Jamal Khashoggi - Murdered, dismembered

[_Some Schmo]

Well, the Saudis just kicked over $100M to us. Not a bad bribe for one journalist's life.

Where do I go to pick up my share?

[Guest]

Washington Post journalist brutally tortured and murdered at the Saudi Embassy in Turkey.

What was the motive?

He annoyed this man, who is notoriously thin-skinned, and who exercises power without anything recognisable as legal restraint:

Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman bin Faisal bin Turki bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud

This article may help you:

Washington Post:

Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression

A note from Karen Attiah, Global Opinions editor

I received this column from Jamal Khashoggi’s translator and assistant the day after Jamal was reported missing in Istanbul. The Post held off publishing it because we hoped Jamal would come back to us so that he and I could edit it together. Now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post. This column perfectly captures his commitment and passion for freedom in the Arab world. A freedom he apparently gave his life for. I will be forever grateful he chose The Post as his final journalistic home one year ago and gave us the chance to work together.

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.

The Arab world was ripe with hope during the spring of 2011. Journalists, academics and the general population were brimming with expectations of a bright and free Arab society within their respective countries. They expected to be emancipated from the hegemony of their governments and the consistent interventions and censorship of information. These expectations were quickly shattered; these societies either fell back to the old status quo or faced even harsher conditions than before.

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.

There are a few oases that continue to embody the spirit of the Arab Spring. Qatar’s government continues to support international news coverage, in contrast to its neighbors’ efforts to uphold the control of information to support the “old Arab order.” Even in Tunisia and Kuwait, where the press is considered at least “partly free,” the media focuses on domestic issues but not issues faced by the greater Arab world. They are hesitant to provide a platform for journalists from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen. Even Lebanon, the Arab world’s crown jewel when it comes to press freedom, has fallen victim to the polarization and influence of pro-Iran Hezbollah.

The Arab world is facing its own version of an Iron Curtain, imposed not by external actors but through domestic forces vying for power. During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe, which grew over the years into a critical institution, played an important role in fostering and sustaining the hope of freedom. Arabs need something similar. In 1967, the New York Times and The Post took joint ownership of the International Herald Tribune newspaper, which went on to become a platform for voices from around the world.

My publication, The Post, has taken the initiative to translate many of my pieces and publish them in Arabic. For that, I am grateful. Arabs need to read in their own language so they can understand and discuss the various aspects and complications of democracy in the United States and the West. If an Egyptian reads an article exposing the actual cost of a construction project in Washington, then he or she would be able to better understand the implications of similar projects in his or her community.

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.

[Edited to put in the right Crown Prince!!!]

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Well, the Saudis just kicked over $100M to us. Not a bad bribe for one journalist's life.

Where do I go to pick up my share?

You can enlist, go to Syria, and fight Saudi Arabia's mess in a proxy Wahhabist mess.

- Doc

[_Dr. Shades]

What was the motive?

He annoyed this man, who is notoriously thin-skinned, and who exercises power without anything recognisable as legal restraint:

His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Crown Prince of Bahrain, First Deputy Prime Minister to the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Hmm. Why did the Saudis kill a guy for annoying a prince of Bahrain, though?

[_Kevin Graham]

Hmm. Why did the Saudis kill a guy for annoying a prince of Bahrain, though?

Because that's just how they roll.

[_Chap]

Hmm. Why did the Saudis kill a guy for annoying a prince of Bahrain, though?

Because that's just how they roll.

Actually, in my rush I picked the details of the wrong Crown Prince. My apologies! It was this guy:

Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman bin Faisal bin Turki bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud

I hope nobody targeted a drone on the basis of my carelessness!

[_canpakes]

You knew that it was coming ...

Hard-line Republicans and conservative commentators are mounting a whispering campaign against Jamal Khashoggi that is designed to protect President Trump from criticism of his handling of the dissident journalist’s alleged murder by operatives of Saudi Arabia — and support Trump’s continued aversion to a forceful response to the oil-rich desert kingdom.

