Saudi Arabia-Jamal Khashoggi - Western Hypocrisy - Page 10 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14954850
Trump says it certainly looks like Jamal Khashoggi has been murdered.






Decent people began to object to Thomas Friedman whitewashing a Saudi Zionist committing war crimes in Yemen
An American and an Arab journalist walk into a Saudi consulate, Thomas Friedman in New York and Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. One comes out smiling ear to ear like Lawrence of Arabia packing for a royal palace near Riyadh and the other disappears into the thin air and widely feared to have been rushed to meet his creator in more than one piece. 
Why do the Saudis love the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and invite him to Mohammed bin Salman's palace in Riyadh to tickle his Orientalist fantasies, but, if persistent reports by Turkish authorities turn out to be true, they sent a hit team of 15 assassins to beat, torture, murder, and cut to pieces the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi? No, this cannot be part of the rivalries between our two papers of record. Let us search for a more plausible reason.
One jejune and sassy columnist
One lovely autumn morning in November 2017, we, New Yorkers, woke up and picked up our "Paper of Record," as our city's newspaper the New York Times calls itself, and read our dearly beloved globetrotting columnist Thomas Friedman telling us he had just been to Saudi Arabia and back having met the mighty and handsome Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and had brought us back the good tiding that "the most significant reform process under way anywhere in the Middle East today is in Saudi Arabia." We were overjoyed. 
In his considered opinion, the semi-literate -"jejune and sassy" as Edward Said once called him - columnist for the New York Times informed us that what his favourite Arab prince was doing "will not only change the character of Saudi Arabia but the tone and tenor of Islam across the globe." My colleagues and I teaching Islam at Columbia University uptown thought we were all totally out to lunch having failed to grasp the depth and profundity of this man's - again borrowing the late Said's choice words - "comic philistinism." 
Thomas Friedman proudly reported to us, his captured audience in his New York neighbourhood and beyond, how he and the Saudi Prince had "met at night at his family's ornate adobe-walled palace in Ouja, north of Riyadh. MBS spoke in English, while his brother, Prince Khalid, the new Saudi ambassador to the US, and several senior ministers shared different lamb dishes and spiced the conversation." This, mind you, was November 2017, when we had hopes and reasons to believe the time for such gaudy Orientalia had passed but alas, the New York Times had no sense of editorial decency and no one was minding the shop to cut such gibberish from this idiot's prose. My only conclusion was that someone in a position of power and authority at the New York Times must believe old-fashioned Orientalist prose and politics still sells. An entire library of literature critically dismantling this nauseating Orientalism be damned.
READ MORE
Who is Jamal Khashoggi?
You can read the rest of the piece if you are in the mood of self-flagellation - full of trite and hackneyed panegyrics for "MBS", as he calls him. One crucial thing though please notice when Thomas Friedman tells you in no uncertain terms: "But one thing I know for sure: Not a single Saudi I spoke to here over three days expressed anything other than effusive support for this anti-corruption drive."
"Not a single Saudi I spoke to ..." - let's keep that phrase in mind as we move forward.
"A premeditated murder"
Cut (no pun) to the second columnist: On October 2, Jamal Khashoggi entered Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul to obtain a document certifying his divorce, from which location there is no evidence he ever exited alive. Turkish authorities have reported they believe that upon his arrival Khashoggi was brutally beaten, tortured, killed and his body dismembered inside the consulate in a "premeditated murder." (For the latest updates on Khashoggi's unfolding story see Al Jazeera coverage here).
Official reports from the scene of Khashoggi's disappearance in Istanbul are not encouraging. "Turkish officials have said," according to Washington Post for which Khashoggi was a columnist, "they believe Khashoggi, 59, a critic of the Saudi leadership and a contributor to The Washington Post's Global Opinions section, was killed by a team of 15 Saudis flown in specifically to carry out the attack."
All major news outlets in the US and Europe have echoed the same accounts. "Turkish officials," according to BBC, "have audio and video evidence that shows missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the BBC has been told."
Meanwhile, the New York Times reports, "top Turkish security officials have concluded that the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on orders from the highest levels of the royal court."
The comic philistine 
Soon after Thomas Friedman published that bought and paid for propaganda piece promoting the cause of a juvenile tyrant in the US, decent people began to object to his whitewashing of a Saudi Zionist committing war crimes in Yemen, in answer to which he went public praising his seasoned-kebab buddy MBS for "having balls," and told his critics: "F**k you!" - to the approving laughter of his audience. (The full talk, if you have the stomach for it, is here).
Upon Khashoggi's disappearance from the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Thomas Friedman rushed to write a piece in which he defended and excused himself against his own previous fanciful vagaries, extensively quoting himself, which he prefaced by saying that one of the sources he had cited was, in fact, Jamal Khashoggi. Never mind the fact he had told us he never saw a single soul who disagreed with what his favourite prince, MBS, was doing. Alas, Jamal Khashoggi has gone AWOL and we have no way of verifying that he, indeed, said anything to Thomas Friedman.



