jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
The fact that people are handwringing even the idea that people experience this horrifying act lest they be offended that they had to witness it tells me exactly why nobody in DC even cares that it happened.
We're already at the worst possible result of this assassination: We do nothing and allow the Saudis to continue, allowing those who would be upset to continue ignoring it and largely supporting the asshole in charge of doing nothing about it.
So, I guess we just fruitlessly yell "its real bad you guys!" to people who will never go out of their way to dive into it and continue to pretend it doesn't exist, and continue to vote for the people enabling it.
I'm not worried about "offending" people, I don't believe exposing them involuntarily to a traumatic experience is going to accomplish your goals.
I'm not sure what you legitimately envision this experience being like, or what your plan entails, but I assure you it doesn't end up going the way you think it does.
If it's voluntary, you get a fucking LOT of people who nope the fuck out, and we're more or less where we are now, or with any beheading video in the past couple decades.
If it's involuntary that's pretty fucked up and, I dunno, you maybe get a lot of PTSD or something?
If the recording goes public it is going on the playlist I am made for Christmas day so my relatives who thinks this isn't a big deal are forced to hear what they support.
Some will be moved to act.
Many of those, IMO, will be moved to act against whoever forced them to confront it/exposed them to it without their consent.
Just like the people who are upset about cops being filmed breaking the law.
Still doesn't endear me to American fragility any more.
Dude, I'm all for the audio being released.
Just like I'm all for recordings of police brutality being released. But that doesn't mean I want to watch every one of them.
If the recording goes public it is going on the playlist I am made for Christmas day so my relatives who thinks this isn't a big deal are forced to hear what they support.
I should point out that it is very likely that the recording of the murder will be in the wild sooner or later.
The Turks are more than a bit pissed about this.
Turkey has been very good at keeping this in the news with well timed information drops. Getting the recording out there is definitely going to happen.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited December 2018
Via the New York Times, Saudi Arabia denounces our Senate for saying the crown prince was responsible for this and their subsequent vote to stop military support. To which I say, tough titties Saudi Arabia. I thought these sort of statements are issued against a nation as a whole (as in, Saudi Arabia denouncing the whole of the USA), rather than be specific about a body of another government.
And because this atrocity should never be removed from the public conscience, nor the Trump Administration's role in trying to pretend it didn't happen, and covering for the person ultimately responsible, here's the latest updates.
Last weekend, the 120 day deadline for the Trump Administration to report to the Senate under the rules of the Magnitsky Act, on the death of Khashoggi passed with inaction. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47182567
Hopefully the Senate (or the House) follows this up hard. This should not be forgotten.
He also gave the Saudi government the equivalent of audio fellatio, and even made a f'n joke about the imprisonment, torture, and possibly deaths, of dissidents by MBS.
In response, he joked: “As long as you don’t make me a guest at the Ritz.”
And because this atrocity should never be removed from the public conscience, nor the Trump Administration's role in trying to pretend it didn't happen, and covering for the person ultimately responsible, here's the latest updates.
Last weekend, the 120 day deadline for the Trump Administration to report to the Senate under the rules of the Magnitsky Act, on the death of Khashoggi passed with inaction. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47182567
Hopefully the Senate (or the House) follows this up hard. This should not be forgotten.
He also gave the Saudi government the equivalent of audio fellatio, and even made a f'n joke about the imprisonment, torture, and possibly deaths, of dissidents by MBS.
In response, he joked: “As long as you don’t make me a guest at the Ritz.”
These f'n guys. I hate them so f'n much.
He's welcome to cite an occasion in which the US lured a man to a brutal beating and then dismembered him (or worse) and it didn't prompt public outcry because hey lets see what fox fucking news said on the subject:
Shep Smith is a national treasure, and the ONLY good thing FOX News has ever produced. If he wasn't on FOX, he'd be one of the reporters I'd watch reliably.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited February 2019
Fox News' problem isn't the actual journalism- although it can get ridiculously slanted, it is still generally, at the end of the day, recognizable as reality. It is all the punditry and opinion programs dressed up like news and journalism to create whatever narrative. The journalists made a pact with the devil, and sometimes I have no patience for them, and sometimes I wish they would do the job they clearly want to do.
Fox News' problem isn't the actual journalism- although it can get ridiculously slanted, it is still generally, at the end of the day, recognizable as reality. It is all the punditry and opinion programs dressed up like news and journalism to create whatever narrative. The journalists made a pact with the devil, and sometimes I have no patience for them, and sometimes I wish they would do the job they clearly want to do.
