations that aid and abet terrorism cannot claim sovereign immunity. This law was aimed directly at our lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, and it passed Congress overwhelmingly, despite vigorous lobbying by your diplomats and paid foreign agents. Even more importantly, it was strongly endorsed by then-candidate Donald Trump.
Instead of respecting our Congress, your government doubled down and hired even more foreign agents, who proceeded to try to manipulate and deceive U.S. veterans into lobbying unwittingly on your behalf, a shameful act that we exposed and have reported to the Department of Justice. Next, your lawyers once again demanded that our case be dismissed.
In short, you learned nothing by the great embarrassment of JASTA’s passage and continued to treat us with contempt. Perhaps you think we will go away, but you are very wrong.
Given the disrespect your nation has shown us, we have watched your expensive public relations campaign promoting purported reforms and alleged “progress” with amazement and considerable puzzlement. For example, we are repeatedly asked to be impressed that women will be allowed to drive a car, go to soccer games, and speak to men in public, but those steps only stand as a reminder of the horribly intolerant society that bred Osama bin Laden and so many of the jihadist terrorists who have attacked us over the last 30 years. Your Kingdom pulls diplomatic levers to buy a seat on the UN humanitarian commission, while conducting a brutal war in Yemen that has claimed thousands of innocent lives. As you seek to court needed economic partnerships with American businesses, we see that your “new” society is locking up businessmen in the Ritz-Carlton and, per New York Times reporting, torturing them until they collectively turn over $100 billion. And we see you claiming that this money was disgorgement of corrupt profits, even as you enjoy life on the $500 million yacht you purchased a few years ago. Perhaps even more brazenly, you lead a campaign to isolate Qatar diplomatically for its alleged role in extremism, as though that will distract us and make us forget that Saudi Arabia is the fountainhead of that very problem.
To say the least, we don’t think that your public relations campaign is particularly well conceived, but as a guest in our country, we offer you the following blunt advice:
First, you will never convince the American public that you are modernizing if you refuse to acknowledge your nation’s role relating to al Qaeda and the September 11 Attacks. Americans know that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, and they know that the Saudis supported radical Islamic terror groups throughout the world. They know that your agents were working with some of the hijackers.
To your credit, you have acknowledged that the Saudi nation and many of its institutions have contributed to radicalism worldwide, but general acknowledgments of these evils are not enough. Sovereignty is not merely a privilege, but a responsibility as well. And that includes the responsibility to hold your own citizens and institutions accountable for their wrongdoing.
Second, you must accept the realities of what this ongoing litigation means for your nation and your “modernization” campaign. As long as you resist accountability and justice, we guarantee that more evidence of your nation’s wrongdoing will be exposed. Civil discovery means that senior Saudi leadership in both the private and public sectors – including your family members — will face court-compelled discovery. We will continue to uncover the financial networks that were controlled and directed by Saudi officials, and we will further expose the unregistered, illegal spy ring that operated in our nation while aiding radical jihadists.
Finally, you might think your relationship with the Trump family insulates your nation from accountability, but we are confident that you are dead wrong on this. President Trump strongly supported JASTA and is a longtime supporter of the 9/11 community, and we know he will choose us over you every time it matters.
In conclusion, if you expect to come to America and be respected as a new leader of a changed nation, then stop the stonewalling and recognize that any true path to a Saudi future with the American people requires justice for your nation’s part in the September 11 Attacks.
Terry Strada is the National Chair of the 9/11 Families and Survivors United for Justice Against Terrorism. Her late husband, Tom, was on the 104th Floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.