Khashoggi Disappearance

[seemslikeadream]

price for helping cover up for a gruesome murder = $100,000,000

Saudi Arabia transfers $100 million to U.S. on day of Pompeo visit to discuss missing journalist

John Hudson

The United States received a payment of $100 million from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Riyadh to discuss the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a State Department official confirmed Wednesday amid global calls for answers in the case.

Saudi Arabia publicly pledged the payment to support U.S. stabilization efforts in northeastern Syria in August, but questions persisted about when and if Saudi officials would come through with the money.

The timing of the transfer, first reported by The New York Times, raised questions about a potential payoff as Riyadh seeks to manage the blowback over allegations that Saudi agents were responsible for Khashoggi's disappearance. The State Department denied any connection between the payment and Pompeo's discussions with Saudi officials about Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist.

"We always expected the contribution to be finalized in the fall time frame," Brett McGurk, the State Department's envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, said in a statement. "The specific transfer of funds has been long in process and has nothing to do with other events or the secretary's visit."

Saudi Arabia, an oil rich monarchy and staunch U.S. ally, has long relied on its financial largesse to persuade partners to support its foreign policy objectives. Western diplomats suspect that the kingdom will also compensate Turkey for its willingness to launch a joint investigation on Khashoggi's disappearance - a payback that could come in the form of large-scale debt relief, strategic buyouts or other arrangements that boost Turkey's ailing economy.

Khashoggi's disappearance has hurt the reputation of Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, whose close relationship with President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has put him at the center of the administration's Middle East policy.

Turkish authorities say Khashoggi was killed Oct. 2 during a visit to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain a document required to get married.

Trump initially promised "severe punishment" for Saudi Arabia if the United States determined that Saudi agents killed Khashoggi. But the president has since floated an alternative theory involving "rogue killers" and compared the case to the sexual assault allegations against recently confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

"Here we go again with you know you're guilty until proven innocent," Trump told The Associated Press in an interview on Tuesday.

During Pompeo's visit to Saudi Arabia, the top diplomat and the crown prince smiled for the cameras and emphasized the two countries' mutual interests. When asked if he had learned any details about Khashoggi's disappearance, Pompeo told reporters that "I don't want to talk about any of the facts; they didn't want to, either, in that they want to have the opportunity to complete this investigation in a thorough way."

The Saudi payment to support stabilization efforts in Syria is a cornerstone of Trump's "America First" strategy, which calls on regional countries to take on a greater burden for security challenges, including Syria. In August, U.S. officials hailed the Saudi pledge and said the United States would use $230 million earmarked to help stabilize Syria for other purposes.

McGurk, the State Department envoy, arrived in Saudi Arabia on Friday to discuss how the $100 million in stabilization money would be spent, said a State Department official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations.

The official said the timing was a coincidence, and that transferring the $100 million "has multiple steps all of which clicked through over the past two months."

Middle East experts said the timing of the transfer likely sent a clear message to the Trump administration.

"In all probability, the Saudis want Trump to know that his cooperation in covering for the Khashoggi affair is important to the Saudi monarch," said Joshua Landis, a professor at the University of Oklahoma. "Much of its financial promises to the U.S. will be contingent on this cooperation."

The Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... story.html

[seemslikeadream]

Saudi suspect in Khashoggi case ‘dies in car accident’: Report

ISTANBUL

Saudi suspect in Khashoggi case ‘dies in car accident’: Report
A Turkish newspaper reported on Oct. 18 that one of the suspects involved in the disappearance of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi died in a “suspicious car accident” in Riyadh.

Mashal Saad al-Bostani, a 31-year-old lieutenant of the Saudi Royal Air Forces, was among the 15 suspects who arrived and left Turkey on Oct. 2 after going to Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consulate when Khashoggi visited there, according to daily Yeni Şafak.

The newspaper said sources did not release any details about the traffic accident in Riyadh and Bostani’s role in the “murder” was not yet clear.

Daily Hürriyet columnist Abdulkadir Selvi claimed on Oct. 18 that Saudi Arabia’s Istanbul consul Mohammad al-Otaibi could be “the next execution” as Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman “would do anything to get rid of evidence.”

Turkish daily Yeni Şafak reported Oct. 17 that Al-Otaibi’s voice could be heard in one of the recordings, which Turkish authorities are believed to have, of Khashoggi’s “interrogation” at the consulate.