This is true about almost all journalism. If you click past the alarming headline and suggestive thumbnail, the facts of the story are probably factual, or close to it. This is true of almost all media outlets in the west, including really crappy ones. "Fake news", ie intentional fabrications, are not common at all. Much more common are more structural issues: which story is your headline, what news do you omit from reporting, who do you interview, etc. This is how we get such huge divides in media, and in politics. It isn't so much that people disagree on facts*, but that different groups are just talking about entirely different facts with increasingly little overlap.
*People obviously do disagree on facts, but even if they were to sit down and agree on low level ones, higher level stuff (immigration is good, climate change is caused by people, guns are needed for personal protection etc) is mostly determined by political leanings, not facts at all.
"New Khashoggi legislation from Dems being intro’d tomorrow requiring DNI to submit unclassified report within 30 days IDing “those who carried out, participated in, ordered, or were otherwise complicit in or responsible for the death” of Khashoggi, Wyden’s office tells me." - Alexander Marquardt
Alex Marquardt is a CNN Senior Correspondent.
Hopefully they also go after the Trump Administration's refusal to follow the law on the Magnitsky Act that they broke two weeks ago too.
This should not be forgotten, just because Trump obfuscates by scandal.
It’s unbelievable to me that this has been out of the news cycle. A journalist was literally hacked apart. “If it bleeds it leads”, unless Trump tweets something stupid, apparently.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
Don't worry, Kushner is meeting with his BFF buddy MBS, so everything is copacetic now.
Part of the problem with this is that the trump administration is so scandal prone and so thoroughly incompetent that shit like this ultimately gets buried by a series of other horrible shit.
Like, under a normal presidency trump's behavior here would be enough to seriously damage his political career since holy shit you are trying to yadda yadda yadda away the brutal dismemberment and death of a reporter who was lured to his death by a country he was critical of. If obama had done something like this people would be bitching about it endlessly for months on the 24 hours.
But the reality is that this is competing for attention with the mueller probe, the 35 day shutdown that served only to hurt millions of americans and shore up the congressional dem's credibility, his attempts to bypass congress with an emergency declaration that is dead on arrival, his endless golf trips, the way he fails to rebuke domestic terrorism when it comes from his base, the abominable treatment of asylum seekers, his baffling treatment of NATO allies and a host of other feats that range from merely embarrassing and asinine to catastrophically detrimental to the nation as a whole.
News needs something new to publish, that's why it's called News. Jamal Khashoggi is still dead isn't really a headline. If the House starts investigations then that will be a newsworthy event. Along with all the new information dripped out in new hearings or various committee leaks. Until then... there's nothing to really report on.
News needs something new to publish, that's why it's called News. Jamal Khashoggi is still dead isn't really a headline. If the House starts investigations then that will be a newsworthy event. Along with all the new information dripped out in new hearings or various committee leaks. Until then... there's nothing to really report on.
While that's true, there was a criminal lack of attention given to the Trump Administration wilfully ignoring the deadline on the Magnitsky Act. The Clemson fast food garbage got huge coverage. The refusal to follow the law when it came to this, got next to nothing. Some people in Congress aren't willing to let this go (like Senator Wyden), but if they fail to get media attention, it means that the Republicans can ignore this.
And this incident should not be ignored. Or forgotten. Nor should the Trump Administration actively breaking the law. This should not be the new normal.
Chris Murphy says bi-partisan talk is beginning on sanctions for KSA after Trump admin refuses to enforce Magnitsky act.
1/ THREAD: Here’s what happened yesterday in our “classified” Khashoggi briefing that included no information not already on the record.
2/ No high level Treasury or State Dept official was there. No intelligence official was there, making it impossible to have any real conversation about what the Administration knows about MBS involvement in Khashoggi murder.
3/ Trump Administration briefers DID confirm that they have no plans to comply with the Magnitsky Act and verify whether of not they believe MBS was involved, as required by the law.
4/ No meaningful partisan disagreement on what to do next. If White House is committed to violating the law and won’t hold Saudis accountable, then the Senate Foreign Relations Committee needs to respond. Talk beginning on sanctions bill that can get R and D support.
5/ Proud to serve under new Chairman @SenatorRisch, who led a fair, balanced hearing, understands the gravity of this issue, and is committed to working through it in a bipartisan way.
