Because it is--even the Syrian military itself seems to be admitting as much. A week or two ago there were basically nonstop threats about the terrible retaliation they could expect if so much as a hint of chemical weapons used in the assault surfaced, and the still-pretty-bad retaliation that they should expect if they launched an assault with them. It's long been the Syrian military's M.O. to bus militants to rebel territory as a "reward" for laying down their arms (the alternative being imprisoning or exterminating them), it's just that now, outside of the Afrin region, this is among the last rebel territory left in the country.
So apparently the Saudis, taking a cue from Russia, have now straight up murdered an expat Washington Post reporter on Turkish soil. Turks are not particularly pleased by this action.
"It could have been anyone! Especially our enemies! Look over there!"
“Look, we can’t be held responsible if some Yemenis infiltrate a Saudi Consulate pretending to be Saudi government agents and grab a Saudi dissident, kidnapping and murdering him while he is there to get some basic routing paperwork done relating to finalizing a divorce.”
So apparently the Saudis, taking a cue from Russia, have now straight up murdered an expat Washington Post reporter on Turkish soil. Turks are not particularly pleased by this action.
So apparently the Saudis, taking a cue from Russia, have now straight up murdered an expat Washington Post reporter on Turkish soil. Turks are not particularly pleased by this action.
Turan Kislakci, the head of Turkish Arab Media Association and a friend of Mr. Khashoggi’s, told The Times that Turkish officials had called him and confirmed the death.
“They confirmed two things: He was killed and his body was dismembered,” Mr. Kislakci said.
The Arab government official also described Mr. Khashoggi’s body as having been dismembered.
Turan Kislakci, the head of Turkish Arab Media Association and a friend of Mr. Khashoggi’s, told The Times that Turkish officials had called him and confirmed the death.
“They confirmed two things: He was killed and his body was dismembered,” Mr. Kislakci said.
The Arab government official also described Mr. Khashoggi’s body as having been dismembered.
I just can't believe how blatant the Saudi denial is.
"Oh sure he left after an hour here. Don't know why we can't provide any security camera footage to confirm this, or why he would have left without meeting back up with his fiance, who was the whole reason he was here at the consulate in the first place."
Nikki Haley, a "moderate" (as defined by "has only advocating bombing Russia on multiple occasions") was appointed by 2017 by a vote of 96-4, because if there's one things (all but 3) Democrats share with Republicans, it's a love of violent warmongering provocateurs in public forums. Her critiques of Iranian response to demonstrations in Tehran, and her stated favor towards an inquiry into aspects of the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen apparently completely displaced her advocacy of bombing Iran, Russia, Syria and North Korea and actual support for the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen. She followed a proud tradition of self-declared peacemakers who have assured us bombing the shit out of your enemies is actually the humane thing to do to them and aren't at all sociopaths, along with Samantha Powers and John Bolton.
Seriously, and I don't say this often, fuck her. I'm sure her replacement will be another terrible human being, but fuck her.
Emphasis on "political"--never mind the retaliatory cruelty of the Syrian Arab Armed Forces after this civil war, if I was a Syrian army soldier or officer and there was even a hint I defected to the opposition when they were busy shooting at my former comrades, or executing prisoners-of-war, I'd have serious thoughts about handing myself over either. But this does seem to suggest that the government in Damascus is still feeling confident in the outcome of the civil war itself, and moving towards "post-war" policies, both punitive and nonpunitive. It's happening a lot faster than one might expect, thanks to the internet age.
Nikki Haley, a "moderate" (as defined by "has only advocating bombing Russia on multiple occasions") was appointed by 2017 by a vote of 96-4, because if there's one things (all but 3) Democrats share with Republicans, it's a love of violent warmongering provocateurs in public forums. Her critiques of Iranian response to demonstrations in Tehran, and her stated favor towards an inquiry into aspects of the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen apparently completely displaced her advocacy of bombing Iran, Russia, Syria and North Korea and actual support for the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen. She followed a proud tradition of self-declared peacemakers who have assured us bombing the shit out of your enemies is actually the humane thing to do to them and aren't at all sociopaths, along with Samantha Powers and John Bolton.
Seriously, and I don't say this often, fuck her. I'm sure her replacement will be another terrible human being, but fuck her.
