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Jamal Khashoggi: Where The Road to Damascus & The Path to 9/11 Converge

October 17, 2018

By Kristen Breitweiser, one of the four 9/11 widows – known as the “Jersey Girls” – instrumental in forcing the government to form the 9/11 Commission to investigate the 2001 attacks. Follow Kristen Breitweiser on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kdbreitweiser.

Road to Damascus Conversion: Derived from the Biblical story of Paul, the term “Damascus road conversion” is commonly used to refer to an abrupt about-face on a serious issue of religion, politics or philosophy. In this type of change, a single, dramatic event causes a person to become aligned with something he or she previously was against or support a position that he or she previously opposed. https://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-damascus-road-conversion.htm#didyouknowout

As a 9/11 widow who has spent the last 17 years fighting for accountability with regard to the 9/11 attacks that killed my husband and 3,000 others, I find the recent uproar over Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance and alleged murder interesting and out of character for many of those decrying his disappearance and demanding an investigation and accountability.

Frankly, 9/11 Family members keep a running list of all those in Washington who have proved by their past actions to be against U.S. victims of terrorism and in support of nations like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a nation with a long history of supporting global Wahhabist terrorism. As victims of terrorism, we are ever vigilant and watchful about all those named on our lists. We follow these folks actions, their speeches, their legislation, because we know that they are never looking out for our best interests as U.S. victims of terrorism. As a group, our institutional memory is broad and long. And we never forget.

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The Implications Of A Fractured U.S., Saudi Alliance

October 17, 2018

The Implications Of A Fractured U.S., Saudi Alliance

After the resurgence of the U.S. oil industry in recent years due to hydraulic fracking and the shale oil revolution, most thought the days of Middle Eastern oil producers, Saudi Arabia in particular, being able to threaten use of the so-called oil weapon as geopolitical leverage or even coercion were over. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Even though the U.S. is pumping oil at record levels, hitting 11 million barrels of oil per day, a rate that should have negated such a threat from ever resurfacing, it seems that Washington has also arguably shot global oil markets in the foot by re-imposing economic sanctions against Iran, with more sanctions slated to hit the Islamic Republic’s energy sector in just a matter of weeks.

The loss of Iranian barrels from global oil markets has already pushed prices well past $80 per barrel recently, and prices could break into the $90 plus range after November. Added to the fray are long term production problems in major OPEC producers Venezuela, Nigeria and Libya – in effect offsetting the ramp-up in U.S. production and the ability for shale producers to play the coveted role of oil markets swing producer. Now Saudi Arabia has taken at least marginal control of oil markets back again – not a comforting prospect for many.

Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it would retaliate against any punitive measures from the U.S. linked to the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi with even “stronger ones.” In what Bloomberg News called an implicit reference to the kingdom’s petroleum wealth, the Saudi statement noted the Saudi economy “has an influential and vital role in the global economy.”

1973 oil embargo remembered

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Should US-Saudi Alliance be Saved?

October 16, 2018

Should US-Saudi Alliance be Saved?

Over the weekend Donald Trump warned of “severe punishment” if an investigation concludes that a Saudi hit team murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Riyadh then counter-threatened, reminding us that, as the world’s largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia “plays an impactful and active role in the global economy.”

Message: Sanction us, and we may just sanction you.

Some of us yet recall how President Nixon’s rescue of Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War triggered a Saudi oil embargo that led to months of long gas lines in the United States, and contributed to Nixon’s fall.

Yesterday, a week after Jared Kushner had been assured by his friend Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that Khashoggi walked out of the consulate, Trump put through a call to King Salman himself.

According to a Trump tweet, the king denied “any knowledge of whatever may have happened ‘to our Saudi Arabian citizen.’”

Trump said he was “immediately” sending Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Riyadh to meet with the king on the crisis. The confrontation is escalating. Crown Prince Mohammed and King Salman have both now put their nation’s honor and credibility on the line.

Both are saying that what the Turks claim they can prove — Khashoggi was tortured and murdered in the consulate, cut up, and his body parts flown to Saudi Arabia — is a lie.