Chris Murphy says bi-partisan talk is beginning on sanctions for KSA after Trump admin refuses to enforce Magnitsky act.
1/ THREAD: Here’s what happened yesterday in our “classified” Khashoggi briefing that included no information not already on the record.
2/ No high level Treasury or State Dept official was there. No intelligence official was there, making it impossible to have any real conversation about what the Administration knows about MBS involvement in Khashoggi murder.
3/ Trump Administration briefers DID confirm that they have no plans to comply with the Magnitsky Act and verify whether of not they believe MBS was involved, as required by the law.
4/ No meaningful partisan disagreement on what to do next. If White House is committed to violating the law and won’t hold Saudis accountable, then the Senate Foreign Relations Committee needs to respond. Talk beginning on sanctions bill that can get R and D support.
5/ Proud to serve under new Chairman @SenatorRisch, who led a fair, balanced hearing, understands the gravity of this issue, and is committed to working through it in a bipartisan way.
"3/ Trump Administration briefers DID confirm that they have no plans to comply with the Magnitsky Act and verify whether of not they believe MBS was involved, as required by the law."
Wait, f'n what?
These briefers should be required to provide a superior who ordered this, or named. Their superiors should then be similarly called to account, named, and so on up the chain.
This isn't like McConnell being a douche on procedural issues. This is a declarative statement, "We're just going to ignore this law". Yeah, that shit should not be allowed to stand.
So, bringing this back up again, because fuck letting it be hidden/forgotten.
Going based on the reputation of the tweeter (Tommy Vietor, a Pod Save America host, and former NatSec Councillor to President Obama) because the article itself is behind a paywall.
"Jared Kusher is truly awful: "Jared Kushner 'in an off-the-record conversation with a reporter' trying to defend the Saudis by disparaging Khashoggi as a 'terrorist.'"
So, allegedly, Kushner is saying that a Wapo columnist, tortured and killed by MbS, had it coming, because he was a terrorist.
Admittedly, this is at least fourth hand (Vietor providing an excerpt based on an article, based on a conversation with the 'Fire and Fury' guy, reporting on a conversation with a reporter), but given that apparently there STILL hasn't been any compliance with the Magnitsky Act towards MbS in contravention of the law, mentioned in my previous post, I don't doubt this happened for a second.
You know, I'd like to know why jared is so determined to defend this piece of shit. Like, is he doing business with SA, Is he being handed big bags of cash, is he so up his own ass that he thinks he's working the prince or...?
You know, I'd like to know why jared is so determined to defend this piece of shit. Like, is he doing business with SA, Is he being handed big bags of cash, is he so up his own ass that he thinks he's working the prince or...?
Yes. They are cultivating him as an asset too and have even boasted about it.
You know, I'd like to know why jared is so determined to defend this piece of shit. Like, is he doing business with SA, Is he being handed big bags of cash, is he so up his own ass that he thinks he's working the prince or...?
There's been allegations that there's clear corruption issues, as well as double dealing (Qatar bailed out Kushner's 666 Fifth Avenue, and is a regional rival of the Saudis), and Kushner organized a massive arms sale, which I'm sure someone in Trump's immediate orbit profited significantly from.
Grift and graft, that's what these people are all about. It's fucking ridiculous. Kushner's tax returns should be on the block after Trump's get released, if any (hah!) irregularities are found.
You know, I'd like to know why jared is so determined to defend this piece of shit. Like, is he doing business with SA, Is he being handed big bags of cash, is he so up his own ass that he thinks he's working the prince or...?
There's been allegations that there's clear corruption issues, as well as double dealing (Qatar bailed out Kushner's 666 Fifth Avenue, and is a regional rival of the Saudis), and Kushner organized a massive arms sale, which I'm sure someone in Trump's immediate orbit profited significantly from.
Grift and graft, that's what these people are all about. It's fucking ridiculous. Kushner's tax returns should be on the block after Trump's get released, if any (hah!) irregularities are found.
Kushner, like Trump, is a shitty business man who is only a business man in the first place because of his family giving him a bunch of money and who had to turn to illegal means to keep his little empire afloat after he lost all his money.
So, a 101-page report on the Khashoggi murder, from the UN special rapporteur for extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions has been delivered to the UN Human Rights Council.
Ms Callamard states there is “sufficient credible evidence regarding the responsibility of the Crown Prince demanding further investigation”.
There is also significant testimony from Ms Callamard of her recollection (she was not permitted to take notes) of listening to 45 minutes of recordings from the embassy.