Nikki Haley is a real piece of shit and that isn't unusual in her role but my God it's still true
I could be wrong, but it's starting to sound like Turkey won't press the KSA too hard on this. I'm sure Erdogan and other officials are pissed but regional politics/economics might steer them away from a more confrontational approach.
The Turkish government has told U.S. officials that it has audio and video recordings that prove Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul this month, according to U.S. and Turkish officials.
The recordings show that a Saudi security team detained Khashoggi in the consulate after he walked in Oct. 2 to obtain an official document before his upcoming wedding, then killed him and dismembered his body, the officials said.
The audio recording in particular provides some of the most persuasive and gruesome evidence that the Saudi team is responsible for Khashoggi’s death, the officials said.
“The voice recording from inside the embassy lays out what happened to Jamal after he entered,” said one person with knowledge of the recording who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss highly sensitive intelligence.
“You can hear his voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic,” this person said. “You can hear how he was interrogated, tortured and then murdered.”
A second person briefed on the recording said men could be heard beating Khashoggi.
I guess I don't understand why torture him if you're going to kill him? Not sure if it's just another piece of cruelty, or they expected to be found out and want to send a message that crossing bin Salman won't just mean death, but a long and brutal one.
The Turkish government has told U.S. officials that it has audio and video recordings that prove Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul this month, according to U.S. and Turkish officials.
The recordings show that a Saudi security team detained Khashoggi in the consulate after he walked in Oct. 2 to obtain an official document before his upcoming wedding, then killed him and dismembered his body, the officials said.
The audio recording in particular provides some of the most persuasive and gruesome evidence that the Saudi team is responsible for Khashoggi’s death, the officials said.
“The voice recording from inside the embassy lays out what happened to Jamal after he entered,” said one person with knowledge of the recording who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss highly sensitive intelligence.
“You can hear his voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic,” this person said. “You can hear how he was interrogated, tortured and then murdered.”
A second person briefed on the recording said men could be heard beating Khashoggi.
I guess I don't understand why torture him if you're going to kill him? Not sure if it's just another piece of cruelty, or they expected to be found out and want to send a message that crossing bin Salman won't just mean death, but a long and brutal one.
It's also possible that "torture them before you kill them" is just standard procedure among the Saudis.
The Turkish government has told U.S. officials that it has audio and video recordings that prove Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul this month, according to U.S. and Turkish officials.
The recordings show that a Saudi security team detained Khashoggi in the consulate after he walked in Oct. 2 to obtain an official document before his upcoming wedding, then killed him and dismembered his body, the officials said.
The audio recording in particular provides some of the most persuasive and gruesome evidence that the Saudi team is responsible for Khashoggi’s death, the officials said.
“The voice recording from inside the embassy lays out what happened to Jamal after he entered,” said one person with knowledge of the recording who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss highly sensitive intelligence.
“You can hear his voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic,” this person said. “You can hear how he was interrogated, tortured and then murdered.”
A second person briefed on the recording said men could be heard beating Khashoggi.
I guess I don't understand why torture him if you're going to kill him? Not sure if it's just another piece of cruelty, or they expected to be found out and want to send a message that crossing bin Salman won't just mean death, but a long and brutal one.
Torture could be part of the interrogation, to extract info.
It could be part of the message, to dissuade others; or part of the mission, because someone wished him a painful end.
Or it could be that assassins can be cruel by nature, and tortured him because the felt like it.
As gruesome as it must be, this evidence must be released or leaked. Partly to lend a bit of credibility (I don't exactly trust Turkey or their media) and partly because it would be an effective political message of just how shitty KSA is.
Let's be honest, the Saudis have gotten away with much worse. I think they are the worst player in a region full of shitty players. But this is not going to have a long term impact.
Let's be honest, the Saudis have gotten away with much worse. I think they are the worst player in a region full of shitty players. But this is not going to have a long term impact.
This event has been about the collective shiver up the elite American pundit spine as it occurs to them that this is a brave new world where "one of them" can be the victim of the politics they expound. One of the things that defined the liberal world order is that global elites never faced anything worse than having to sit things out in New York or London for a bit.
Let's be honest, the Saudis have gotten away with much worse. I think they are the worst player in a region full of shitty players. But this is not going to have a long term impact.
This event has been about the collective shiver up the elite American pundit spine as it occurs to them that this is a brave new world where "one of them" can be the victim of the politics they expound. One of the things that defined the liberal world order is that global elites never faced anything worse than having to sit things out in New York or London for a bit.