For Trump and the U.S., this appears a classic case of the claims of international morality clashing with the claims of national interest.

The archetype occurred in the mid-1870s when Ottoman Turks perpetrated a slaughter of Bulgarian Christians under their rule.

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The Arabian Game of Thrones Heats Up

October 16, 2018

The Arabian Game of Thrones Heats Up

The reported torture, murder, and dismemberment of Washington-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate-general in Istanbul reminded the world that an intense power play is now taking place within the monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula and between them.

In November 2017, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) ordered the arrest and detention at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton Hotel of over 200 members of the Saudi royal family, including eleven rival princes, as well as government ministers and influential businessmen. That came after an October 2017 meeting in Riyadh between MBS and Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, conclave that lasted well into the early morning hours. At the meeting, Kushner is said to have turned over to MBS a list of the names of the Crown Prince’s opponents: leading figures of the Saudi royal house, government, and major businesses. The list may have also contained the name “Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi.”

The list of Saudi names was, reportedly, compiled by Kushner from top secret special code word documents he had specifically requested from the National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency. The documents were specifically requested by Kushner, not because he was an expert in communications intercepts, but because he likely had a control officer who told him what files to obtain. The Kushner family have longstanding ties to the Israeli Likud Party, as well as the Mossad intelligence service. The Mossad enjoys a close working relationship with the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate, which is now firmly committed to MBS after a previous purge of its upper ranks following MBS’s rise to the heir apparent position in the House of Saud.

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The Khashoggi Extortion Fiasco:

October 16, 2018

The Khashoggi Extortion Fiasco:

A mystifying diplomatic escalation ensued following the disappearance of Saudi Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, after visiting the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

Why would the United States of America make such a fuss over the disappearance of a non-American citizen? Why would America turn a blind eye to the Saudi killing of thousands of Yemeni civilians and the starving of millions others and then make “threats” against Saudi Arabia after one single Saudi journalist disappeared and has presumably been murdered by Saudi authorities?

And since when did Erdogan worry about human rights? After all, this is the same man whose army has committed countless atrocities against Syria and Turkish Kurds.

And the repercussions did not stop at the official level. Even Western business leaders are cancelling trade deals with Saudi Arabia and asking its government for explanations. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/business-leaders-cancel-saudi-events-ask-crown-prince-mohammed-bin-salman-for-info-on-jamal-khashoggi-disappearance/

Let us not forget that America does not only ignore the war on Yemen, but it also assists the Saudis and supplies them with arms and intelligence. What’s behind the sudden U-turn? Why would the President of the United States of America be personally involved in this? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/10/11/donald-trump-demands-answers-saudi-arabia-missing-journalistjamalkhashoggi/

Furthermore, Saudi Arabia has a long history of persecuting dissidents and suppressing any opposition. So once again, why was Khashoggi singled out in this instance to become such a person of interest to the USA? His status as a journalist and columnist for Washington Post certainly does not answer this question.

And back to Erdogan, the man who reached the cliff-edge with America on a number of strategic and trade issues, why would he be concerned about the “murder” of a foreign journalist allegedly at the hand of his own government? According to the story, the “murder” was committed at the Saudi Consulate, and technically, Turkey has no jurisdiction within this diplomatic precinct albeit it is within Turkey.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World’s “Worst Famine In 100 Years” Will Hit Yemen, U.N. Warns

October 16, 2018

World’s “Worst Famine In 100 Years” Will Hit Yemen, U.N. Warns

For a Saudi and Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) update that’s not directly related to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a United Nations official on Sunday warned Yemen is now facing what could be “the worst famine in the world in 100 years” which is set to put “12-13 million innocent civilians at risk of starving,” according to the BBC.

Yemen’s war, which has involved intense Saudi-UAE-US coordinated airstrikes on civilian population centers going back to 2015 has been popularly dubbed “the forgotten war” due to its general absence from headlines and front page stories over the years.

As a few analysts and war reporters have pointed out in recent days, it took the murder of one Washington Post contributor — who was one of the mainstream media’s own — for MbS to actually face any level of scrutiny, and yet the tens of thousands killed under Saudi coalition bombs is still largely taboo for the same mainstream to touch.

