In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, dramatic full-page ads from countries around the world expressing sympathy for the United States appeared throughout the nation’s daily newspapers. Since then, they’ve tapered off. So it was jarring to see another such ad, placed by Saudi Arabia, surface in the pages of the Boston Globe this week. Given what we now know about Saudi connections to Osama bin Laden and that country’s refusal to cooperate fully with anti-terror measures, the ad comes across not as an expression of sympathy, but as part of an elaborate PR campaign designed to sell the Saudi-American alliance. It features a white dove soaring above the American and Saudi flags and the words "Two Nations. One Goal." "The people of Saudi Arabia stand in friendship with the people of the United States," the ad assures Globe readers.

Really? The Saudi government has declined to freeze bank accounts of suspected terrorists, according to a January 14 story in U.S. News and World Report. The same story reported that "at least two Saudi princes had been paying, on behalf of the kingdom, what amounts to protection money to Osama bin Laden since 1995." And R. James Woolsey, the former director of Central Intelligence, told the Jerusalem Post January 9 that Saudi Arabia "deserves a very large part of the blame" for September 11.

Two nations, one goal? Or two nations working at cross purposes?