Yeah I can see it as Saudi Arabia taking a page from the Russian assassination campaign. State actors assassinating unfriendly journalists in other countries could become a new norm.
Jephery on
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"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Let's be honest, the Saudis have gotten away with much worse. I think they are the worst player in a region full of shitty players. But this is not going to have a long term impact.
This is beyond dispute. Unfortunately, it also gets into the theoretical.
"Is killing journalists bad?"
Yes. It's bad, whether you kill them via a bomb dropped by an A-10 ground attack aircraft, or assassinate them in a side street with secret police tactics.
It's not as bad a starving and bombing an entire country into a Cholera epidemic. An entire plane-load of journalists isn't. This should be self-explanatory, though sadly it isn't always. There are genuine chilling effects and media capacity failures to fear, just as we can fear them when governments decide to double down on leakers or anyone who gets on their bad side with long jail sentences or other threats instead of killing (though quite obviously, the actual killing adds a dimension of violence and depravity to the problem--for the exact reason that slowly starving a country to death is still worse). Go much further, and you enter "apples versus oranges" area. Though at least we can establish that the government in Riyadh has done a wide variety of terrible things (and they're not alone in that area).
EDIT: Unsurprisingly, The Intercept has dedicated a piece to this very topic--and how Riyadh isn't necessarily limiting themselves to journalists either.
Watching/reading Saudi official propaganda sources, and they’re going all in on attacking Jamal Khashoggi’s fiance. Here, Al Arabiya (the biggest Saudi funded news channel), finds the horrific news about her they would like to share with the wider Arab world: Khadija is opposed to the campaign waged by Saudi Arabia in Yemen and has said that Saudis are destroying Yemen, its civilization, and are stealing the future of its citizens. Not sure what part of that Saudi propagandists expect people to not find self evident.
Then they quote some guy who calls her a tool being exploited.
So this is the new Saudi leadership being even more like comically evil then usual at this point, right? It's not just in my head and they are like being more openly and incompetently shitty?
The new leadership is the one that started the war in Yemen yeah.
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
So this is the new Saudi leadership being even more like comically evil then usual at this point, right? It's not just in my head and they are like being more openly and incompetently shitty?
I think it's more that they bought off the president and his idiot son-in-law so they're empowered to be their comically evil selves.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Nikki Haley, a "moderate" (as defined by "has only advocating bombing Russia on multiple occasions") was appointed by 2017 by a vote of 96-4, because if there's one things (all but 3) Democrats share with Republicans, it's a love of violent warmongering provocateurs in public forums. Her critiques of Iranian response to demonstrations in Tehran, and her stated favor towards an inquiry into aspects of the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen apparently completely displaced her advocacy of bombing Iran, Russia, Syria and North Korea and actual support for the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen. She followed a proud tradition of self-declared peacemakers who have assured us bombing the shit out of your enemies is actually the humane thing to do to them and aren't at all sociopaths, along with Samantha Powers and John Bolton.
Seriously, and I don't say this often, fuck her. I'm sure her replacement will be another terrible human being, but fuck her.
How was Susan Rice's tenure in comparison?
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Watching/reading Saudi official propaganda sources, and they’re going all in on attacking Jamal Khashoggi’s fiance. Here, Al Arabiya (the biggest Saudi funded news channel), finds the horrific news about her they would like to share with the wider Arab world: Khadija is opposed to the campaign waged by Saudi Arabia in Yemen and has said that Saudis are destroying Yemen, its civilization, and are stealing the future of its citizens. Not sure what part of that Saudi propagandists expect people to not find self evident.
Then they quote some guy who calls her a tool being exploited.
I've also been seeing right-wing Twitter and news propaganda calling Khashoggi an Iranian stooge, trying to demonize him so I guess being tortured to death is alright or something.
It's hard to tell which are bots bleating as they're paid and which are people who believe the bots, since authoritarians obey, and they see all these bots looking and acting a certain way and obediently copied the style of the bots so they can't be distinguished now.
So this is the new Saudi leadership being even more like comically evil then usual at this point, right? It's not just in my head and they are like being more openly and incompetently shitty?