*Saudi-led coalition airstrike on an arms depot in Sanaa in 2015. Image source: AFP*

A top United Nations official who monitors Yemen, Lise Grande, told the BBC: “We predict that we could be looking at 12 to 13 million innocent civilians who are at risk of dying from the lack of food.”

She explained, “I think many of us felt as we went into the 21st century that is was unthinkable that we could see a famine like saw in Ethiopia, that we saw in Bengal, that we saw in parts of the Soviet Union, that was just unacceptable. Many of us had the confidence that that would never happen again and yet the reality is that in Yemen that is precisely what we are looking at.”

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Forget Oil, Here’s Saudi Arabia’s Other ‘Weapons’

October 15, 2018

Forget Oil, Here’s Saudi Arabia’s Other ‘Weapons’

There are not one, not two, but three ‘weapons’ on the “nuclear option” menu for Saudi Arabia to strike back at any US sanctions stemming from its alleged murder and dismemberment of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in what is now being reported as a “botched interrogation.”

The first is simple and well known – “oil” – cutting off its own supply “nose” to send prices to $100, $200, or $400 may end up spiting its own face however.

So let’s take a look at some other options.

The second, and relatively well known, potential course for retaliation is in its choice of who to buy its weapons from…

President Trump has so far stated his unwillingness to impose any kind of punishment on Saudi Arabia, and as Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes, this could be why – the U.S. is the world’s biggest exporter of arms and according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the biggest importer from the country in 2017 was Saudi Arabia.

You will find more infographics at Statista

This infographic uses the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s “trend-indicator values” (TIV). These are based on the known unit production costs of weapons and represent the transfer of military resources rather than the financial value of the transfer.

As Trump himself warned, there are plenty more “sellers” of deadly weapons in the world.

However, there is a third – potentially most existentially challenging option that the Saudis could unleash would be ‘dumping its Treasury Holdings’.

Since the start of 2014, with only one small blip in 2014/15 as oil prices collapsed, the Saudis have been generous buyers of US Treasurys – recycling their petrodollars in this virtuous relationship…

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Netanyahu Hopes To Bring U.S. Attention Back On Iran, Threatens “Action” In Syria

October 15, 2018

Netanyahu Hopes To Bring U.S. Attention Back On Iran, Threatens “Action” In Syria

With the Jamal Khashoggi affair shaking up Saudi-Washington relations, and with multiple Gulf countries predictably coming out in support of Riyadh’s denials that it was behind the journalist’s disappearance and apparent murder, it will be interesting to see Israel’s stance on the issue.

We fully expect Israel to do all that it can to lobby Washington toward keeping its bulls-eye ever steadfast on Iran. Indeed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears already cognizant of Iran receding into the background of priorities for the West as the alleged gruesome death and dismemberment of Khashoggi at the hands of a Saudi hit team ordered by MbS takes center stage.

On Monday Netanyahu opened a parliamentary session at the Knesset by addressing his familiar theme of “Iranian expansion” in Syria, except that the timing is now more interesting given some of the public heat and attention has now been taken off Tehran for a time: “We must act against the Iranian regime in Syria,” Netanyahu said.

But crucially, he added a new theme — important in light of the past two weeks: “Because of the Iranian threat, Israel and other Arab countries are closer than they ever were before,” the prime minister said. This acknowledgement comes after years of Saudi Arabia joining in a covert partnership to topple the Syrian government — a project which has clearly failed.

And not only has it utterly failed, but Israel’s repeat air strikes on Syria (acknowledged recently by Israel’s military to be over 200 strikes in the past year alone), culminated in last month’s accidental downing of a Russian Ilyushin-20 reconnaissance plane with 15 crew members on board, resulting in the now accomplished transfer of the advanced S-300 anti-aircraft defense system to the Syrian government.

