Tag Archives: Jamal Khashoggi

International news

Time for Saudi sanctions, Mr. President

OK, Mr. President, you’ve got a problem.

Saudi Arabia has denied any involvement in the brutal assassination of a Saudi-born journalist in Istanbul, Turkey. But wait! Now the CIA has determined that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

What are you going to do about it, Mr. President?

You see, the United States has some skin in this game. Khashoggi was a journalist employed by the Washington Post. He was a U.S. resident who wrote columns for the newspaper and, indeed, his final essay called for greater tolerance of political dissent in Saudi Arabia. The crown prince, the de facto ruler of the kingdom, took umbrage at Khashoggi’s view.

So he had him killed. Maybe he even ordered the reported dismembering of Khashoggi, torturing him while he was still alive, screaming for his life.

How in the world do we let this pass, Mr. President?

I wish I could presume you’ll accept the CIA assessment. I mean, you had to be dragged kicking and screaming to endorse the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia attacked our electoral system in 2016.

But the CIA now is being run by one of your appointees. Gina Haspel is a career spook. She is a first-rate spymaster. Her agency also is among the best intelligence outfits in the world. But you know that already. Right?

You need to set aside that top-dollar arms deal the Saudis want done. Those high-performance jet fighters the Saudis ordered ought to be put back in the hangar.

The Saudis are bad actors at many levels. Sure, they’re our “allies” in the effort to corral the Islamic Republic of Iran. They are brutal, though, in their handling of political dissent, as Jamal Khashoggi’s hideous fate would attest.

The CIA says the crown prince is involved. You, sir, need to act.

International news

POTUS stepping it up, putting heat on Saudis

Donald Trump has been a bit slow to speak publicly and angrily about what happened to a U.S. resident who died a gruesome death at the hands of Saudi Arabia agents.

However, the president has declared his belief that the Saudis are lying and are being “deceitful” about the circumstances surrounding journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death.

What’s next? Sanctions, perhaps? Might there be a rethinking of that $100 billion arms deal that’s pending with the Saudis? An expulsion of Saudi diplomats from the United States?

Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He reportedly was chopped to pieces, while still alive. The Turks vow to reveal the “naked truth” into what happened to this man.

An unspeakable horror

As for the Saudis, they have been playing a game of “cover my a**” with the United States and the rest of the world.

Donald Trump is beginning to turn the jets up under the Saudis’ backside. He must continue. He must ratchet it up even more. He must demand in the strongest terms possible that the Saudis explain what happened to Khashoggi and stop looking for lame alibis.

And he must take up the cudgel for the message Khashoggi was trying to deliver: that the Arab world must allow for more freedom of expression, a noble cause that tragically appears to have cost him his life.

Welcome to the fight, Mr. President.

International news

Saudi prince, family: great unifiers?

Jamal Khashoggi’s hideous murder has done something quite remarkable in the United States of America.

It has produced bipartisan condemnation of the brutality of the act and demands that the Donald Trump administration do something significant to respond to Saudi Arabia’s governmental sanctioning of the Khashoggi’s murder.

U.S. Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, told ABC News today that the U.S. government cannot stand by and accept the “savagery” that occurred inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, where Khashoggi reportedly was cut to pieces — while he was still alive! — before he died.

The Saudis have offered lame excuses, backed away from one so-called “explanation” and have settled on saying that Khashoggi died in a fistfight at the consulate.

Khashoggi was a U.S. resident; he was a columnist for the Washington Post. Indeed, his final column discussed the need for free expression in his home country, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the Middle East.

What might be a “significant” gesture in response to the Saudis’ savagery? Here’s a thought: Send the Saudi Arabia ambassador to the United States home until his government provides a full, comprehensive and transparent finding on what happened to Khashoggi. What’s more, the Saudis need to provide proof that they are taking serious punitive measures against those who have been accused of this heinous deed.

Unity at last?

Democrats and Republicans now are speaking with a single voice on this. The issue now is for Donald Trump, the nation’s top Republican politician, to heed their calls for a tough response and a full-throated condemnation against this kind of attack on a U.S. resident.

Whether the president delivers on all of that remains to be seen. I am one American who remains skeptical that Donald Trump is capable of offering this level of outrage.

International news

Waiting for some expression of horror from POTUS

Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who lived in the United States and worked for the Washington Post, died a gruesome death in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

His captors began cutting him apart as he screamed for his life. They dismembered his body and took it … somewhere.

A U.S. journalist dies at the hands of murderers from a country ruled by a mega-rich family. And the president of the United States cannot find the words to declare his abject horror at what happened to this man?

