The disappearance of high-profile Saudi journalist, and regular writer for the Washington Post, Jamal Khashoggi has put the Trump Administration into an uncomfortable position, obliging them to raise the questions about the disappearance and presumptive murder of the man by Saudi officials.
Khashoggi’s connections with the Washington Post made this a much bigger story than the disappearances of most dissident journalists in the Middle East. That he was in exile for writings critical to the Saudi Crown Prince, and entered a Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, but never came out, making it very likely he came to a bad end.
Trump was virtually obliged to weigh in on such a big story, uncomfortable though it may be. His administration, after all, has long avoided raising any human rights concerns with the Saudis, and there are a lot of big issues to raise. Himself no fan of critical journalists, for Trump to raise this issue with the Saudis may ultimately set the stage for more questions to be asked in the years to come.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is calling for a “thorough” investigation by the Saudis into Khashoggi’s disappearance as well, which also virtually obliges the US to follow through when such an investigation doesn’t happen.
The Saudis, after all, insisst that nothing happened to Khashoggi, and barring the Turkish government coming across his corpse at some point in the near future, that’s a position they’re likely to stick to.
Trump will continue kissing up to clown prince Salman. They are two of a kind.
Not only Trump – add the entire US establishment, including the Democratic party
Big story? It is a story that should be big, but you would be hard pressed to find it in the US MSM
The Saudis can piss in a kiddy pool and they’ll still have U.S. backing. Death of a reporter is minuscule compare to what U.S. has done in Yemen.
Make no mistake – the US of A will respond, and respond vehemently, by putting more sanctions on Iran
I laughed. Sadly.
Still Turkey is a NATO ally and Saudi Arabia is not. It may mean little in the White House but the Europeans will watch it.
Taking the wide view, we have built cities that aren’t pleasant enough for people to want to live there full time, and rural areas where there is little employment. There are counties in the US where more than half of the homes are second homes. We have an annual Farm Bill that could not be more perfectly designed to drive small farmers out of business.
What enables all this insanity is lots of fairly cheap Saudi oil. It won’t be cheap forever, and the Trump admin seems determined that we use it all up, no matter how many tornado-spawning super-hurricanes we get.
Doing something to fix all this would cost a lot, but the costs of our current course are huge as well.
Given the privileges of diplomatic personnel everywhere it should not have been too difficult to secretly smuggle Kashoggi out of the consulate alive and into a consular automobile preferably at night. Then what?
Transport by regular airline to Saudi Arabia under a false name with false passport? How do you keep him from protesting loudly?
By private plane? Would they not have to go through some exit-from-Turkey check at the airport even though they are diplomatic personnel? Show papers that they are all diplomatic personnel?
Smuggle to Greece to a safe keep for a while? Not likely. Too risky.
More likely: drive at night to a ship in the harbor of Istanbul and either sneak out or royally bribe the border guard. To SA through Egypt or Israel? Or all the way around Africa?
Best: drive to a secret meeting place with a small ship somewhere on the coast of the Gallipoli peninsula.
Suppose that Kashoggi is alive and in Saudi Arabia. Now what? Keep him hidden until he dies? Murder him?
Did one or more Turks help the Saudi’s?