According to the report, after Al-Otaibi told the interrogators to “do it somewhere else outside or I will be in trouble,” he was told to “shut up if you want to live when you are back in Saudi Arabia.”

Al-Otaibi returned to Saudi Arabia on Oct. 16 before his residence in Istanbul was searched by police for more than eight hours on Oct. 17 and Oct. 18.

IN PHOTOS: Turkish-Saudi team completes probe at Saudi consulate, residence
Turkish-Saudi team completes probe at Saudi consulate, residence
Meanwhile, Sabah newspaper released stills from security camera footage of another suspect on Oct. 18.

According to the report, 47-year-old Maher Abdulaziz M. Mutreb, an intelligence officer who previously served at Saudi Arabia’s London embassy, landed in Istanbul at 3:38 a.m. on Oct. 2 and went to his country’s Istanbul consulate at 9:55 a.m.

Hours after Khashoggi’s arrival and disappearance, Mutreb left the consulate and visited the consul’s residence at 4:53 p.m., left his hotel at 5:15 p.m. and arrived at the Atatürk Airport for his return trip on a private jet at 5:58 p.m.

The New York Times had reported on Oct. 16 that Mutreb had travelled extensively with the crown prince, perhaps as a bodyguard.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/saudi- ... ort-138007

Putin Furious at Saudis for Using His Puppet Without Permission

Andy Borowitz

Photograph by Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty
MOSCOW (The Borowitz Report)—The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, is “absolutely furious” at the Saudi royal family for using his puppet without first obtaining his permission, an aide to Putin confirmed on Wednesday.

According to the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Russian President has been “seething with anger” in recent days as he has observed the Saudis using his favorite puppet as if it were their own.

“At one point, Putin was watching the news and saw his puppet behaving in the kind of scraping, subservient manner toward the Saudis that he had previously reserved for him,” the aide said. “He pulled the TV out of the wall and hurled it across the room.”

According to diplomatic sources, the Saudis have reached out to Russia in the hopes of striking some sort of puppet-sharing agreement, but the enraged Russian President has refused to entertain such overtures.

“He’s my tiny puppet, and only I can make him dance,” Putin reportedly snapped.
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowit ... QyMjQwOQS2

Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression

Jamal Khashoggi


October 17 at 7:52 PM

A note from Karen Attiah, Global Opinions editor

I received this column from Jamal Khashoggi’s translator and assistant the day after Jamal was reported missing in Istanbul. The Post held off publishing it because we hoped Jamal would come back to us so that he and I could edit it together. Now I have to accept: That is not going to happen. This is the last piece of his I will edit for The Post. This column perfectly captures his commitment and passion for freedom in the Arab world. A freedom he apparently gave his life for. I will be forever grateful he chose The Post as his final journalistic home one year ago and gave us the chance to work together.

I was recently online looking at the 2018 “Freedom in the World” report published by Freedom House and came to a grave realization. There is only one country in the Arab world that has been classified as “free.” That nation is Tunisia. Jordan, Morocco and Kuwait come second, with a classification of “partly free.” The rest of the countries in the Arab world are classified as “not free.”

We need to plan, coordinate and collaborate so that tomorrow's new technologies don't happen to cities but rather for them. Read More
As a result, Arabs living in these countries are either uninformed or misinformed. They are unable to adequately address, much less publicly discuss, matters that affect the region and their day-to-day lives. A state-run narrative dominates the public psyche, and while many do not believe it, a large majority of the population falls victim to this false narrative. Sadly, this situation is unlikely to change.

The Arab world was ripe with hope during the spring of 2011. Journalists, academics and the general population were brimming with expectations of a bright and free Arab society within their respective countries. They expected to be emancipated from the hegemony of their governments and the consistent interventions and censorship of information. These expectations were quickly shattered; these societies either fell back to the old status quo or faced even harsher conditions than before.

My dear friend, the prominent Saudi writer Saleh al-Shehi, wrote one of the most famous columns ever published in the Saudi press. He unfortunately is now serving an unwarranted five-year prison sentence for supposed comments contrary to the Saudi establishment. The Egyptian government’s seizure of the entire print run of a newspaper, al-Masry al Youm, did not enrage or provoke a reaction from colleagues. These actions no longer carry the consequence of a backlash from the international community. Instead, these actions may trigger condemnation quickly followed by silence.