Jamal Khashoggi: A red line has been crossed
by Bill Law
None of these antic paraphernalia in Thomas Friedman's apothecary is strange or unusual any more. "Thomas Friedman" has now emerged as a bizarre character-type, proverbial to a specific kind of New York Times journalism. Puerile, fatuous, delusional claptrap, inane to the point of numbing incredulity, Thomas Friedman glides giddily from the top to the bottom of his columns seemingly oblivious to what a bizarre cartoonish character he cuts to the world at large.
"It is not just the comic philistinism of Friedman's ideas that I find so remarkably jejune," wrote the late Edward Said in his now legendary piece, "The Orientalist Express: Thomas Friedman Wraps Up the Middle East (Village Voice 36:42, October 17, 1989), "or his sassy and unbeguiling manner, or his grating indifference to values and principles by which, perhaps misguidedly, Arabs and Jews have believed themselves to be informed. It is rather the special combination of disarming incoherence and unearned egoism that gives him his cockily alarming plausibility."
There is much that remains the same about Thomas Friedman since those prophetic words, and much that has worsened. In her witty and brilliant book, The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work (2011), Belen Fernandez has stripped naked the bare banality of Thomas Friedman's journalism and the bankruptcy of the media culture that has opted to recognise and even celebrate him. Badly in need of a half-decent undergraduate education, Thomas Friedman writes confidently from behind the arrogant hubris of two nuclear powers he defends, the US and Israel, and so what he says is uttered with the vertiginous mixture of undiluted stupidity and gaudy confidence.
In another brilliant piece, "in honour of Thomas Friedman's latest love letter to the ruling dynasty in Saudi Arabia," Abdullah Al-Arian has mapped out "seventy years' worth of the New York Times describing the [Saudi] royal family as reformers". It is an exceptionally revealing and yet damning piece, where you read how the New York Times has consistently offered Americans a decidedly abusive misreading of the US reactionary ally.
I, too, have had occasions to expose the sophomoric silliness of Thomas Friedman and his unfailing illiteracy about a world he has made a career misreading. 
But all such and many more similar attentions raises a crucial question.
"Collecting garbage"
A young journalist friend recently observed how we keep criticizing Thomas Friedman and yet, we keep reading him. Indeed: why do we read him? The answer to that for me is very simple. 
Years ago, when I was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania writing my doctoral dissertation under the late Philip Rieff, one day I was sitting in my small cubical next to his office reading the New York Times. He walked to my desk, saw me reading the New York Times, quietly went back to his office and returned with a pair of scissors. "Never read the Times without a pair of scissors, Hamid," he said with his posh Anglophilic tone, "we are sociologists, we collect garbage."