It's incredibly harrowing stuff, and if you're even the slightest bit squeamish, I recommend not reading it. I regret doing so.
That the Trump Administration stand by MBS, that other countries also treat Saudi Arabia as a trusted friend and ally, just disgusts me to no end.
I'm not a journalist, or a person of note. But I'll never forget that a man was brutally murdered by a tyrant, for speaking truth to power, and the leaders of the world collectively shrugged.
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lwt1973King of ThievesSyndicationRegistered Userregular
Prince Khaled bin Farhan al-Saud gave this account:
One day in June 2018, his mother, who lives in Egypt, called him with what she thought was good news. The Saudi Embassy in Cairo had contacted her, she said, and had a proposal: The kingdom wanted to mend relations with the prince and was willing to offer him $5.5 million as a goodwill gesture. Since bin Farhan was struggling financially (reportedly due, in part, to a dispute with the ruling family), his mother welcomed this chance for a reconciliation. But as tempting as the overture was, he claimed he never considered it seriously. And when he followed up with Saudi officials, he realized the deal had a dangerous catch. They had told him he could collect his payment only if he personally came to a Saudi embassy or consulate. That immediately set off alarm bells. He declined the offer.
And there are other accounts of similar circumstances or people vanishing.
"He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
Prince Khaled bin Farhan al-Saud gave this account:
One day in June 2018, his mother, who lives in Egypt, called him with what she thought was good news. The Saudi Embassy in Cairo had contacted her, she said, and had a proposal: The kingdom wanted to mend relations with the prince and was willing to offer him $5.5 million as a goodwill gesture. Since bin Farhan was struggling financially (reportedly due, in part, to a dispute with the ruling family), his mother welcomed this chance for a reconciliation. But as tempting as the overture was, he claimed he never considered it seriously. And when he followed up with Saudi officials, he realized the deal had a dangerous catch. They had told him he could collect his payment only if he personally came to a Saudi embassy or consulate. That immediately set off alarm bells. He declined the offer.
And there are other accounts of similar circumstances or people vanishing.
Yeah, nothing ominous about that, in hindsight. That this happened four months befor Khashoggi was murdered, infers a pattern to the philosophy of dealing with dissidents.
We already knew with some certainty that Khashoggi's death was ordered, planned, and organized before Khashoggi set foot in the embassy. But this information makes it seem pretty clear this wasn't a spur of the moment impulse from MBS. That it's likely a pre-established procedure to deal with dissidents. We don't know how many have been "disappeared" in this manner before, but the one thing to come out of the coverage of Khashoggi's death, hopefully, is that noone else gets tricked to their murder.
Just a side note, it's only been ten months since Khashoggi's death. Trump's tenure is warping temporal mechanics, cause it just feels longer than that. It's really messing with my sense of time.
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lwt1973King of ThievesSyndicationRegistered Userregular
TLDR: A Youtube star criticized the Prince for the murder and the Saudis sent his father and an unidentified man to California to pick him up but were stopped by the FBI at the airport and sent back empty-handed.
The FBI won't comment on it at all.
"He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
TLDR: A Youtube star criticized the Prince for the murder and the Saudis sent his father and an unidentified man to California to pick him up but were stopped by the FBI at the airport and sent back empty-handed.
The FBI won't comment on it at all.
I mean, why wouldn't they? Trump clearly didn't give a fuck about the time it happened with Khashoggi, and neither the Saudi's or MBS specifically were held to account for it.
This is what scares me most regards impeachment. If someone isn't held accountable for their misdeeds, they're GOING to keep doing it.
I am now concerned for the father. Not sure how complicit he was in trying to get his son to return, or if his life or the life of other family members is at risk. But I can't see MBS being particularly forgiving of someone who has disappointed him.
Regardless, I can't see Trump rebuking MBS, and I can't see Republicans overriding a veto to enforce penalties (sanctions or something more definitive), so I can absolutely see something like this happening again.
Posts
We're already at the worst possible result of this assassination: We do nothing and allow the Saudis to continue, allowing those who would be upset to continue ignoring it and largely supporting the asshole in charge of doing nothing about it.
So, I guess we just fruitlessly yell "its real bad you guys!" to people who will never go out of their way to dive into it and continue to pretend it doesn't exist, and continue to vote for the people enabling it.
Whatever, I'm done.
I'm not sure what you legitimately envision this experience being like, or what your plan entails, but I assure you it doesn't end up going the way you think it does.