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Saudi Media Casts Khashoffi Disappearance as a Conspiracy, Claims Qatar Owns Washington Post

October 15, 2018

TOPSHOT - Protestors hold pictures of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a demonstration in front of the Saudi Arabian consulate on October 8, 2018 in Istanbul. - Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran Saudi journalist who has been critical towards the Saudi government has gone missing after visiting the kingdom's consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, the Washington Post reported. Turkey has sought permission to search Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul after a prominent journalist from the kingdom went missing last week following a visit to the building, Turkish television reported on October 8. (Photo by OZAN KOSE / AFP) (Photo credit should read OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images)

SAUDI MEDIA CASTS KHASHOGGI DISAPPEARANCE AS A CONSPIRACY, CLAIMS QATAR OWNS WASHINGTON POST

IN SAUDI ARABIA, major media outlets have cast the disappearance and apparent murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a foreign conspiracy to denigrate the image of the kingdom. The media accounts, which come from outlets run with the backing of Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf monarchies, are spinning the coverage of Khashoggi’s disappearance as a plot by rival governments and political groups to hurt the kingdom — going so far as to make false claims about the Washington Post’s owners.

The English-language arm of the news channel Al Arabiya, for instance, claimed that reports of Khashoggi’s detention inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul were pushed by “media outlets affiliated with the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar” — the pan-Arab Islamist political movement and rival Persian Gulf monarchy, respectively. A subsequent story on Al Arabiya casts doubt that Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, is truly who she says she is, claiming that her Twitter profile shows that she follows “critics of Saudi Arabia.”

Al Arabiya is owned by the Saudi royal family and based in Dubai, one of the Gulf monarchies that has sided closely with Saudi Arabia amid the regional row with Qatar and others. It’s among a handful of other Saudi- and Gulf-controlled outlets — such as Al Riyadh Daily, Al-Hayat, and the Saudi Gazette — that toe their governments’ line, including frequently casting a conspiratorial light on critics of the governments’ human rights records.

Saudi media outlets are kicking into overdrive to both deny any Saudi involvement and disparage Khashoggi.

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Saudi Blowback Wipes Billions From Softbank Shares

October 15, 2018

Saudi Blowback Wipes Billions From Softbank Shares

Refusing to be cowed by a flurry of cancellations that have effectively gutted Riyadh’s Future Investment Initiative – colloquially known as “Davos in the Desert” – Saudi Arabia has lashed out at the US and its Western allies, warning that there will be hell to pay if anybody dares sanction the world’s largest oil exporter. If Mr. Trump is bothered by oil prices at $80 a barrel, the Saudis have wagered, imagine how uncomfortable he would be with oil at $200 a barrel? Already, oil traders have recognized Saudi’s “weaponization” of OPEC’s ability to control global oil supplies, while Saudi’s Tadawul stock exchange plunged 8% at the lows on Sunday (though this drop was mitigated in part by a late-session rebound).

But the tentacles of capital emanating out of Riyadh stretch across the world, to Tokyo and San Francisco and beyond, what one NYT op-ed writer described as Silicon Valley’s “Saudi Arabia problem.” And nowhere is this link more evident than with Tokyo-traded Softbank, whose shares have born the brunt of investors’ indignation over the burgeoning diplomatic crisis (a crisis rooted in Saudi Arabia’s suspected murder of a former-insider-turned-dissident-journalist inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul). Softbank shares closed more than 7.3% lower on Monday in Tokyo, a move that analysts partly attributed to the instability surrounding Saudi Arabia. Since Softbank’s September peak, the company has shed more than $22 billion in market capitalization, according to BBG data.

A pullback in tech shares like Nvidia, in which Softbank owns a major stake, has helped weigh on Softbank shares as one BBG columnist calculated that SB’s Nvidia stake was “the major factor” driving Softbank’s profitability last year.

Just like the broader market, the pullback in tech was inspired, at least in part, by anxieties surrounding the US-China trade war. But its Saudi ties are increasingly becoming an intolerable risk in the eyes of investors.

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Did Saudis, CIA Fear Khashoggi 9/11 Bombshell?

October 15, 2018

Did Saudis, CIA Fear Khashoggi 9/11 Bombshell?