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opini ... 29651.html
#14954949
By BURGESS EVERETT | 10/18/2018 04:12 PM EDT
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker warned the Trump administration on Thursday that its information “clampdown” on the alleged killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi can’t go on.
The Tennessee Republican said in an interview he sought to view recent U.S. intelligence on Monday and Tuesday regarding Khashoggi’s disappearance and likely murder in Turkey this month but was told by U.S. officials that he could not do so.
Corker suggested that the administration’s current opaque position on who may have killed Khashoggi and whether Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is responsible may be untenable.
“This is going to come to a head in a very short amount of time. This isn’t getting better over time. It seems to me over the next week or so people are going to know more about what happened,” Corker said. “There has been a clampdown on any further intelligence updates to senators … it can’t go on that long, they need to come out and share their views of what happened and share with us.”
Corker, like many senators, said he believes that bin Salman is likely responsible for Khashoggi’s killing, though he concedes he isn’t yet certain. And the Trump administration’s decision to withhold its most recent intelligence from Corker, an occasional Trump critic, underscores the president’s desire to keep close information that could harm the Saudis’ position among members of Congress.
But even absent a smoking gun, some Republicans have been direct about bin Salman’s involvement.
“This guy is a wrecking ball. He had this guy murdered in a consulate in Turkey, and to expect me to ignore it? I feel used and abused,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Fox News this week. Bin Salman “can never be a world leader on the world stage.”
President Donald Trump told reporters on Thursday that it “certainly looks like” Khashoggi is dead, calling it “very sad.”
The Senate Intelligence Committee is continuing to receive intelligence updates on Khashoggi, an aide said. But Corker said he has been able to view only intelligence that’s a week or more old. On Tuesday he asked to view intelligence in a secure compartment in the Capitol and received an “apologetic” call from an official who informed him that no more information would be given to members of Congress.
A White House spokesman said the “the White House has not directed the Intelligence Community to stop providing intelligence updates to members of Congress."
Corker said he is “disappointed” about the blackout, but he understands why the intelligence pipeline to Congress has stopped. The Trump administration, he said, is trying to regroup in the face of bipartisan outrage toward Saudi Arabia’s possible role in the death of a journalist.
The United States is often aligned with Saudi Arabia on fighting terrorism in the Middle East and sells billions in weapons to the Saudis. Some senators have sought to block those sales, and they indicated in recent interviews that they will try once again after the midterm election. A recent effort failed in the Senate with little GOP support.
But Khashoggi’s apparent death has ramped up pressure on Republicans to do something about Saudi Arabia. The situation amounts to a no-win situation for many members of Congress.
“Some of my colleagues, their attitude seems to be, well, we’re going to cut them off like a dead stump, never talk to them again, punish the hell out of them the rest of their natural lives,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) on Wednesday. “That may make some people feel good for a while, but it’s not realistic if you want to contain the pressure cooker that is the Middle East."
The president and his administration say that Congress is jumping to conclusions too quickly, and Trump has compared bin Salman’s treatment to that of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Saudi Arabia this week to discuss Khashoggi’s disappearance and briefed the president on it Thursday.
“They assured me they will conduct a complete, thorough investigation of all of the facts surrounding Mr. Khashoggi and will do so in a timely fashion. And that his report itself will be transparent,” Pompeo said. “I told President Trump this morning that we ought to give them a few more days to complete that.”
Kennedy said he did not believe the Saudis should be conducting the investigation. And if there is evidence that clears the Saudi Arabian leader, members of Congress want to see it soon.
“Everything that we’ve seen thus far is pointed at MBS,” Corker said. “We may well find out if MBS was not involved, though I would be shocked … I don’t think the administration can allow this to swirl around too much longer without taking a definitive position.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/ ... bia-913238
#14954952
I am not the least surprised Corker is willing to sacrifice an ally and valuable trading partner to reduce Dems election chances. Dumb ass Republicans going along with it because they are still too frightened of being accused of being politically incorrect. The liberal bible says they should not have done that, therefore we must bring down our godly righteousness on them. Kill the barbarians for the sake of our elections.

Edit: You do realiz the Dems are using this to force Trump into a position they know he can’t take. They don’t care about the journalist, this is about making Trump look bad.
#14955038
Rancid wrote:Agreed. If you notice, the royal family invest all of their money abroad. Precisely because they don't give a shit about the citizens at home.



