17 years ago today, September 14th, 2001, our nation observed a national day of mourning and memorial for those lost in the vicious attacks three days earlier. We attended services at public spaces and our houses of worship. We spoke of the dead, and gave each other hope, comfort and peace.
Unlike so many countries America has helped, Kuwait was a grateful ally.
Looming in the background was the specter of being attacked by 19 men of then-uncertain identity. We knew only that they were Arabs, Muslims; part of some Middle Eastern extremist faction. It was a bad time for relations between America and Arab and Islamic countries.
Kuwait, a Grateful Ally
I was at the time an advisor to the Embassy of Kuwait. I had been an American diplomat stationed in Kuwait several years earlier. After my return to the States I was asked by a Kuwaiti friend to set up a public outreach program for their embassy here. The main purpose was to establish a lasting friendship between Kuwait and America, based on the gratitude and trust Kuwaitis felt toward us after we had liberated them from Saddam Hussein.
Unlike so many countries America has helped, Kuwait was a grateful ally. When I lived in Kuwait after liberation, perfect strangers would come up to me, ask whether I was American, and then thank me. Grandmothers would bring their grandchildren to me in the grocery store, and tell them to thank me. Once I was driving on the freeway, when a Kuwaiti driver tried to cut me off (a common occurrence). He made eye contact and mouthed the word “American?” When I nodded, he slowed, waved me forward, and mouthed “Thank you.”
That gratitude was one of the primary messages the Kuwaitis wanted to deliver. February 2001 was the tenth anniversary of Kuwait’s liberation, and they had been running ads all year thanking America for it. The ads were simple: a photo of a Kuwaiti girl and boy holding Kuwaiti and American flags, with text reading “Kuwait Thanks America, For Our Families, For Our Freedom, For Our Future.”
Controversy at NPR
The ad campaign included underwriting for National Public Radio, with a credit to the nation of Kuwait and a reference to a website, KuwaitThanksAmerica.org. Ironically, that underwriting campaign provoked controversy. Some NPR listeners were offended at the idea of an Arab country thanking America for their liberation, and wrote to complain.
“All we wanted was to say thank you.”
The complaints became so great that NPR changed their policy and decided not to accept funding from foreign governments any more. The Kuwaitis were confused, and a little hurt, by the complaints. “All we wanted was to say thank you,” said the director of the information office.
After the attacks of September 11th, the Kuwaitis didn’t care whether anyone criticized them or not. “Your blood and ours flowed together on the field of battle. Your sons died in our land, to save us and return us to our homes,” said one official to me. They wanted most of all to let America know that they would stand by us, as we had stood by them ten years earlier.
Kuwait Expresses Condolences
We ran ads in American newspapers all over the country. The ads were stark, simple, and direct. In plain text in the center of an otherwise blank page, they read: “Kuwait Expresses Condolences.” At the bottom of the page were added the words, “And reaffirms its faith in the resilience of the American people. May God bless the souls of the victims and give peace to their families.”
When I read the text to the woman who ran the advertising for the New York Post, who sounded like a working class resident of Staten Island, she broke down in tears. Katie Couric held up USA Today, showing the ad, on The Today Show. We had reports from people all over the country who saw the ad posted in convenience stores and coffee shops.
But from time to time, I think also of an Arab nation of Muslims who took time to say thank you, and who stood by us when we were attacked. May God shed His grace on America, and on all her allies.
In the months that followed, Kuwait was first among equals in providing intelligence support as the U.S. government tried to determine the real identities of the attackers and affix blame for the attacks. Meanwhile, Kuwaiti students had lined up around the country to donate blood. This was never covered by the media, because the media didn’t know. The students were not doing it as a publicity stunt, but out of a sincere desire to help. In a first in my experience as a State Department Arabist, an Arab nation saw a non-Arab nation as their brothers and sisters.
I am keenly aware of the threat that radical Islamist supremacy poses to Western civilization. I am equally aware of the intense hatred and malice that many radical Muslims bear us. Some people with those ideas live in every country, including Kuwait. Islam is not monolithic, and not all Muslims are the same.
I think daily about how to protect and defend the United States and her constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. But from time to time, I think also of an Arab nation of Muslims who took time to say thank you, and who stood by us when we were attacked. May God shed His grace on America, and on all her allies.