As a result, Arab governments have been given free rein to continue silencing the media at an increasing rate. There was a time when journalists believed the Internet would liberate information from the censorship and control associated with print media. But these governments, whose very existence relies on the control of information, have aggressively blocked the Internet. They have also arrested local reporters and pressured advertisers to harm the revenue of specific publications.

[Read Khashoggi’s last column for The Post before his disappearance in Arabic]

There are a few oases that continue to embody the spirit of the Arab Spring. Qatar’s government continues to support international news coverage, in contrast to its neighbors’ efforts to uphold the control of information to support the “old Arab order.” Even in Tunisia and Kuwait, where the press is considered at least “partly free,” the media focuses on domestic issues but not issues faced by the greater Arab world. They are hesitant to provide a platform for journalists from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen. Even Lebanon, the Arab world’s crown jewel when it comes to press freedom, has fallen victim to the polarization and influence of pro-Iran Hezbollah.

The Arab world is facing its own version of an Iron Curtain, imposed not by external actors but through domestic forces vying for power. During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe, which grew over the years into a critical institution, played an important role in fostering and sustaining the hope of freedom. Arabs need something similar. In 1967, the New York Times and The Post took joint ownership of the International Herald Tribune newspaper, which went on to become a platform for voices from around the world.

My publication, The Post, has taken the initiative to translate many of my pieces and publish them in Arabic. For that, I am grateful. Arabs need to read in their own language so they can understand and discuss the various aspects and complications of democracy in the United States and the West. If an Egyptian reads an article exposing the actual cost of a construction project in Washington, then he or she would be able to better understand the implications of similar projects in his or her community.

The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events. More important, we need to provide a platform for Arab voices. We suffer from poverty, mismanagement and poor education. Through the creation of an independent international forum, isolated from the influence of nationalist governments spreading hate through propaganda, ordinary people in the Arab world would be able to address the structural problems their societies face.

Manal al-Sharif: Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance spreads fear worldwide, but we won’t be silenced
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... 176fe957fe

[Karmamatterz]

It makes all the difference when the researcher speaks Arabic and has been reading items by and about Khasshoggi in Arabic for 20 or 30 years.

+1

This is by far the best 15 min TLDR summary of Khashoggi for anybody who hasn't gotten into the deep background of this story. Would love to see the reaction on U.S. editors faces IF they actually watched the clip. Thanks for posting that. It explains Khashoggi's real dual role in his "reporting." Hard to call the guy a journalist. The Angry Arab News was great find.

[seemslikeadream]

whatever ...did he deserve to be cut up into pieces while he was still alive?

fingers cut off while witnesses could hear the screams?

his head cut off with a bone saw?


What music? The soundtrack to “Sweeney Todd”?


Who doesn't smile and laugh after they've cut off someone's head





Saudi autopsy expert ‘who butchered the body of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi with a bone saw’ learned his trade at Glasgow University 14 years ago

Khashoggi’s Killing Isn’t a Blunder. It’s a Crime.

A wink and a nod from Washington is the worst possible response to Riyadh’s butchery.

Oct. 18, 2018

Turkish forensic police officers investigating the alleged killing of Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul.SEDAT SUNA/EPA-EFE/REX
Saudi Arabia’s apparent torture, murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi has been met in some quarters with more lamentation than outrage. Here — so the argument goes — was the most reformist government in the kingdom’s history; and then it did this stupid, awful thing; and now the U.S. runs the risk of making matters worse “in a fit of righteousness,” as one observer recently put it.

O.K. But can we dwell on that “awful thing” just a bit longer?

That awful thing isn’t that somebody in Riyadh, deploying the cold logic of raison d’état, chose to kill an enemy. It’s who it chose to make an enemy of.

Khashoggi was not Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical cleric killed in 2011 on orders from President Obama after he had joined forces with an Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen and gone to war with the United States. He was not Fernando Pereira, the photographer unintentionally killed in 1985 aboard a Greenpeace ship after French intelligence agents sank the boat in New Zealand.

He was not even Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian intelligence agent murdered in London in 2006 on Vladimir Putin’s orders. Litvinenko was trying to blow the lid on the crimes that helped bring Putin to power. His murder was an outrage, but he knew he was swimming in shark-infested waters.

Khashoggi was no terrorist, spy, or luckless bystander. He was a gadfly, bouncing between the West and the Middle East, by turns a courtier, commentator, public intellectual and mild dissident. He has been described as an Islamist, but his political sympathies were heterodox and frequently liberal. He supported Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s decision to allow women to drive, but opposed the political clampdown that went with it.

