The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

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The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby cmsellers » Fri Oct 12, 2018 7:27 pm

So this has been a major ongoing news story; I am a little surprised that no one else has made a thread.

Jamal Khashoggi was as Saudi journalist with close ties to the royal family, whose relations with that family became strained and who became a permanent resident of the United States. In this he reminds me of Fethullah Gülen, who was a close ally of Recep "Gollum" Erdoğan before Gollum decided that Turkey wasn't big enough for the two of them.

Khashoggi was engaged to a Turkish woman, and Saudi law requires government permission for its citizens to marry foreign nationals, so he went into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get the documents. Routine stuff, except that he disappeared. A squad of fifteen men which included the deputy head of Saudi intelligence was seen going into the building just before his arrival, then leaving shortly after, visiting the head of the mission, and rushing to the airport, and the Turkish consulate staff was told to take the day off.

So it is pretty clear to everybody that Khashoggi was assassinated by Saudi intelligence. Gollum is pissed, which surprises me, since both Gollum and the Saudis are fans of Sunni Islamist theocracy and mostly supported the same sides in Syria. However I imagine that having an assassination on Turkish soil committed by the intelligence services of another county must hurt his pride, Gollum is a very prickly man.

Trump is Trumping on and so far refusing to do anything, saying that since it happened in Turkey and didn't involve a US citizen, it is not our problem. Rand Paul, who has been rightly critical over US support for the Saudi-induced humanitarian disaster in Yemen (another thing we should probably have a thread on), has issued a call for an end to US arms sales to Saudi Arabia that will almost certainly go nowhere. 22 Senators have called for an investigation under the Magnitsky Act.

Like Paul, I have been a critic of the US-Saudi relationship for a very long time. So this does not terribly surprise me, sadly. However a normal president would probably have done something at this point. I don't really have anything more to say at this time, but Turkey claims to have graphic evidence of the assassination, so this seems like it will be an ongoing saga.
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby Absentia » Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:00 pm

cmsellers wrote:Like Paul, I have been a critic of the US-Saudi relationship for a very long time. So this does not terribly surprise me, sadly. However a normal president would probably have done something at this point.


"Something"? When have we ever stood up to the Saudis? Bush wouldn't even publicly criticize them after 9/11.
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby cmsellers » Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:22 pm

Absentia wrote:"Something"? When have we ever stood up to the Saudis? Bush wouldn't even publicly criticize them after 9/11.

The US was also weak on Russia for a long time. W. looked into Putin's eyes and saw his soul. Obama tried to reset relations after the Russian invasion of Georgia. I was critical of Putin long before his adventures in Ukraine. However Putin's annexation of Crimea was a moment that finally forged a bipartisan consensus, one which even Trump has not yet been able to break.

I feel like under another president, this would be a Crimea moment for US-Saudi relations. At the very least, I would expect a normal president would have issued a strong statement of condemnation and triggered a Magnitsky Act investigation. I would also expect a normal president to explore sanctions against the 15 men on the assassination squad.

It is notable that it is mostly GOP Senators who already buck Trump fairly often who signed onto the call for a Magnitsky Act investigation. It seems like most pro-Trump senators are following his line, which is that this is totes NBD. However as the Atlantic article I linked noted: that is in itself unprecedented. Trump is the first post-WWII president who has not even pretended to care about human rights.
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Fri Oct 12, 2018 8:59 pm

cmsellers wrote:It is notable that it is mostly GOP Senators who already buck Trump fairly often who signed onto the call for a Magnitsky Act investigation. It seems like most pro-Trump senators are following his line, which is that this is totes NBD. However as the Atlantic article I linked noted: that is in itself unprecedented. Trump is the first post-WWII president who has not even pretended to care about human rights.

There's also this little thing.
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby Crimson847 » Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:12 pm

He can't piss off the Saudis as long as they control the Orb.

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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby Absentia » Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:16 pm

I'm sorry, I just can't wring my hands and pretend it's a big surprise that a country which is blithely committing war crimes in Yemen and only recently allowed women to get driver's licenses isn't real big on human rights.