In my opinion, Mohammad bin Salman is an especially unhinged leader, yeah. The Yemen war, kidnapping the Lebanese PM, the Qatar blockade, extreme responses to criticism as in the recent issue with Canada, and now this journalist murder. Lofty plans like Vision 2030 or whatever and the Aramco IPO that don't pan out. I think MBS and his clique are especially awful and at times irrational.
So this is the new Saudi leadership being even more like comically evil then usual at this point, right? It's not just in my head and they are like being more openly and incompetently shitty?
I think it's more that they bought off the president and his idiot son-in-law so they're empowered to be their comically evil selves.
Eh, I think it's a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B
So this is the new Saudi leadership being even more like comically evil then usual at this point, right? It's not just in my head and they are like being more openly and incompetently shitty?
In my opinion, Mohammad bin Salman is an especially unhinged leader, yeah. The Yemen war, kidnapping the Lebanese PM, the Qatar blockade, extreme responses to criticism as in the recent issue with Canada, and now this journalist murder. Lofty plans like Vision 2030 or whatever and the Aramco IPO that don't pan out. I think MBS and his clique are especially awful and at times irrational.
I feel like he's one of those guys who had Big Ideas about how he was gonna turn the whole thing around and is willing to be real nasty to make that happen and is not happy at how it's working out because people won't just do what he wants.
The Canada thing in particular seemed like it was an extreme reaction to bad publicity. He'd just made some small moves towards women being given more freedoms and here was this woman criticising Saudi Arabia for their treatment of women and saying they needed to go much further. It kinda put a damper on the positive press SA was getting at the time. And I suppose it makes it look like SA was bowing to outside pressure. Or something like that. He wants change (not necessarily good change though it might match up with international expectations in some ways) but on his terms.
The Canada thing in particular seemed like it was an extreme reaction to bad publicity. He'd just made some small moves towards women being given more freedoms and here was this woman criticising Saudi Arabia for their treatment of women and saying they needed to go much further. It kinda put a damper on the positive press SA was getting at the time. And I suppose it makes it look like SA was bowing to outside pressure. Or something like that. He wants change (not necessarily good change though it might match up with international expectations in some ways) but on his terms.
He was shocked at how quickly the Western press picked up on him arresting the female activists who pushed for the removal of the driving ban.
Honestly I don’t envy MBS’s position. If you look at Saudi Arabia in the long run they are pretty screwed, he probably sees that and is flailing about in desperation trying to hack together a country that can last and be prosperous for more than a decade or so.
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So apparently the Saudis, taking a cue from Russia, have now straight up murdered an expat Washington Post reporter on Turkish soil. Turks are not particularly pleased by this action.
“Look, we can’t be held responsible if some Yemenis infiltrate a Saudi Consulate pretending to be Saudi government agents and grab a Saudi dissident, kidnapping and murdering him while he is there to get some basic routing paperwork done relating to finalizing a divorce.”
Good grief. Even if it was on foreign soil, they need to be more subtle if they want to kill journalists. They have aircraft, they could just use them. :x
Briefly returning to my earlier post--Iranian press is reporting that the arrangement in Idlib is definitely temporary, and that the region will return to Syrian government control, by force is necessary. So much for staving off a bloodbath.
If you also want to send a message you don't want to be subtle.
From the NYT article on the same subject.
They may have dismembered the body? Did they smuggle the pieces of this man out in suitcases? What the fuck is wrong with these people?
edit - I suppose I should not jump to the conclusion that that allegation is true based on one report
Yes, they allegedly smuggled him out in suitcases or the trunk of a car, so that Turkish security cameras wouldn’t see them.
https://mobile.twitter.com/SulomeAnderson/status/1049370198711656450
"Oh sure he left after an hour here. Don't know why we can't provide any security camera footage to confirm this, or why he would have left without meeting back up with his fiance, who was the whole reason he was here at the consulate in the first place."
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Nikki Haley, a "moderate" (as defined by "has only advocating bombing Russia on multiple occasions") was appointed by 2017 by a vote of 96-4, because if there's one things (all but 3) Democrats share with Republicans, it's a love of violent warmongering provocateurs in public forums. Her critiques of Iranian response to demonstrations in Tehran, and her stated favor towards an inquiry into aspects of the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen apparently completely displaced her advocacy of bombing Iran, Russia, Syria and North Korea and actual support for the Saudi bombing campaign in Yemen. She followed a proud tradition of self-declared peacemakers who have assured us bombing the shit out of your enemies is actually the humane thing to do to them and aren't at all sociopaths, along with Samantha Powers and John Bolton.
