Gore Laments U.S. 'Abuses' Against Arabs

Thank God, that this man wasn't elected President. While, there is nothing wrong with suggesting that we all get along, there is something very wrong with saying that your government committed "terrible abuses". No matter how much Gore sucks up to the Saudi government, they will not allow him to visit Mecca or Medina (after all, his audience would consider him to be an infidel) and may ask him, if he were to visit Saudi Arabia, to ask his wife to cover herself up. Saudi women 'enjoy' second class status. Why would Tipper be exempt from abuse in such an enlightened country?

By JIM KRANE
Associated Press Writer

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, and that most Americans did not support such treatment.

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."

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