What was peoples reaction to 9/11 in Saudi Arabia?
Well, it differed. Some of the people were very happy, and some people were shocked. There was a general shock, of course, disbelief. But there was a group of people who said: “OK, let them suffer now. Let the Americans suffer how the Palestinians or Muslims all over the world have been suffering by having war inside their own countries and houses.” I think the confusion became more with the announcement that 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudis. Most of the people were in denial. And they thought that here’s Americans and the CIA trying to fabricate a different story, and on the Internet you had very different versions of what happened. … There was some discussion about terrorism in general. But I don’t think that Saudi society was affected by 9/11 as much as when, for example, Afghanistan was hit, and here [people] started to feel [for] the [Afghans], especially with the follies of the Americans in bombing, for example, the weddings in the middle of nowhere. … [People thought Ameri
