The Saudi Arabian columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who wrote critical pieces about his country for the Washington Post, disappeared on October 2 when he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get permission to divorce his first wife so he could marry his fiancée.
He was apparently killed, almost certainly on the orders of, or with the knowledge of, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. There are reliable reports of 15 Saudis arriving in Turkey right before Khashoggi was killed and leaving soon thereafter; this is likely to have been an “assassination squad.” The mind reels.
Wikipedia tells what we know, and also discusses the speculation that Khashoggi was murdered by being vivisected, a horrible scenario (see also here and here):
On 15 October, CNN reported that Saudi Arabia was about to admit to the killing, but would claim that it was an “interrogation gone bad,” as opposed to a targeted death squad killing. This claim drew criticism from some, considering that Khashoggi was reportedly dismembered and that his killing was allegedly premeditated, and the circumstances, including the arrival and departure of a team of 15, included forensic specialists presumed to have been present to hide evidence of the crime, on the same day.
On 16 October it was reported by the Middle East Eye that according to an anonymous Turkish source, the murder took about seven minutes and forensic specialist Salah Muhammed al-Tubaigy cut Khashoggi’s body into pieces while Khashoggi was still alive, as he and his colleagues listened to music. The source further claimed that “Khashoggi was dragged from consul general Mohammad al-Otaibi’s office at the Saudi consulate … Tubaigy began to cut Khashoggi’s body up on a table in the study while he was still alive,” and “There was no attempt to interrogate him. They had come to kill him.”
The Wall Street Journal reports from anonymous sources that Khashoggi was tortured in front of top Saudi diplomat Mohammad al-Otaibi, Saudi Arabia’s consul general. Reuters reported that Al-Otaibi left Istanbul for Riyadh on 16 October. His departure came hours before his home was expected to be searched in relation to the journalist’s disappearance.
The Saudi regime is odious, disgusting, and theocratic; and if they did this, which they almost certainly did (I don’t know about the vivisection part), the world must shun them, call them out, and stop being friendly to them (“President” Trump, in his usual hamhanded way, has already ratcheted down his anti-Saudi rhetoric). What we should be doing is shaming this theocracy in the world, stop buying their oil, and stop selling them arms and other goods.
Killing a journalist on foreign soil is an unforgivable crime, and the Saudis first denied it but now seem to admit that Khashoggi was indeed killed, though as an accidental result of a “bad interrogation”. Seriously, does anybody buy that?
It’s doubly sad, then, to read Khashoggi’s last column for the Washington Post, which is about freedom of expression, the “crime” for which he was killed. You can read it by clicking on the screenshot below. It was submitted to the Post by Khashoggi’s assistant and translator the day after he disappeared (the editor has a saddening introduction):
A few excerpts:
I was recently online looking at the 2018 “Freedom in the World” report published by Freedom House and came to a grave realization. There is only one country in the Arab world that has been classified as “free.” That nation is Tunisia. Jordan, Morocco and Kuwait come second, with a classification of “partly free.” The rest of the countries in the Arab world are classified as “not free.
As a result, Arabs living in these countries are either uninformed or misinformed. They are unable to adequately address, much less publicly discuss, matters that affect the region and their day-to-day lives. A state-run narrative dominates the public psyche, and while many do not believe it, a large majority of the population falls victim to this false narrative. Sadly, this situation is unlikely to change.
. . . My dear friend, the prominent Saudi writer Saleh al-Shehi, wrote one of the most famous columns ever published in the Saudi press. He unfortunately is now serving an unwarranted five-year prison sentence for supposed comments contrary to the Saudi establishment. The Egyptian government’s seizure of the entire print run of a newspaper, al-Masry al Youm, did not enrage or provoke a reaction from colleagues. These actions no longer carry the consequence of a backlash from the international community. Instead, these actions may trigger condemnation quickly followed by silence.
As a result, Arab governments have been given free rein to continue silencing the media at an increasing rate. There was a time when journalists believed the Internet would liberate information from the censorship and control associated with print media. But these governments, whose very existence relies on the control of information, have aggressively blocked the Internet. They have also arrested local reporters and pressured advertisers to harm the revenue of specific publications.
You can see why he was killed. And these are the very last words he wrote:
The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events. More important, we need to provide a platform for Arab voices. We suffer from poverty, mismanagement and poor education. Through the creation of an independent international forum, isolated from the influence of nationalist governments spreading hate through propaganda, ordinary people in the Arab world would be able to address the structural problems their societies face.
h/t: Nilou
Reblogged this on The Logical Place and commented:
This story is truly shocking.