The macabre case of missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi raises the question: did Saudi rulers fear him revealing highly damaging information on their secret dealings? In particular, possible involvement in the 9/11 terror attacks on New York in 2001.

Even more intriguing are US media reports now emerging that American intelligence had snooped on and were aware of Saudi officials making plans to capture Khashoggi prior to his apparent disappearance at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week. If the Americans knew the journalist’s life was in danger, why didn’t they tip him off to avoid his doom?

Jamal Khashoggi (59) had gone rogue, from the Saudi elite’s point of view. Formerly a senior editor in Saudi state media and an advisor to the royal court, he was imminently connected and versed in House of Saud affairs. As one commentator cryptically put it: “He knew where all the bodies were buried.”

For the past year, Khashoggi went into self-imposed exile, taking up residence in the US, where he began writing opinion columns for the Washington Post.

Khashoggi’s articles appeared to be taking on increasingly critical tone against the heir to the Saudi throne, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The 33-year-old Crown Prince, or MbS as he’s known, is de facto ruler of the oil-rich kingdom, in place of his aging father, King Salman.

While Western media and several leaders, such as Presidents Trump and Macron, have been indulging MbS as “a reformer”, Khashoggi was spoiling this Saudi public relations effort by criticizing the war in Yemen, the blockade on Qatar and the crackdown on Saudi critics back home.

However, what may have caused the Saudi royals more concern was what Khashoggi knew about darker, dirtier matters. And not just the Saudis, but American deep state actors as as well.

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Saudi Stocks Crash Most Since 2016 As Riyadh Threatens US With “Very Strong” Retaliation

October 14, 2018

Saudi Stocks Crash Most Since 2016 As Riyadh Threatens US With “Very Strong” Retaliation

Saudi Arabia warned on Sunday it would respond to any “threats” against it as its stock market crashed the most since 2016 after President Trump’s warning of “severe punishment” over the disappearance of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi.

On Saturday, Trump said the U.S. could take “very, very powerful, very strong, strong measures” against the country if its leaders are found responsible for the Saudi citizen’s fate. The kingdom, which denies its involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance, announced it would retaliate against any punitive measures with an even “stronger” response, the Saudi Press Agency reported, citing an official it didn’t identify.

“The kingdom affirms its total rejection of any threats and attempts to undermine it, whether through economic sanctions, political pressure or repeating false accusations,” the kingdom’s statement said. “The kingdom also affirms that if it is (targeted by) any action, it will respond with greater action.”

Saudi Arabia has traditionally been one of Trump’s closest foreign allies, the US president made a point of visiting the kingdom on his first overseas trip as president and has touted arms sales to Saudi Arabia. But both the White House and the kingdom are under mounting pressure as concern grows over the fate of the veteran journalist, who hasn’t been seen since he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

The Saudi response came after Saudi Arabian stocks slumped the most since 2016 amid a broad selloff over collapsing relations with the US, with the Tadawul All Share Index, or TASI, plunging by 7% at one point during the week’s first day of trading, the most since December 2014, with all but seven of the gauge’s 186 members fell, led by Saudi Telecom, which declined 6.2%, Jabal Omar lost 6% and Saudi Basic Industries Corp. retreated 1.9%. Selling volume soared, with the number of shares traded more than double the 30-day average.

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The Killing of Saudi Journalist Khashoggi Could Spell the End for Mohammad bin Salman

October 12, 2018

The Killing of Saudi Journalist Khashoggi Could Spell the End for Mohammad bin Salman

The death of famous journalist Saudita Jamal Khashoggi is likely to have important repercussions, revealing the hypocrisy of the mainstream media, tensions inside the Saudi regime, and the double standards of Western countries.

On October 2nd, 2018, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was allegedly killed inside Saudi Arabia’s embassy in Turkey. The sequence of events seems to show that the murder was premeditated. Two days before his death, Khashoggi went to the Saudi embassy in Istanbul to obtain documents pertaining to his divorce in preparation to remarry in the United States. The Saudi embassy instructed him to return on October 2nd to collect the documents, which he duly did. He entered the embassy around 1pm on October 2nd but never exited. Khashoggi’s fiancée, after waiting several hours, raised the alarm as Khashoggi had instructed her to do should he not reemerge after two hours.