I agree with 99% of what you say^, but, the fact is, it's not 'their' money they invest abroad, it's TAXPAYERS money, which they receive through the 'Privy Purse', also through the various tax breaks that the government accord them. Remember, the U.K' has a 'monarchy' who is 'Head of State', a servant of the people, yet, we taxpayers are keeping that family, that has a 'sense-of-entitlement' unlike any benefit claimant, at huge cost.

Why is that 'wrong', it's wrong, because, for a nation that has just ONE 'Head-of-State', it is wrong to pay the whole family an income out of that public purse, we do NOT employ them, we only employ the 'Head-of-State'.
That waste of space, Prince Charles has the 'Duchy of Cornwall, which is just one of many sources of income that he receives.

He is a pariah on the public purse, his life has been one of unfettered state support, for a future role as 'King', yet nobody thinks of him as such.
We should be like the USSR, shoot the lot of them or strip them all of our wealth, make them do what everyone else does & that is to work for their keep. >: :evil:
#14955040
Saudi Arabia on Saturday confirmed for the first time that journalist Jamal Khashoggi died in the kingdom's consulate in Turkey, claiming his death occurred following a "fist fight" gone bad. The kingdom's official foreign affairs ministry Twitter account published a series of tweets that said Khashoggi's death was preceded by a fist fight between him and others inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey, where he was last seen on Oct. 2. The ministry also said an investigation continues into 18 Saudi nationals who may be connected to the fight.

Hmmmmm :hmm: OK then, where's the body. God, the Saudis and Trump tell lies on the level of a 10 year old.
#14955049
jimjam wrote:Hmmmmm :hmm: OK then, where's the body. God, the Saudis and Trump tell lies on the level of a 10 year old.


True, but the entire global system is so rotten that.... you can get away with shit lies. In fact, I'm sure they revel in the fact that they can get away with just about anything, and just make up a cheap lie.

It's a (dark) comedy.
#14955065
One Degree wrote:I am not the least surprised Corker is willing to sacrifice an ally and valuable trading partner to reduce Dems election chances. Dumb ass Republicans going along with it because they are still too frightened of being accused of being politically incorrect. The liberal bible says they should not have done that, therefore we must bring down our godly righteousness on them. Kill the barbarians for the sake of our elections.

Edit: You do realiz the Dems are using this to force Trump into a position they know he can’t take. They don’t care about the journalist, this is about making Trump look bad.

I'm at a loss to see how this makes Trump look bad. For whatever reason, I couldn't give less of a fuck about Jamal Khashoggi. I find it weird that the left seems so enamored of Jamal Khashoggi--a Muslim Brotherhood guy--and are ostensibly so upset that he was killed. I find it weirder that the Republicans think this is relevant given their apparent lack of interest in the assassination of Seth Rich and the subsequent sloppy cover-up for leaking DNC emails to Wikileaks. Official Washington still does not understand why Trump won even two years later. :roll: How can people be so dense?
#14955070
jimjam wrote:Saudi Arabia on Saturday confirmed for the first time that journalist Jamal Khashoggi died in the kingdom's consulate in Turkey, claiming his death occurred following a "fist fight" gone bad. The kingdom's official foreign affairs ministry Twitter account published a series of tweets that said Khashoggi's death was preceded by a fist fight between him and others inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey, where he was last seen on Oct. 2. The ministry also said an investigation continues into 18 Saudi nationals who may be connected to the fight.

Hmmmmm :hmm: OK then, where's the body. God, the Saudis and Trump tell lies on the level of a 10 year old.

Donald Trump has told reporters he finds the Saudi explanation for Jamal Khashoggi’s death - that the journalist died after getting in a fight at the embassy in Istanbul - “credible”.

Oh ….. How surprising :lol:

and

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss the disappearance and presumed murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. That same day, the U.S. government received a $100 million payment from the oil-rich kingdom, The New York Times and Washington Post reported — an amount that had earlier been promised to the Trump administration to support its stabilization efforts in Syria.


Trump officials have insisted the timing of the hefty transfer was pure coincidence. But some Middle Eastern experts say they aren’t so sure.

I love it ……. pure coincidence :lol:

What's next? The cow jumped over the moon?
#14955090
One aspect bothers me a lot : the method of the murder.
Since when is a bullet to the back of the head not efficient enough ?