Donald J. Trump continues to sidle up to authoritarians. We have Russia. There is North Korea. Or the Philippines. Trump cannot condemn these rulers for the hideous acts that occur under their rule? So it is now with Saudi Arabia, an ostensible ally of the United States of America.

Let’s remember, though, that 15 of the 19 terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia.

Sure, Trump has declared the “event” in the consulate to be “awful” and “unacceptable,” but then he buys into the Saudi government’s lame explanation that Khashoggi died in a fistfight with his captors.

Are we to believe that these monsters then dumped his body somewhere, anywhere after a fistfight?

How the U.S. president can accept this phony explanation is stupidly mind-numbing in the extreme.

Sickening.

International news

Tread carefully, Rep. Castro

Come on, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro. Just because some folks on the other side toss out unsubstantiated accusations, you do not have license to do the same.

Castro, a Texas Democrat, has said — without sources or evidence — that Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, might have had a hand in the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Castro doesn’t offer a shred of evidence to back up his contention, but he made it anyway in an interview with CNN.

Khashoggi was murdered by Saudis at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. The Saudis say he died in a fistfight; the Turks, though, say he was dismembered while he was still alive. His body was cut to pieces and disposed of.

Now we have a U.S. representative alleging that Jared Kushner played a role in this?

Give me a break.

This kind of innuendo has gotten out of hand. CNN anchor Poppy Harlow had to remind Castro that no media have reported what he has alleged, but Castro answered with some vague response that there has been “some reporting” on it. He didn’t cite the source.

According to the Texas Tribune: “To be clear, I did not intend to accuse Jared Kushner of orchestrating the killing … But based on several press reports, the close relationship between Kushner and Mohammed bin Salman is a source of concern for the U.S. intelligence community and those of us who want a transparent American foreign policy,” (Castro) said in a statement to the Texas Tribune.

Read the Tribune story here.

This is ridiculous!

I am left to say only that Rep. Castro should be ashamed to be joining this game of gossip and innuendo.

International news

Reporter died in a ‘fight’? Then gets disemembered?

A hideous event that resulted in the dismemberment and death of a journalist who lived in the United States has taken the strangest turn possible.

Saudi Arabia government officials have confirmed that Jamal Khashoggi is dead. He died in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. He reportedly was cut into pieces while he was still alive by Saudi agents.

But now the Saudi government says he died in a fight at the consulate. With whom? Why? Do we now believe that Khashoggi died because he got into a tussle?

What happened to his body?

Saudi officials say they have arrested 18 individuals. One of the suspects reportedly died in an automobile accident. The Saudis have fired five men linked to the tragic event in Istanbul.

It needs to be said that Saudi Arabia is an ostensible ally of the United States of America. The Saudis are about to make a major arms purchase from this country. Donald Trump hasn’t yet condemned the attack, other than to say “it’s a bad thing,” and other words to that effect.

Khashoggi wrote for The Washington Post. He lived in Virginia and had been a U.S. resident for many years. His gruesome murder has shocked and repelled many Americans.

As for the Saudi relationship with this country, it needs also to be said that of the 19 terrorists who attacked this country on 9/11, 15 of them were Saudis. Yet the Saudi government said at the time that the attack was the work of Israeli intelligence agents, that it was an inside job meant to implicate Arab nations. What horse manure!

The president of the United States needs to turn the heat up full blast under the backsides of the Saudi royal family, which also has been implicated in this matter. He should do so on behalf of a journalist and his grief-stricken family.

I don’t believe for an instant the Saudi “explanation” that Jamal Khashoggi died in a fight.

media news

Trump shows jaw-dropping lack of awareness

Donald John Trump continues to demonstrate a shocking, astonishing, dumbfounding, jaw-dropping lack of awareness and context.

A journalist who lived in the United States walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, is kidnapped and then butchered — while he was still alive. The journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, was murdered because he challenged Saudi Arabian policy of intolerance against freedom of expression.

His murder has brought glaring worldwide attention to the open hostility that many governments have against journalists.

So, what does the president of the United States do? He goes to Montana to campaign for U.S. Greg Gianforte and then heaps praise on him for the “body-slam” he put on a reporter for the British newspaper The Guardian in 2017.

Trump in effect condoned violence against the reporter, Ben Jacobs. By implication, he sounds for all the world as if he believes it’s OK for public officials to react with similar violence against media representatives.

Does this sound like a head of state who has any understanding or appreciation of the context of his comments? Does he understand what he’s saying and the potential implications of his condoning violence against those who simply are trying to chronicle the news to those who need access to information about their government?

This man disgusts me at so many levels …

But, what the heck. His base loves hearing the garbage that flies out of his mouth, which is the only consideration about which Donald Trump cares.