Seriously, and I don't say this often, fuck her. I'm sure her replacement will be another terrible human being, but fuck her.
Emphasis on "political"--never mind the retaliatory cruelty of the Syrian Arab Armed Forces after this civil war, if I was a Syrian army soldier or officer and there was even a hint I defected to the opposition when they were busy shooting at my former comrades, or executing prisoners-of-war, I'd have serious thoughts about handing myself over either. But this does seem to suggest that the government in Damascus is still feeling confident in the outcome of the civil war itself, and moving towards "post-war" policies, both punitive and nonpunitive. It's happening a lot faster than one might expect, thanks to the internet age.
Nikki Haley is a real piece of shit and that isn't unusual in her role but my God it's still true
I could be wrong, but it's starting to sound like Turkey won't press the KSA too hard on this. I'm sure Erdogan and other officials are pissed but regional politics/economics might steer them away from a more confrontational approach.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/turks-tell-us-officials-they-have-audio-and-video-recordings-that-support-conclusion-khashoggi-was-killed/2018/10/11/119a119e-cd88-11e8-920f-dd52e1ae4570_story.html
I guess I don't understand why torture him if you're going to kill him? Not sure if it's just another piece of cruelty, or they expected to be found out and want to send a message that crossing bin Salman won't just mean death, but a long and brutal one.
It's also possible that "torture them before you kill them" is just standard procedure among the Saudis.
Torture could be part of the interrogation, to extract info.
It could be part of the message, to dissuade others; or part of the mission, because someone wished him a painful end.
Or it could be that assassins can be cruel by nature, and tortured him because the felt like it.
As gruesome as it must be, this evidence must be released or leaked. Partly to lend a bit of credibility (I don't exactly trust Turkey or their media) and partly because it would be an effective political message of just how shitty KSA is.
This event has been about the collective shiver up the elite American pundit spine as it occurs to them that this is a brave new world where "one of them" can be the victim of the politics they expound. One of the things that defined the liberal world order is that global elites never faced anything worse than having to sit things out in New York or London for a bit.
Yeah I can see it as Saudi Arabia taking a page from the Russian assassination campaign. State actors assassinating unfriendly journalists in other countries could become a new norm.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
This is beyond dispute. Unfortunately, it also gets into the theoretical.
"Is killing journalists bad?"
Yes. It's bad, whether you kill them via a bomb dropped by an A-10 ground attack aircraft, or assassinate them in a side street with secret police tactics.
It's not as bad a starving and bombing an entire country into a Cholera epidemic. An entire plane-load of journalists isn't. This should be self-explanatory, though sadly it isn't always. There are genuine chilling effects and media capacity failures to fear, just as we can fear them when governments decide to double down on leakers or anyone who gets on their bad side with long jail sentences or other threats instead of killing (though quite obviously, the actual killing adds a dimension of violence and depravity to the problem--for the exact reason that slowly starving a country to death is still worse). Go much further, and you enter "apples versus oranges" area. Though at least we can establish that the government in Riyadh has done a wide variety of terrible things (and they're not alone in that area).
EDIT: Unsurprisingly, The Intercept has dedicated a piece to this very topic--and how Riyadh isn't necessarily limiting themselves to journalists either.
Then they quote some guy who calls her a tool being exploited.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
I think it's more that they bought off the president and his idiot son-in-law so they're empowered to be their comically evil selves.
How was Susan Rice's tenure in comparison?
I've also been seeing right-wing Twitter and news propaganda calling Khashoggi an Iranian stooge, trying to demonize him so I guess being tortured to death is alright or something.
It's hard to tell which are bots bleating as they're paid and which are people who believe the bots, since authoritarians obey, and they see all these bots looking and acting a certain way and obediently copied the style of the bots so they can't be distinguished now.
Trump Jr is somehow like Trump's Id. And Trump is already the right's Id.
Eh, I think it's a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B
MBS seems like a real piece of work
I feel like he's one of those guys who had Big Ideas about how he was gonna turn the whole thing around and is willing to be real nasty to make that happen and is not happy at how it's working out because people won't just do what he wants.
He was shocked at how quickly the Western press picked up on him arresting the female activists who pushed for the removal of the driving ban.
My reaction: do it you coward