It’s beyond belief that they could do this with impunity,they’ll get away with it , because the craven arsehole in the White House has more sympathy with these types of Regimes, than any that espouse Free Speech and Human Rights or even the Rule of Law.
I did not realize he is the nephew of the arms dealer, Adnan, & his grandfather was a Turkish doctor to the Saudis…
This is a horrifying story. Saudi Arabia is really a cesspool of moral corruption.
Unfortunately they have oil, so I am sure they will get away with murder (literally) once more.
They will not get away with this one and it could also start the ending of Trump. It is just further pealing back of the rotten onion named Trump with all of his money bosses from Moscow to Riyadh. Mueller is coming close to producing results in the investigation. If the House goes to the democrats in the election many more inquiries will be done. For those who think this is just another 9/11 Saudi event and all the cynics out there win, I don’t think so.
Trump’s followers might be alright with him cozying up to Russia and even North Korea, but a borderline Islamic theocracy is a harder sell and I think even that crowd might have enough brain cells to rub together to find the whole thing a bit perverse.
Then again who knows how far they’ll go to “own the libs.”
In the end I don’t think it will be up to the Trump cult. This will be out of their hands and even the lame and weak republicans in the congress are having trouble swallowing this stuff. Trump is completely on the hook to Saudi, maybe more even than Russia and in the end, this cannot stand.
>> Trump’s followers might be alright with him cozying up to Russia and even North Korea, but a borderline Islamic theocracy is a harder sell
The intellectual malleability of the MAGAheads never ceases to amaze. They’ll find a way to support an Islamic dictatorship if they need to. The constraints of rationality do not apply to them.
It would be nice to think that America would never stand for the torturing of innocent people to death for politcal purposes. Alas, those days are past and, for once, that’s not Trump’s fault.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_report_on_CIA_torture
Let’s not pretend that anything useful came out of this hideous episode or bipartisan guilt,or that ordinary people (or most of the politcal class) protested. America has its work cut out if it wants to get back on that moral high horse.
Bringing up repulsive acts allowed by the republicans does not make your case. When the likes of Bush was in charge they did those things. We now have a president who does worse and has no moral character. This too shall pass. Good grief, Bush made up excuses to go to war that were a pack of lies. So shocking that he also supported torture. What should shock us is the total lack of anything through all of this from the congress.
The US government dealt with that issue openly and publicly, and (thanks to people with the moral standing to speak out on such matters, such as John McCain and Barack Obama) the memos allowing “enhanced interrogation techniques” were rescinded, the policy abjured.
That is what gives the US moral standing in the world — and that is what is in such dire peril under Donald Trump’s leadership. (Trump was the candidate, let us recall, who said he would go “way beyond waterboarding” in torturing prisoners, and who promised that the military would follows his orders in this regard notwithstanding the stated policy of the US government and their own moral compunctions.)
And the war criminals like Cheney (“vice president of torture”) are still at large and celebrated in republican circles.
Indeed. Perfection is too high a standard to demand. If a country fesses up, and changes, that matters. Perpetrators at Abu Ghraib for example were jailed.
True. But those up the military chain-of-command who approved it, and those in the CIA who instigated it, and those in the Bush administration who authorized it, unfortunately escaped full and just accountability.
Same as it ever was. The powerful almost never have to face the consequences of their actions, it is always the grunts who carry out the orders who pay.
Thanks for this, Ken. Good to be reminded of the controversy over the actions and not just the acts themselves. It’s easy to lose sight of whatever positives existed when the subject in question is so horrific.
With torture and oppression the Saudis are true Salafis, returning their country to the brutality of the Prophet.
The Prince should fall because of this and be replaced by a brother or cousin. The king knows better. Nothing else will do. We should require that in order not to cut ties completely.
Even if AGW isn’t true after all, we still want to switch to renewables so that we can stop trading with places like this.
…should have switched to renewables long ago.
The Trump administration’s willingness to aid and abet the Saudis in the cover-up of this gruesome assassination of a WaPo journalist (and US permanent resident) threatens to rob the United States of whatever moral standing it still has in the international community. Trump sent our Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to Riyadh to act the grinning fool, glad-handing the thuggish crown prince as he lies through his teeth.
Trump clearly has no bottom. This bodes ill for depths to which he will sink after the midterms to avoid the coming justice of the special counsel investigation. These are perilous times for constitutional democracy, and our nation is in for an extremely bumpy ride in the days ahead.