The way they give this ludicrous explanation that this guy got in to a fist fight with fifteen guys is absolutely incredible, sorry Trump.
#14955092
I put more effort into lying about my report card being lost in the mail than they did with that ridiculous bullshit.

Then again, the operating theory is that they used bone saws to cut him up while still alive, so no one is really batting a thousand.
#14955094
It will be difficult for the Saudi to continue arguing a 60 year old man was drawn into a fist fight with 15 men. And what happens when the family want the body?
#14955102
Stormsmith wrote:And what happens when the family want the body?

The body will probably be delivered in shoebox-sized little coffins.

The Saudi regime might supply little coffins made of pure gold to redeem themselves a little.
The celebration of Kashoggi's life will take place in the Grand Ballroom of the Trump Hotel. They already sent the funds for that.
#14955107
It looks like they've put a few high level scapegoats up. That is probably the most we'll see from Trump. MAYBE some limp wristed short term sanctions on non-vital markets. Their main businesses with the US government won't suffer. Especially the weapons.

What is sad is that even this token resistance was prompted by a murder of one US-resident reporter, and not by the years of bombings and attacks, or anything else.
#14955120
[center-img]http://i66.tinypic.com/wgos3m.jpg[/center-img]



If you believe this cock and bull story then you're one brick short of a full load.

Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed in a fight in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the country's state TV reported quoting an initial probe.
It said deputy intelligence chief Ahmad al-Assiri and Saud al-Qahtani, senior aide to Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, were dismissed over the affair.
US President Donald Trump said what had happened was "unacceptable" but that Saudi Arabia was a "great ally".
This is the first time the kingdom has admitted Mr Khashoggi has died.
The acknowledgement follows two weeks of denials that Saudi Arabia had any involvement in the disappearance of the prominent Saudi critic when he entered the consulate in Istanbul on 2 October to seek paperwork for his upcoming marriage.
The Saudi kingdom had come under increased pressure to explain Mr Khashoggi's disappearance after Turkish officials said he was deliberately killed inside the consulate, and his body dismembered.
On Friday, Turkish police widened their search from the consulate grounds to a nearby forest where unnamed officials believe his body may have been disposed of.
What is Saudi Arabia's version of events?
A statement from Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor said a fight broke out between Mr Khashoggi, who had fallen out of favour with the Saudi government, and people who met him in the consulate - ending with his death.
The investigations are still under way, it said, and 18 Saudi nationals have been arrested. The Saudi authorities have yet to give evidence to support this version of events.
State media said Saudi King Salman had ordered the sacking of two senior officials.
Saud al-Qahtani is a prominent member of the Saudi Royal Court and adviser to Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Major-General Ahmed al-Assiri has acted as the top spokesman for the kingdom about the war in Yemen.
Gen Assiri spoke to the BBC in 2017 about the conflict, defending Saudi Arabia's actions.
King Salman has also reportedly ordered the formation of a ministerial committee, headed by Crown Prince Mohammed, to restructure the intelligence services.
Saudi Arabia said it had acted on information provided by Turkish authorities as part of its inquiry, investigating a number of suspects.
How did Trump react?
President Trump said the arrests were an important "first step". He praised the kingdom for acting quickly, and while he said sanctions were an option against the country, he spoke of the possible effect such moves would have on the US economy.
Asked if he found Saudi Arabia's version of events credible, he replied, "I do."
He stressed the importance of Saudi Arabia as a counterbalance to Iran in the Middle East, and pushed back against the need for sanctions against the country in light of the new information, talking about the effect of such a move on the US economy.
He spoke of his visit to Saudi Arabia - his first trip abroad as president - and the $110bn (£84bn) arms deal he signed with the kingdom.
"I'd rather keep the million jobs [in the US] and find another solution," he said.
Earlier this week Mr Trump said there would be "very severe" consequences if Saudi Arabia was proved to have killed the journalis.
The White House said in a separate statement the US was "deeply saddened" to hear confirmation of Mr Khashoggi's death.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-45923217
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