In recent days, a cadre of conservative House Republicans allied with Trump has been privately exchanging articles from right-wing outlets that fuel suspicion of Khashoggi, highlighting his association with the Muslim Brotherhood in his youth and raising conspiratorial questions about his work decades ago as an embedded reporter covering Osama bin Laden, according to four GOP officials involved in the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Those aspersions — which many lawmakers have been wary of stating publicly because of the political risks of doing so — have begun to flare into public view as conservative media outlets have amplified the claims, which are aimed in part at protecting Trump as he works to preserve the U.S.-Saudi relationship and avoid confronting the Saudis on human rights.

Trump’s remarks about reporters amid the Khashoggi fallout have inflamed existing tensions between his allies and the media. At a Thursday rally in Montana, Trump openly praised Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) for assaulting a reporter in his bid for Congress last year.
“Any guy that can do a body slam, he’s my kind of — he’s my guy,” Trump said.

Hours earlier, prominent conservative television personalities were making insinuations about Khashoggi’s background.
“Khashoggi was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood,” Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner asserted on Thursday’s highly rated “Outnumbered” show. “I just put it out there because it is in the constellation of things that are being talked about.” Faulkner then dismissed another guest who called her claim “iffy.”

The message was echoed on the campaign trail. Virginia Republican Corey A. Stewart, who is challenging Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), told a local radio program Thursday that “Khashoggi was not a good guy himself.”

While Khashoggi was once sympathetic to Islamist movements, he moved toward a more liberal, secular point of view, according to experts on the Middle East who have tracked his career. Khashoggi knew bin Laden in the 1980s and 1990s during the civil war in Afghanistan, but his interactions with bin Laden were as a journalist with a point of view who was working with a prized source.

Khashoggi, a Saudi citizen, left his home country last year and was granted residency in the United States by federal authorities. He lived in Virginia and wrote for The Washington Post.

Nevertheless, the smears have escalated. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son and key political booster, shared another person’s tweet last week with his millions of followers that included a line that Khashoggi was “tooling around Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden” in the 1980s, even though the context was a feature story on bin Laden’s activities.

A Tuesday broadcast of CR-TV, a conservative online outlet founded by popular talk-radio host Mark Levin, labeled Khashoggi a “longtime friend” of terrorists and claimed without evidence that Trump was the victim of an “insane” media conspiracy to tarnish him. The broadcast has been viewed more than 12,000 times.

A story in far-right FrontPage magazine casts Khashoggi as a “cynical and manipulative apologist for Islamic terrorism, not the mythical martyred dissident whose disappearance the media has spent the worst part of a week raving about,” and features a garish cartoon of bin Laden and Khashoggi with their arms around each other.
Treasury Secretary Mnuchin pulls out of investment conference, rebuking Saudi regime

The conservative push comes as Saudi government supporters on Twitter have sought in a propaganda campaign to denigrate Khashoggi as a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement once tolerated but now outlawed in Saudi Arabia as a terrorist organization.
“Trump wants to take a soft line, so Trump supporters are finding excuses for him to take it,” said William Kristol, a conservative Trump critic. “One of those excuses is attacking the person who was murdered.”

Several Trump administration aides are aware of the Khashoggi attacks circulating on Capitol Hill and in conservative media, the GOP officials said, adding that aides are being careful to not encourage the disparagement but are also doing little to contest it.

The GOP officials declined to share the names of the lawmakers and others who are circulating information critical of Khashoggi because they said doing so would risk exposing them as sources.

Fred Hiatt, The Post’s editorial page editor who published Khashoggi’s work, sharply criticized the false and distorted claims about Khashoggi, who is feared to have been killed and dismembered by Saudi operatives.
“As anyone knows who knew Jamal — or read his columns — he was dedicated to the values of free speech and open debate. He went into exile to promote those values, and now he may even have lost his life for his dogged determination in their defense,” Hiatt said in a statement. “It may not be surprising that some Saudi-inspired trolls are now trying to distract us from the crime by smearing Jamal. It may not even be surprising to see a few Americans joining in. But in both cases it is reprehensible.”