And best of luck to US residents traveling abroad these days. Not only is the US now one of the most despised countries on the planet but you’ll likely get little help from your government if you should be so unlucky as to get caught up in a bad situation while in another country. For decades it was widely considered a bad idea to mess with US residents because the government made a point of discouraging that. Now we’ve got Trump letting the world know that it’s no big deal to snatch a US resident and vivisect them.
As if it needs to be said, but Trump is the most disastrous, morally reprehensible moron to ever sit in the Oval Office. And I can no longer avoid the obvious conclusion that anyone who continues to support Trump is either an idiot or a nasty piece of work.
US citizens travelling abroad sure don’t want to get jammed up in a country that has (as Donald Trump bragged from the hustings about Saudi Arabia) put “hundreds of millions of dollars” in Trump’s own personal pocket.
I think Trump is using the proposed $110 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia — which is itself bullshit; the Saudis always have such a weaponry “wish list”; they’ve committed only to the purchase of $4 billion so far — as a smokescreen. I suspect Trump is motivated by personal avarice, based on either past favors rendered or (even more likely) promises of future fortunes to come.
No bottom, not even a foggy one.
Yeah, Trump has culled the herd at the State Department to levels the imperil our diplomacy. Nearly two years into the Trump administration and we still have no ambassador to Turkey OR Saudi Arabia.
….fuck, Ken, Australia, one of the US’s staunchest allies hasn’t had an ambassador for two years!!….
There’s a new report (from a Russian propaganda site, so take it with a grain of salt) that one of the hit squad members has just been killed in a car “accident” in Riyahd:
https://mundo.sputniknews.com/orientemedio/201810181082813074-un-sospechoso-de-asesinato-de-khashoggi-muere/
Business Insider has the same story citing a Turkish newspaper as the source. I suspect the members of the hit squad will be eliminated one by one so there is no possibility of an eye-witness contradicting the yet-to-be-concocted official story.
https://www.businessinsider.com/khashoggi-suspect-mashal-saad-al-bostani-reportedly-dead-in-car-crash-2018-10
Getting to look more and more like some plot in a violent movie.
If their deaths become a pattern it would be good to snag a few of the death squad and put them under protection and try to get them to testify about what was done.
If true, this seems like evidence of internal Saudi politics. You don’t murder your loyal servants who did as you told them to — this will tempt survivors to run to your enemies for protection. But you may wish to send a warning to your loose-cannon nephew that his tactics aren’t appropriate.
I expect Agent Orange is envious of the Crown Prince.
We’re counting CNN predictions as news? Predictions that didn’t come true?
Saudi Barbaria indeed…
Saudi Beheadia?
Trump’s response has been appalling and insulting to all Americans, essentially saying, “But the Prince says he didn’t do it.” All to protect Trump’s own financial and political interests.
No, that has not been his response. The Turks claim to have an audio recording proving the charges. Trump has asked the Turks to provide it. Can you explain again why examining evidence is inappropriate?
He does have a history of “loving” the guys who kill their opponents (or relatives).
I imagine Trump hearing about the killing for the first time thinking, “That’s so cool. I wish I could do stuff like that!”
I didn’t say it was his ONLY response but it is the key one, IMHO. He is clearly looking for a way to let the Saudis off the hook rather than get to the truth. He’s signalled that in all his statements on the subject. My guess on asking the Turks to provide the audio tape is that he knows already that they aren’t going to give it up or it doesn’t prove anything. I’m guessing the CIA already has their own proof but Trump doesn’t want to reveal it.
Guesses are not evidence. Nor are they an answer to my question.
True, guesses are guesses. And answering your questions may or may not be one of my goals.
Ok, Mr. B, care to favor us with a plausible alternative explanation, other than that this was a brutal assassination done at the behest of MbS?
Donald Trump should be DEMANDING the Turkish tape; instead, he’s casting doubt as to its existence, hoping it disappears. Every move Trump has made from the moment this story broke has been a smokescreen for the Saudi royals.
1. I don’t have to provide any theory at all, I don’t have the *have* any theory at all, in order to ask to see any purported proof.
2. Neither you nor I know what is being said behind closed doors. You make strong assertions about something you cannot know. We may never know, but we will see the upshot soon enough. Will sanctions against SA be vitiated if they start in a few days, rather than yesterday?
No one says you have to have a theory. But do you? Can you conjure any set of plausible circumstances in which MbS is innocent of this? If so, that would be an excellent lead regarding where we should look for exculpatory evidence.