A wise regime would have either ignored him or found a way to co-opt him. A thuggish regime might have seized his assets, tried him in absentia on a trumped up charge, or even sought to abduct him.

But it takes a striking combination of wickedness, arrogance and idiocy for Riyadh to think it can get away with a grotesque murder of a well-known and harmless journalist on the soil of a Middle Eastern rival in a consulate the Saudis must have known was either bugged or surveilled.

It seems it was. As “agents cut off Mr. Khashoggi’s head and dismembered his body,” a Saudi doctor of forensics who had been “brought along for the dissection and disposal” had some advice for the others, The Times reported Wednesday. “Listen to music, he told them, as he donned headphones himself.”

What music? The soundtrack to “Sweeney Todd”?

Apologists for the Saudis have pointed out that other nominally allied countries, including the Turks, have their own apparatus of torture and repression. That’s true, though American presidents don’t normally try to find alibis and make excuses for such countries immediately after the commission of heinous acts.

Apologists also say that we need Riyadh to share intelligence, oppose Iran, and pump oil. True as well, though the kingdom will still oppose Iran and pump oil regardless of the attitude we take toward Khashoggi’s killing. As for intelligence, if they don’t want to share theirs we needn’t share ours. In the age of fracking, the House of Saud has infinitely more need of the United States than the United States has of the House.

That would have been the best lesson the Trump administration could have administered to the Kingdom and its incompetent apprentice ruler. That, and a demand for an independent investigation along the lines of the U.N. investigation into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

A culprit may never be brought to justice, particularly if the hit on Khashoggi was ordered by the crown prince. The suspects named in the Hariri case also got away.

The alternative, however, is to allow journalists to be tortured and dismembered with a nod and a wink from Washington, and that is much worse. It makes the U.S. not just a bystander to the criminality of our allies, but also a partner. And it makes it impossible for us to condemn similar acts by our enemies. What does the U.S. do the next time the Kremlin chooses to eliminate one of its enemies on British soil?

Like many Westerners who have met Mohammed bin Salman, I’ve been impressed by his energy and sympathetic to his message of social, religious and economic reform. I’m also under no illusions about the threats to his kingdom, and of the need for toughness in the face of them.

Yet murdering a defenseless journalist in your own consulate isn’t toughness. It’s barbarism. And trying to brazen your way into the clear with empty promises of an investigation and blustering threats of diplomatic reprisal isn’t evidence of a young ruler’s reformist instinct. It’s a path toward a darker form of tyranny.

Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo may think they’re preserving a necessary alliance with Riyadh in the face of moral posturing by their critics. They should take care lest the effect of their forbearance is yet another Mideast monster.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/opin ... tions.html

More info revealed on the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi


A SAUDI doctor accused of the grisly assassination of a prominent international journalist in Turkey studied forensic medicine in Australia, it has emerged.

Turkish authorities say Dr Salah al-Tubaigy was among 15 men present at the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul, when Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi is believed to have met a brutal end on October 2.

The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine confirmed that Dr al-Tubaigy spent three months training as a forensic pathologist at the Melbourne facility in 2015.

Institute director Professor Noel Woodford told the ABC he did not meet the Saudi surgeon during his Australian placement but understood he voiced a particular interest in the field of mass disaster victim identification.

However his predecessor, Stephen Cordner, was one of the Saudi surgeon’s Australian mentors and recalled the experience in a radio interview on Wednesday.

“I remember Dr Tubaigy,” he told ABC radio.

“He became really the senior forensic doctor in Saudi Arabia, he was head of the Saudi forensic medicine commission.”

Jamal Khashoggi with his fiancee Hatice Cengiz. Picture: Facebook


Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was an outspoken critic of the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Picture: Supplied

According to Prof Cordner, one of Dr al-Tubaigy’s responsibilities was dealing with disasters, particularly deaths of pilgrims during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca.

“He did get familiar with the use of our CT scans in a post mortem context,” Prof Cordner said.

“He didn’t do any autopsies. He observed autopsies, attended academic meetings, so really just attended things that happened in the building.”

Prof Cordner said the institute took a “generous view” of people who had indicated they wanted to spend time there observing.

“We approach them as though they’re honest people dealing with us wanting to improve the lives of the people in the country they come from,” he said.