Trump said Thursday it appears Khashoggi is dead and warned that his administration could consider “very severe” measures against Saudi Arabia, which is conducting its own self-investigation. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also announced that he would not attend the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia next week, delivering the Trump administration’s first formal rebuke of Saudi Arabia’s royal family.

“The president is concerned. He believes the relationship is important, so do I, but he also understands he’s a leader on the world stage and everybody is watching and he is very concerned,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who met with Trump on Thursday.

Trump, whose grip on his party remains strong less than three weeks before the midterm elections, has seen his cautious approach to Saudi Arabia bolstered not only by the maligning of Khashoggi, but also by a conservative media infrastructure that is generally wary of traditional news organizations and establishment Republicans. As criticism of Trump grows, powerful players in that orbit have stood by the president.
“Donald Trump is keeping his eye on the ball, keeping his eye on the geopolitical ball, the national security ball. He’s not going to get sidetracked by what happened to a journalist, maybe, in the consulate there. He’s not giving cover to anybody,” syndicated talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday.

“For those who are screaming blood for the Saudis — look, these people are key allies,” evangelical leader Pat Robertson said this week. “We’ve got an arms deal that everybody wanted a piece of. . . . It’ll be a lot of jobs, a lot of money come to our coffers. It’s not something you want to blow up willy-nilly.”

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill, on the other hand, are discussing the possibility of legislative action against Saudi Arabia or other ways to lessen U.S. support.

Intelligence community officials this week have been providing continuous briefings on the investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance to the intelligence committees, whose members enjoy special clearance to view and hear sensitive information.

But in both the House and Senate, lawmakers without such clearance, including the leading Republicans on foreign policy matters, have grown frustrated with what many see as a deliberate attempt by the Trump administration to slow-walk responses to congressional requests for information about Khashoggi’s disappearance, or in some cases ignore lawmakers’ questions outright.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) have taken the step of invoking the Global Magnitsky Act to force Trump to report to Congress on whether people should face sanctions over Khashoggi’s alleged death, including Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Yet there has been little confidence among senators that Trump will suddenly feel pressure to penalize high-ranking Saudi officials or take other sweeping punitive measures.

In the House, a perceived lack of cooperation from the White House on Khashoggi has compelled some Republicans to take new interest in a bill to invoke the War Powers Resolution to curtail U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition operating in Yemen’s civil war. But the legislation has not secured the support of leading Republicans.

Last year, the House voted 366 to 30 to approve a non-binding resolution stating that the United States’ support for the Saudi-led coalition had not been congressionally authorized — an effort that did not rattle the administration, which continued to build its relationships with Saudi royalty.

Earlier this year, the Senate failed to enact legislation that would have curtailed U.S. support for the Saudi war effort, after appeals from Saudi officials and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis not to pass the measure.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpos ... edirect=on

[_Themis]

Hmm. Why did the Saudis kill a guy for annoying a prince of Bahrain, though?

He is a critic of the Saudi regime and exposes information about them they would rather not have people know, and he has a stage on which to write. It's pretty much the same thing with some of the journalist killed by the Russians. Controlling the message has always been understood as extremely important to dictators. They will kill to do it.

[_subgenius]

Hmm. Why did the Saudis kill a guy for annoying a prince of Bahrain, though?

He is a critic of the Saudi regime and exposes information about them they would rather not have people know, and he has a stage on which to write. It's pretty much the same thing with some of the journalist killed by the Russians. Controlling the message has always been understood as extremely important to dictators. They will kill to do it.

There are a lot of journalists who are critical of that regime....Khashoggi got a little special treatment for another reason...or is "the regime" just trying to keep it fresh?

[Guest]

There are a lot of journalists who are critical of that regime....Khashoggi got a little special treatment for another reason...or is "the regime" just trying to keep it fresh?

Likely, that old “Come on down to the embassy and we’ll do lunch” routine to nab additional journalists has probably lost some effectiveness after this. Now it’s going to take more time to get them all.