What we do have is an extremely long track record of brutality toward dissidents by the Saudi regime, and a very long track record of perfidy by Donald Trump. That, along with the very damning circumstances that have thus far come to light, is sufficient, I think, to start drawing some tentative conclusions about what likely happened here.
Sure I have a theory. The Saudis did it is my theory. What I don’t have is a reason to accept Erdogan’s word, or assume I know enough to be confident, or the impatience to demand action before the relevant agencies have announced their findings. (I suspect we will have to trust the CIA or some such agency.)
It’s Law Enforcement 101 to nail down a suspect’s explanation as soon after a crime as possible. Yet Sec. State Pompeo travels all the way to Riyadh for a grip’n’grin with MbS and, according to his own statement upon leaving, did not even ask him about the incident or demand any evidence regarding the team that apparently traveled to Turkey to carry out the hit?
The first words out of Donald Trump’s mouth were to start taking potential sanctions off the table and to start throwing out theories about “rogue elements” (while claiming he didn’t hear this from King Salman). The US is giving every appearance that it is NOT interested in getting to the bottom of this, but is dawdling to give the Saudis time to come up with a story scapegoating others.
Never thought we’d have a Trump apologist aboard.
If the Turks have a tape of the murder, I suspect they will be holding it secret until to Saudi’s put forward their narrative, and then release the recordings to catch Riyadh in their lies. If Turkey releases the tape too soon, the US and their Saudi puppets (or is it vice-versa?) will have the opportunity to work their narrative to dismiss it. The Saudis must know what the Turks are doing and at this moment are likely climbing the walls.
Someone suggested that the Turks don’t want to reveal too much about how their audio was acquired because they have the Saudi embassy bugged.
Surely that’s water under the bridge, now. No?
Probably not for the Turks. Bugging embassies is serious business. I’m not going to lose sleep over it though.
My guess is that the Saudis have been trying to negotiate with Turkey to make the tape disappear. If so, we’ll see if the Turkish government has its price.
Still, the Turkish government must have allowed the leaks that have already occurred, no?
The Turks must love these tapes, I guess, it gives them some leverage against Saud in times of need.
I think the Turks are looking for leverage against Donald. Team Orange wants to fabricate/maintain a cover up (cover up protecting MBS) almost as much as the Saudis do.
Look for favors ($$) going from the Trump admin to Turkey and the audio recording magically evaporating.
Sub
Sub sub.
We should all be deeply encouraged, like President Trump, by the Saudis zeal to investigate the mystery of Mr. Kashoggi’s disappearance inside their own Istanbul embassy. Next, perhaps President Putin will announce his personal investigation of the mystery of those Russian-speaking little green men in unmarked uniforms who took over the Crimea. I look forward to Senator Mitch McConnell offering to investigate how the Senate mysteriously failed to act on President Obama’s last Supreme Court nomination.
Good one! How could it possible require an “investigation” to determine if the guy was killed/interrogated within the walls of their own embassy? It is now two weeks after the event and people are still investigating? It’s a complete joke.
Columnist named Khashoggi,
Who Saudis dismembered
Investigated by Christmas if anyone remembered,
Brown body part packages tied up with strings,
These are a few of my favorite things
Putin will check why crimea’s ingested
Why drab colored clothes with no badges suggested.
Garland explained by that senator Mitch,
And why Kavanaugh’s hurry? You contradictory bitch!
He flew through as if he had wings,
These are a few of my favorite things
Brilliant!
Jon is so inspiring. 😎
You owe an apology to Oscar Hammerstein.
True, but I shouldn’t stop there. Sorry WEIT.
I loved it!
Yeah, me, too. Still owes an apology to Hammerstein, though. 🙂
Hammerstein, Frankenstein. The HILLS are alaaaaaive with the sound of mooooosic. Look, I’ll make it up to you.
Thanks a lot, Rick, for yet another earworm🙀…for a thouuuuusand yeeeeeeears🎶
Oh, oh. My last comment is awaiting moderation. Does that mean I made a no-no?
This never would have happened if we had a competent president. The Saudi leadership, the North Korean leadership, the Kremlin, etc. – they all know how easily Donald is manipulated and they know they can get away with this kind of thing.
The Saudis will produce a fall guy, the Trump admin will bless it, and the Saudi leadership will remain relatively unscathed. They’ll take a hit from all the nations with strong leadership, but the U.S. response will be inconsequential.