Australia-trained Dr Salah al-Tubaigy is among 15 suspects in the grisly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Picture: The Sabah



Dr Salah al-Tubaigy trained at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine for three months in 2015. Picture: The SabahSource:Supplied

Mr Khashoggi, an outspoken critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, vanished after entering the consulate to obtain documents relating to his upcoming wedding to fiancee Hatice Cengiz.

It is believed he was tortured, murdered and dismembered in the presence of up to 15 Saudi officials, including Dr al-Tubaigy and Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, who is a bodyguard for the Crown Prince.

Turkish authorities suspect Mr Khashoggi’s killers may have disposed of his body by dissolving it in acid.

The Saudi Government has denied any wrongdoing but has hinted the journalist’s murder may have been the outcome of a botched interrogation by “rogue” employees.

Turkish newspaper The Sabah reported overnight that Mr Khashoggi’s excruciating final moments may have been recorded on his Apple watch.


Turkish forensic police officers search for evidence at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on October 17 after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Picture: Ozan Kose/AFPSource:AFP


Turkish forensic officers search the garage at the Istanbul home of Saudi Arabia's Consul General Mohammad al-Otaibi on October 17. Picture: Ozan Kose/AFPSource:AFP

Turkish police officers work in front of the Saudi Arabian consulate general residence as investigations continue into the disappearance and suspected murder of Jamal Khashoggi . Picture: Chris McGrath/Getty Images
Turkish police officers work in front of the Saudi Arabian consulate general residence as investigations continue into the disappearance and suspected murder of Jamal Khashoggi . Picture: Chris McGrath/Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images

The paper claimed the device captured incriminating conversations between Saudi officials as they brutalised their victim and that Mr Khashoggi can be heard screaming as his fingers are hacked off before he was “injected with an unknown drug”.

It said Saudi Consul General Mohammed al-Otaibi is heard on the tape telling those allegedly torturing the journalist: “Do this outside; you’re going to get me in trouble.”

His comment was reportedly met with the reply: “Shut up if you want to live when you return to (Saudi) Arabia”.

Mr al-Otaibi, who fled Turkey after the alleged killing, has been relieved of his post and will face an investigation, an official government statement said.

Saudi Interior Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud has said claims “about orders to kill [Mr Khashoggi] are lies and baseless allegations against the government of the kingdom”.

—With agencies
https://www.news.com.au/world/middle-ea ... ca86e53666

[JackRiddler]

whatever ...did he deserve to be cut up into pieces while he was still alive?

fingers cut off while witnesses could hear the screams?

his head cut off with a bone saw?

SLAD, I've decided, because I can, that your posts may suggest you support babies and little bunny rabbits being thrown into giant boiling pots of oil for the sport of listening to their yelps as they hit. Why do you support that? You are not going to seriously deny that, are you? Present a complete argument for why you do not support the murder of babies and little bunny rabbits in exactly the fashion described so that we can debate it for a few pages. As you have shown, we are totally entitled to misrepresent you in any random fashion we please.

.

[liminalOyster]

I could see the boiling oil - it's a time honored sporting tradition - but, seriously, SLAD? - drone strikes too?!

[seemslikeadream]

whatever ...did he deserve to be cut up into pieces while he was still alive?

fingers cut off while witnesses could hear the screams?

his head cut off with a bone saw?

SLAD, I've decided, because I can, that your posts may suggest you support babies and little bunny rabbits being thrown into giant boiling pots of oil for the sport of listening to their yelps as they hit. Why do you support that? You are not going to seriously deny that, are you? Present a complete argument for why you do not support the murder of babies and little bunny rabbits in exactly the fashion described so that we can debate it for a few pages. As you have shown, we are totally entitled to misrepresent you in any random fashion we please.

.

What all I get is half a paragraph? Are you just all tired out from the K guy and can’t give me the attention I deserve?

What a peacock

[seemslikeadream]

I could see the boiling oil - it's a time honored sporting tradition - but, seriously, SLAD? - drone strikes too?!

I do not know what the fock you are talking about

so you like beheading? Is that what you are saying?

[seemslikeadream]

Turkish newspaper claims one of Jamal Khashoggi’s Saudi killers is now dead

The Jamal Khashoggi Murder Cover-up Is Another Reason to Turn Congress Democratic

Jonathan Chait@jonathanchait1:23 P.M.

Photo: Leah Mills/AFP/Getty Images

Last night, the Washington Post’s Shane Harris broke a blockbuster scoop. The Trump administration and the Saudis are “searching for a mutually agreeable explanation” — i.e., a lie — for the apparent murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi “that will avoid implicating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.”