If it's voluntary, you get a fucking LOT of people who nope the fuck out, and we're more or less where we are now, or with any beheading video in the past couple decades.
If it's involuntary that's pretty fucked up and, I dunno, you maybe get a lot of PTSD or something?
Dude, I'm all for the audio being released.
Just like I'm all for recordings of police brutality being released. But that doesn't mean I want to watch every one of them.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I'm for it.
The Turks are more than a bit pissed about this.
More then that, they know it damages the Saudis and they are 100% in favour of doing that.
Turkey has been very good at keeping this in the news with well timed information drops. Getting the recording out there is definitely going to happen.
New Yorkers might disagree with that assessment. But it's not like us ignoring their terrorism/assassinations would help reduce it either.
Last weekend, the 120 day deadline for the Trump Administration to report to the Senate under the rules of the Magnitsky Act, on the death of Khashoggi passed with inaction.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47182567
Hopefully the Senate (or the House) follows this up hard. This should not be forgotten.
And then this past Tuesday, close ally of Trump, Tom Barrack, said this in Dubai.
"whatever happened in Saudi Arabia, the atrocities in America are equal, or worse ...".
https://gulfnews.com/business/trump-backer-tom-barrack-defends-saudi-arabia-1.62027403
He also gave the Saudi government the equivalent of audio fellatio, and even made a f'n joke about the imprisonment, torture, and possibly deaths, of dissidents by MBS.
In response, he joked: “As long as you don’t make me a guest at the Ritz.”
These f'n guys. I hate them so f'n much.
He's welcome to cite an occasion in which the US lured a man to a brutal beating and then dismembered him (or worse) and it didn't prompt public outcry because hey lets see what fox fucking news said on the subject:
Shep Smith is a national treasure, and the ONLY good thing FOX News has ever produced. If he wasn't on FOX, he'd be one of the reporters I'd watch reliably.
This is true about almost all journalism. If you click past the alarming headline and suggestive thumbnail, the facts of the story are probably factual, or close to it. This is true of almost all media outlets in the west, including really crappy ones. "Fake news", ie intentional fabrications, are not common at all. Much more common are more structural issues: which story is your headline, what news do you omit from reporting, who do you interview, etc. This is how we get such huge divides in media, and in politics. It isn't so much that people disagree on facts*, but that different groups are just talking about entirely different facts with increasingly little overlap.
*People obviously do disagree on facts, but even if they were to sit down and agree on low level ones, higher level stuff (immigration is good, climate change is caused by people, guns are needed for personal protection etc) is mostly determined by political leanings, not facts at all.
"New Khashoggi legislation from Dems being intro’d tomorrow requiring DNI to submit unclassified report within 30 days IDing “those who carried out, participated in, ordered, or were otherwise complicit in or responsible for the death” of Khashoggi, Wyden’s office tells me." - Alexander Marquardt
Alex Marquardt is a CNN Senior Correspondent.
Hopefully they also go after the Trump Administration's refusal to follow the law on the Magnitsky Act that they broke two weeks ago too.
This should not be forgotten, just because Trump obfuscates by scandal.
Ugh.
Like, under a normal presidency trump's behavior here would be enough to seriously damage his political career since holy shit you are trying to yadda yadda yadda away the brutal dismemberment and death of a reporter who was lured to his death by a country he was critical of. If obama had done something like this people would be bitching about it endlessly for months on the 24 hours.
But the reality is that this is competing for attention with the mueller probe, the 35 day shutdown that served only to hurt millions of americans and shore up the congressional dem's credibility, his attempts to bypass congress with an emergency declaration that is dead on arrival, his endless golf trips, the way he fails to rebuke domestic terrorism when it comes from his base, the abominable treatment of asylum seekers, his baffling treatment of NATO allies and a host of other feats that range from merely embarrassing and asinine to catastrophically detrimental to the nation as a whole.
While that's true, there was a criminal lack of attention given to the Trump Administration wilfully ignoring the deadline on the Magnitsky Act. The Clemson fast food garbage got huge coverage. The refusal to follow the law when it came to this, got next to nothing. Some people in Congress aren't willing to let this go (like Senator Wyden), but if they fail to get media attention, it means that the Republicans can ignore this.
And this incident should not be ignored. Or forgotten. Nor should the Trump Administration actively breaking the law. This should not be the new normal.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1102949539286257664.html
"3/ Trump Administration briefers DID confirm that they have no plans to comply with the Magnitsky Act and verify whether of not they believe MBS was involved, as required by the law."