I read that Pat Robertson has shown his true Christian ethics by emphasizing the importance of the US arms deal …
Any idea why 15 men are needed to kill 1 man?
It’s not for the killing, it’s for the cleanup.
Apparently creating a makeshift abattoir in a diplomatic residence, then cleaning the place up (by painting, etc.), can be a manpower-intensive operation.
I’d put this in with the replies to 14 except that it won’t wind up at the right place.
If this had happened inside SA, we’d never hear about it. The fact that we are suggests to me, anyway, that Turkish workers inside the Saudi embassy played a role, even if the Turks also have the place bugged. And in either case, it can be claimed as part of the legacy of Kemal Ataturk.
I presume you mean that the Turkish workers played a role in us hearing about it, and that is part of Ataturk’s legacy? (NOT that the murder is down to them or Ataturk…)
(Just your wording wasn’t entirely unambiguous)
cr
Thank you, Jerry.
RIP Jamal. Hopefully his dream of freedom of information and expression for the Arab world will come to be soon.
This story is starting to move fast now and will be ending soon. Just what kind of lie the Saudi’a want to sell is not going to work and Trump is already admitting the guy is dead. The major newspapers are ahead of Trump on this story so he has to stop lying soon or he just looks even dumber than he is. What price the Saudi’s will pay is still to be discovered but it will be substantial. The total corruption of Trump and his entire administration will be the subject of many books before long.
The following is an interesting article on this topic:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/khashoggi-case-battle-leadership-islamic-world-141709338.html
This killing was more like a hit in a mafia turf war, rather than just eliminating a “journalist” who was critical of the boss. Was this a nasty way to kill someone? Sure. But so is vaporizing a 16 year old with a Hellfire missile (right Obama?). There’s a war going on and people die horrible deaths in war sometimes. This guy was not an innocent. So far the President has handled this okay, because neither the Turks or the Saudis have clean hands. I’ll just wait and see how it plays out.
Your rationalization of murder is very weak.
That is a ridiculous comparison.
Deaths in war are deplorable but any suffering by the victim is usually incidental. It is enough that they are dead.
Khashoggi’s death was – if allegations are correct – intentionally sadistic and horrific. This puts it on a whole new level of depravity. Saudi Arabia now ranks down there with ISIS (if they didn’t already).
“This guy was not an innocent”. What the hell does *that* mean? Exactly what was he guilty of that justified a sentence worse than a convicted serial killer would get in the US?
cr
Right. He published articles critical of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia in The Washington Post.
This is utter moral bankruptcy.
My, how the rightwing that preached the need for “moral clarity” has collapsed under Donald Trump.
Team Orange is mounting a subtle smear campaign against Khashoggi in an attempt to soften the outrage.
Yeah, I see it appearing as a typical right-wing talking point among the usual suspects.
All his own followers need to hear is “he wrote for the Washington Post.” So evidently Trump thinks he has to convince more than his own shrinking cult.
Obviously, there are no justifications for his alleged murder. But hagiographic portraits of the man from his media friends whitewash reality. Khashoggi was an Islamist and a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, a widely influential organization in the Arab world that wants to institute a shariah law and spawned terrorist organizations like Hamas.
As evidenced here (https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-khashoggi-was-a-victim-of-saudi-terror-and-a-supporter-of-palestinian-terrorism-1.6571267), Khashoggi promoted the Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who gave religious sanction to suicide bombings, as a supposed representative of “moderate Islam”. Khashoggi viewed the “struggle against Israel” as one of the most important Arab causes and one of the reasons for his opposition to the current Saudi leadership was their rapprochement with Israel which he vigorously opposed.
An Islamist may present himself as a supporter of liberal democracy to his liberal American friends and colleagues at the Washington Post and at the same time expound his Islamist views in Arabic columns which his American friends are unlikely to read. Arafat was a notorious example of this: talking in English to his American interlocutors he painted himself as a man of peace while fanning the flames of intifada back at home in Arabic. Some of Khashoggi’s Arabic columns were translated into English and cited in the above-mentioned article. In them he extensively praised Hamas and clearly expressed his hatred of Israel.
Just because an Islamist supports outside trappings of a democracy like voting does not make him a liberal. In fact, it is an official policy of the Muslim brotherhood to support democratic elections in Arab countries – they are confident that they will win the popular support to institute the rule by shariah law, it is the means to illiberal ends.
My reading was that Khashoggi supported the brotherhood in his early career but abandoned them as his philosophy matured.