The fact that the administration is conspiring in the dissemination of a lie has all kinds of implications. One of them is likely the violation of normal policy making — after all, the United States government has a foreign policy and intelligence bureaucracy designed to produce factual analyses, so burying the correct conclusions in order to produce fabricated ones is probably going to entail some shenanigans, if not outright illegality. Another Washington Post story reports that, according to Senator Bob Corker, the administration has “clamped down” on sharing intelligence with Congress, and that a scheduled briefing on the matter had been cancelled. Corker called these moves “disappointing.”

Well, yes, they are disappointing. But Corker is not some man on the street offering his opinions on the issue. He’s the Foreign Relations Committee chairman of the U.S. Senate, which is part of a co-equal branch of government. If the administration cancels a briefing, Corker has more powerful recourse than expressing his disappointment to the Post. He can schedule a hearing. He can issue subpoenas. Corker has not so much rejected these options as treated them as unimaginable.

The saga of Khashoggi’s apparent murder touches on the U.S.’s relationship with a gulf kingdom whose value has gone unscrutinized for a long time, and on Trump’s evident lack of any public ethics whatsoever. But it is also a story about the Republican Congress’s refusal to conduct oversight — a refusal embedded so deeply in the party’s mind that it is impossible to find Republicans even mulling an alternative.

The air in Washington is thick with smoke, as the administration suspiciously dodges the inescapable conclusion and appears to be implicating itself in a cover-up. The most benign explanation at this point is that Trump’s administration is simply too dedicated to preserving the alliance to allow its valued partner to suffer the public-relations debacle of blame for the murder; the worst-case scenario is that Trump is accepting bribes from the Saudis. Congress refuses to examine either possibility. Only a wave large enough to flip at least one chamber of Congress will create some mechanism of accountability and oversight to ensure American foreign policy is not being grotesquely corrupted.

“I can only surmise that probably the intel is not painting a pretty picture as it relates to Saudi Arabia,” Corker tells the Post. “Only?”
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/ ... ratic.html

Mike Pompeo's response to the Jamal Khashoggi case sums up Donald Trump's entire approach to foreign policy

7 hours ago
An American Secretary of State tells the world that he doesn’t want to talk about facts

Has it come to this, then?

An American Secretary of State tells the world that he doesn’t want to talk about facts. Instead, as Mike Pompeo informed reporters, when they asked him if the Saudis had confirmed whether Jamal Khashoggi was dead or alive, Pompeo replied: “I don’t want to talk about any of the facts. They didn’t want to either, in that they want to have the opportunity to complete this investigation in a thorough way.”

Doesn’t inspire much hope does it? Sooner or later some Saudi goon or other is going to have to carry the can for “overdoing” it in an “interrogation” of this journalist. We already know this because Donald Trump has told us he reckons it was a “rogue” killing. Well, it depends on what you mean by “rogue”, I suppose. Most of us would reach for stronger language to describe torture followed by murder.

As with much else in America’s foreign policy, and indeed the whole of president Trump’s political style, we pass through the veil of reality and into a strange looking-glass world where facts are not what we think them to be. What was it that Humpty Dumpty tells Alice in Wonderland? Here is the prototype Trump, as created by Lewis Carroll in 1872: “'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master – that's all.'”

Indeed so. So when he wants to believe – and he wants the rest of us to believe – that Barack Obama wasn’t an American born on American soil he expends ridiculous amounts of money and energy attempting to prove that “fact”. When he says he enjoyed the biggest inauguration crowds ever, he expects us to believe that, “period”, to use the word of his hapless former press secretary, Sean Spicer (remember him? – a miniature Humpty Dumpty himself who eventually fell off his White House dais). When Trump tells us that the stock market boom is all down to him – but when it dips it has nothing to do with his policies? When the Mexicans are all criminals, and the Chinese all crooks, and the rest of the trading world just one gigantic conspiracy to dupe and defraud the American people? When Kim Jong-un is almost simultaneously a crazy little rocket man but also a strong leader to be respected and dealt with as an equal? (Which in one sense, if you think about it, he is).

When the giant Mexican wall is not only practical but cannot ever simply be tunnelled under or gone around? When the president scrawls on a draft of a foreign policy speech “TRADE IS BAD”? When every challenge facing America has the simplest of answers?