Wait, f'n what?
These briefers should be required to provide a superior who ordered this, or named. Their superiors should then be similarly called to account, named, and so on up the chain.
This isn't like McConnell being a douche on procedural issues. This is a declarative statement, "We're just going to ignore this law". Yeah, that shit should not be allowed to stand.
Going based on the reputation of the tweeter (Tommy Vietor, a Pod Save America host, and former NatSec Councillor to President Obama) because the article itself is behind a paywall.
"Jared Kusher is truly awful: "Jared Kushner 'in an off-the-record conversation with a reporter' trying to defend the Saudis by disparaging Khashoggi as a 'terrorist.'"
So, allegedly, Kushner is saying that a Wapo columnist, tortured and killed by MbS, had it coming, because he was a terrorist.
Admittedly, this is at least fourth hand (Vietor providing an excerpt based on an article, based on a conversation with the 'Fire and Fury' guy, reporting on a conversation with a reporter), but given that apparently there STILL hasn't been any compliance with the Magnitsky Act towards MbS in contravention of the law, mentioned in my previous post, I don't doubt this happened for a second.
Kushner can go fuck right the hell off.
Yes. They are cultivating him as an asset too and have even boasted about it.
There's been allegations that there's clear corruption issues, as well as double dealing (Qatar bailed out Kushner's 666 Fifth Avenue, and is a regional rival of the Saudis), and Kushner organized a massive arms sale, which I'm sure someone in Trump's immediate orbit profited significantly from.
Grift and graft, that's what these people are all about. It's fucking ridiculous. Kushner's tax returns should be on the block after Trump's get released, if any (hah!) irregularities are found.
Kushner, like Trump, is a shitty business man who is only a business man in the first place because of his family giving him a bunch of money and who had to turn to illegal means to keep his little empire afloat after he lost all his money.
Agreed. That's why I did caveat the crap out of it.
But Kushner is a piece of shit, so while it's possible the statement is in error or overstated, I doubt it's that far from the truth.
Ms Callamard states there is “sufficient credible evidence regarding the responsibility of the Crown Prince demanding further investigation”.
There is also significant testimony from Ms Callamard of her recollection (she was not permitted to take notes) of listening to 45 minutes of recordings from the embassy.
It's incredibly harrowing stuff, and if you're even the slightest bit squeamish, I recommend not reading it. I regret doing so.
That the Trump Administration stand by MBS, that other countries also treat Saudi Arabia as a trusted friend and ally, just disgusts me to no end.
I'm not a journalist, or a person of note. But I'll never forget that a man was brutally murdered by a tyrant, for speaking truth to power, and the leaders of the world collectively shrugged.
Prince Khaled bin Farhan al-Saud gave this account:
And there are other accounts of similar circumstances or people vanishing.
Yeah, nothing ominous about that, in hindsight. That this happened four months befor Khashoggi was murdered, infers a pattern to the philosophy of dealing with dissidents.
We already knew with some certainty that Khashoggi's death was ordered, planned, and organized before Khashoggi set foot in the embassy. But this information makes it seem pretty clear this wasn't a spur of the moment impulse from MBS. That it's likely a pre-established procedure to deal with dissidents. We don't know how many have been "disappeared" in this manner before, but the one thing to come out of the coverage of Khashoggi's death, hopefully, is that noone else gets tricked to their murder.
Just a side note, it's only been ten months since Khashoggi's death. Trump's tenure is warping temporal mechanics, cause it just feels longer than that. It's really messing with my sense of time.
TLDR: A Youtube star criticized the Prince for the murder and the Saudis sent his father and an unidentified man to California to pick him up but were stopped by the FBI at the airport and sent back empty-handed.
The FBI won't comment on it at all.
I mean, why wouldn't they? Trump clearly didn't give a fuck about the time it happened with Khashoggi, and neither the Saudi's or MBS specifically were held to account for it.
This is what scares me most regards impeachment. If someone isn't held accountable for their misdeeds, they're GOING to keep doing it.
I am now concerned for the father. Not sure how complicit he was in trying to get his son to return, or if his life or the life of other family members is at risk. But I can't see MBS being particularly forgiving of someone who has disappointed him.
Regardless, I can't see Trump rebuking MBS, and I can't see Republicans overriding a veto to enforce penalties (sanctions or something more definitive), so I can absolutely see something like this happening again.
And again.