It is from here that we should start to reconstruct this story that resembles a science-fiction novel even by Saudi standards, a country that does not hesitate to kidnap heads of state, as was the case with the Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, about a year ago.

Jamal Khashoggi is a controversial figure, a representative of the shadowy world of collaboration that sometimes exists between journalism and the intelligence agencies, in this case involving the intelligence agencies of Saudi Arabia and the United States. It has been virtually confirmed by official circles within the Al Saud family that Khashoggi was an agent in the employ of Riyadh and the CIA during the Soviet presence in Afghanistan.

From 1991 to 1999, he continued to serve in several countries like Afghanistan, Algeria, Sudan, Kuwait and other parts of the Middle East, often maintaining an ambiguous role in the service of his friend Turki Faisal Al-Saud, the future Saudi ambassador to Washington and London and later supreme head of Saudi intelligence for 24 years.

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Is This the Beginning of the End of the U.S.-Saudi Alliance?

October 12, 2018

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., right, speaks during a news conference about journalist Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance in Saudi Arabia, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2018, in front of the Washington Post in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE U.S.-SAUDI ALLIANCE?

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF Jamal Khashoggi last Tuesday is threatening to upend the terms of the decades-long alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia. In the nine days since Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian resident of Virginia and a Washington Post columnist, was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, politicians, media figures and foreign policy elites – even those who have fawned over the authoritarian Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman — have grown increasingly critical of the U.S.-Saudi alliance.

The U.S. has long given the Saudis a blank check, politically and militarily, and there have been voices advocating for a rethinking of that decades-old relationship for nearly as long as it has lasted. But the widespread belief that the Saudis assassinated Khashoggi inside their consulate has brought those voices squarely into the center. Suddenly, the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States is being called into fundamental question.

President Donald Trump initially responded to questions about Khashoggi’s disappearance by saying “I don’t like hearing about it, and hopefully that will sort itself out.” But on Thursday, he began to sound much less confident in his defense of Saudi Arabia, the first foreign country he visited as president. He said that it was beginning to look as though Khashoggi, a critic of the crown prince, was indeed murdered, but worried that jobs would be at risk if arms sales to the country were halted.

In the Senate, the kingdom is starting to lose its traditional bipartisan support, with almost every member of the Foreign Relations Committee calling on Trump to investigate Khashoggi’s disappearance. The Washington Post, meanwhile, has devoted extraordinary resources, both on the reporting and editorial side, to the case of its columnist.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Lynching Journalists

October 12, 2018

Lynching Journalists

Washington Post Global Opinions correspondent, Jamal Khashoggi, who is Saudi, entered his country’s consulate in Istanbul Tuesday of last week and hasn’t been seen since. Worse, Turkish officials say that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate, his body dismembered, and then sneaked out of the building—lynched, you might say, and then disappeared, instead of hanged from a tree. The journalist had written articles critical of his country’s young leader, Mohammad bin Salman, the 33-year-old crown prince, who considers himself something of a liberal or at least as a reformer. How ironic that this barbarian act happened in Turkey, where in recent years more journalists have disappeared than in any other country (245 as of earlier this year, though, far as we know, none have been murdered).

Almost simultaneously with the incident in Istanbul, a 30-year-old Bulgarian journalist, Viktoria Marinova, was brutally raped and killed in Ruse, in the northeast of the country, where she was employed as a TV commentator. She had been a political investigator. Nor was she the only European journalist murdered during the past year. Daphne Caruana Galizia, similarly reporting on political issues (corruption in the government), was killed in Malta by a car bomb. And Jan Kuciak, a Slovakian journalist also working on government corruption, was shot and killed along with his fiancée.

Killing journalists has become a growth industry. In April, Jason Rezaian (another Global Opinions writer for the Washington Post, who was held captive in Iran for 544 days) described the deaths of journalists in Nicaragua, India, Brazil and Mexico during the past year. He cites President Rodrigo Duterte, of the Philippines, as saying, “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son-of-a-bitch.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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