I don’t know whether he was always a card-carrying member of the organization but his sympathies for the Brotherhood and their ideological alignments are well documented.
The fact that Khashoggi wasn’t liberal by western standards was no reason to torture, kill, and dismember him.
I didn’t say it was. But it is a reason to pull back on rhapsodizing paeans painting him as a brave dissident standing up for freedom of expression. I am curious how many times he has criticised Erdogan for jailing any journalist even mildly opposed to his Islamising agenda in Turkey (the latter btw nicely dovetails with the Muslim Brotherhood strategy in the Arab world).
From all I’ve read, Khashoggi WAS “a brave dissident standing up for freedom of expression”. His last essay for the Post, I think, should clarify his stand on freedom of expression.
As I said above, I would be interested to see where he has stood for freedom of expression of his Turkish colleagues opposed to Erdogan. Or did he only stand up for freedom of expression of his Islamist fellow-travellers across the Arab world? As we know from many examples on this site and elsewhere, it is easy to be for freedom of expression of people one agrees with. Of course, I may be wrong and he was a genuine supporter of free expression for all but I would like to see more evidence.
You’re beginning to sound more and more like a troll.
>> But it is a reason to pull back on rhapsodizing paeans painting him as a brave dissident standing up for freedom of expression.
He was standing up for freedom of expression, for democracy, against the war in Yemen, and for women’s rights. This is undeniable – it’s right there in black and white. This liberal stance is why they killed him.
How many divisions did Khashoggi command? How many weapons did he supply the Muslim Brotherhood?
The man wrote words. He disseminated ideas. And for these grievous sins he was lured to a foreign consulate, kidnapped, and vivisected, butchered like an animal.
My god, how low have the Banana Republicans sunk, what moral abyss have they crawled into with Donald Trump? What happened to their constant clamoring for “moral clarity” — as with all their criticisms of Barack Obama for failing always to put “Islamic” before “terrorism”?
The horror, the horror.
+1
I think we’re talking past each other. As I said, there are no justifications for his murder. I was just providing a (IMO much needed) corrective to the narrative “Saudi bad, Khashoggi angel”. This is the Middle East we’re talking about, nothing is black and white there, only many shades of grey (where many > 50).
And if you’re implying I am a member of the “Banana Republicans” I can assure you nothing could be further from the truth. There are many reasons to be critical of the GOP; I just don’t think the state of US-Saudi relations is purely on them.
No one here called “Khashoggi angel”, I don’t think. On principle, it wouldn’t matter if he was a right winger, contributor to Fox News and writer for Breitbart and a one time skinhead.
I’m at a loss to see what the point of your original comment was, if it was not in some way meant either to mitigate what the Saudis have done, or to suggest that they not be made to suffer the full brunt of available US sanctions.
I have no idea what your personal politics are, Eli, but there has been a concerted effort over the past couple days by the segment of the rightwing that’s willing to defend Donald Trump at all costs to attack Jamal Khashoggi’s reputation in order to deflect attention from Trump’s week-kneed covering up for the Saudis in this mess.
In any event, whatever Khashoggi’s earlier alliances or views may have been, he wasn’t assassinated because of any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood or anti-Israel views. (Hell, the Saudi royal family has itself long been the world’s foremost funder of the toxic Wahhabism that fuels Islamic terrorist organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda.) Kashoggi was murdered because he published articles critical of the Saudi royal family and its crown prince.
“weak-kneed”
Ha! Banana Republicans! I like it.
And, scared the crap out of every Saudi abroad, too.
The Saudis are now saying he died after a “fight” in the consulate: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45923217
Color me sceptical…
Most fights I hear about don’t involve severed limbs- or heads.
Otherwise, ya. Where’s the corpus? And why are you boarding the aircraft with plastic garbage bags?
Old Saudi saying: don’t bring an Apple watch to a bonesaw fight.
Since when do you bring a bone saw and a forensic coroner to a fist fight?
This story is even more implausible than the Saudis’ original blanket denial. How many bullshit stories have the Saudis put out now? And how many more are to come? Meanwhile our tough-guy president leads from the rear, a mouthpiece for a corrupt regime.
Fistfight at the MBS Corral?
The lies are so flimsy and inherently contradictory that they can do little but convince fence-sitters that “yeah, okay, these guys did exactly the thing they’re denying they did.”
The Saudis say they’ve fired some administrators. OK, now I’m feeling so much better. Yes I am. Move along now. Nothing to see here.
Thanks for this post honoring Khashoggi; I hope that his gruesome death will not be in vain.