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for cutting them off of US support, whenever and however Washington gets the stones to do it. But I have a hard time believing this is the watershed moment.

Also:

Trump 'demands answers' on missing Saudi

"We cannot let this happen to reporters, to anybody," Mr Trump said on Wednesday.

"We're demanding everything. We want to see what's going on there."
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby Aquila89 » Fri Oct 12, 2018 9:51 pm

The war in Yemen is worse, but they can find excuses for it; it's necessary to stop Iranian-funded terrorists, the civilians are unfortunate collateral damage, etc. But if they actually murdered and dismembered a prominent journalist on foreign soil - it's hard to imagine how they would explain that. It would be kind of hard to claim that he was collateral damage and not the target.
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby sunglasses » Fri Oct 12, 2018 10:03 pm

The whole situation is horrible and nauseating.

That's all I really have to say about it. People will talk about it. People will claim they're concerned or praying and then nothing will happen. Just like always.
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby gisambards » Fri Oct 12, 2018 11:00 pm

If they'd killed him on Western soil, maybe this would be a game-changing moment. As is, the West's leaders are going to find it pretty easy to look the other way on this one. Turkey's considered Middle East and is widely accepted to be a dictatorship, so it's wild enough country that no-one's really going to give a shit.
It's still a new step over boundaries, so there'll be more criticism than there might be normally when Saudi Arabia does something horrible (although I think the Saudis will expect and put up with that, as they know it won't lead to action), but no-one's going to do anything. Western leaders have been okay pretending Saudi Arabia is fine for decades now, so now that they've let women drive and MbS is going around extolling what a progressive dude he is (and now there's one less prominent person suggesting otherwise) the West is going to be even more inclined to look the other way and pretend it's all good when they publicly butcher someone for saying the wrong thing.
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby Kivutar » Sat Oct 13, 2018 8:31 pm

15 guys to kill one journalist, how brave. Very powerful.

Yeah, not relevant, but still popped into my head.
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby iMURDAu » Sat Oct 13, 2018 8:57 pm

What are you talking about? He left shortly after he arrived.

:roll:

I don't know why that's an official response. In other news the Saudi government completed their homework and intended to turn it in but alas, it was eaten by a dog.

Just admit it. See if anything even changes. The West will have fiery rhetoric and then ultimately do nothing. Dissidents aren't going to feel emboldened to speak freely just because the government claims innocence in this.
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby Absentia » Tue Oct 16, 2018 4:34 pm

The bad news is that somebody seems to have reminded Trump of how much money US defense contractors get from the Saudis, and he is now willing to believe their denials uncritically. European leaders have been less openly craven, but nobody is planning to take serious action.

On the other hand, governments aren't the only ones with any influence. Mohammed bin Salman has been making a lot of noise about modernizing the Saudi economy, and now Richard Branson headlines the list of foreign investors who have backtracked on planned developments while MBS's favorite vanity project, the "Davos in the desert" financial conference, has lost more than a dozen major CEOs and media figures from the US and Europe.

It turns out that building a 21st century economy isn't so easy when you act like a medieval despot.
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby Aquila89 » Sat Oct 20, 2018 11:58 am

The Saudis have admitted that Khashoggi is dead, contradicting their earlier claims that he left the embassy alive. They now say that he got into a fight with the people he met at the consulate and died as a result of that. 18 Saudis who are linked to the cause were detained.
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby Aquila89 » Sun Nov 04, 2018 5:59 pm

The Saudis are now saying that Khashoggi's killing was a premeditated murder, but it was done by rogue elements and the leadership didn't know about it.
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Re: The assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Postby ftl » Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:56 am

Well, that seems like pretty much nonsense. Assassinating someone in an embassy like that doesn't get signed off on by some mid-level bureaucrat.

But it'll be the Saudi line and they'll stick to it. Maybe they'll pick a fall guy.
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