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America has got itself a Humpty Dumpty president, sat up there on his great big “beautiful” wall, chopping logic, twisting facts and butchering words on whim after whim – and all with that stupid Humpty-style broad, smug grin slapped across his face.

Imagine having a leader whose entire approach to foreign (and domestic) policy operates on the basis of smoke and looking glasses; on fake news rather than on facts; on sending the media down rabbit holes; stories rather than policies; on slogans not reality. Trump is a disappointment to those of us who just expected him to be a cynical, lying monster: He is not that smart, and a little cracked too. Richard Nixon, as someone said on social media the other day, must be spinning in his grave.

I think you may guess what I am going to wonder next. When will this annoying, volatile, childish Humpty Dumpty have a great fall?

[liminalOyster]

Just a dumb joke SLAD. I had this image open on my computer and was boorishly riffing on Jacks comment. No harm intended. And no I'm not crazy about beheading.

[seemslikeadream]

oh trouble always follows Jack

c'est la vie

Why Does Pompeo Pretend US Intelligence Hasn’t Told Trump What Happened in Khashoggi Case?

No need to wait for the Saudis, if the CIA and NSA have the answers.

David Corn
October 18, 2018 5:44 PM

Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images

On Thursday morning, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, after meeting with President Donald Trump, said that before deciding on how to respond to the crisis, the United States will give Saudi Arabia a few more days to “conduct a complete, thorough investigation” into the disappearance—and likely murder—of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and American resident. This was consistent with the easy-on-Riyadh line that Trump and Pompeo had been taking. On Wednesday, Pompeo told reporters that he was waiting for the Saudis—who already apparently lied about the case earlier when they insisted that Khashoggi had left their consulate in Istanbul—to do their thing: “We’re going to give them the space to complete their investigations of this incident, and when they issue their reports, we’ll form our judgment.” And Trump—who initially cautioned against blaming the Saudis for Khashoggi’s disappearance—has also indicated that he is content to sit back and wait for information from the Saudis before reaching any conclusions.

All this give-the-Saudis-a-chance talk ignores a key player in the case: US intelligence. Trump and Pompeo are acting as if they have no independent information of their own. But they do: intelligence from US agencies. There is no question that the CIA and the NSA—and perhaps other intelligence services—have collected information on the Khashoggi case through all the obvious means, including liaison with Turkish intelligence, communications intercepts, and perhaps “humint”—what spies call intelligence gained from confidential sources. The New York Times has reported that US intelligence officials “say they have growing circumstantial evidence that [Saudi] Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman [who is often referred to as MBS] was involved in the disappearance of Mr. Khashoggi, who entered the consulate in Istanbul more than two weeks ago to obtain a document for his coming wedding and did not emerge.”

In such a high-profile international episode, US intelligence would be flooding the president with whatever information it can gather. Former intelligence and national security officials note that Trump need not wait for details from the Saudis to make a determination of what happened—and what to do. “I think we all have more or less a clear view of what happened, based on what the Turks have leaked and what the press has been able to confirm regarding the identities and roles of the Saudi operatives involved, and bearing in mind other evidence of how the Saudi regime under MBS has handled dissident voices,” Paul Pillar, a longtime CIA official who was once the national intelligence officer for the Near East and Southeast Asia, tells Mother Jones.

Pillar explains that US intelligence officials, using pubic information and secret material, would be presenting Trump with their best takes on what occurred. “Analysts inside the US intelligence community, even just based on this [public] information, probably would be able to make an assessment with fairly high confidence that Khashoggi was killed in an operation authorized at the highest levels of the Saudi regime,” Pillar says. Yet, he adds, “Such an assessment might still leave a bit of wiggle room, allowing for a lesser probability of some other scenario—and the White House might seize on any such wiggle room in justifying the inaction that they so patently prefer.”

“Such an assessment might still leave a bit of wiggle room, allowing for a lesser probability of some other scenario—and the White House might seize on any such wiggle room in justifying the inaction that they so patently prefer.”
Antony Blinken, a former deputy secretary state in the Obama administration, also says that at this stage the intelligence community would probably have a good line on what happened to Khashoggi and the Saudi role: “Pretty strong likelihood yes—not a certainty but high probability.”

John McLaughlin, a former acting CIA director in the George W. Bush years, notes that the intelligence community would certainly be scooping up whatever it can find. “I’m sure Trump has everything the IC knows and thinks,” he adds. McLaughlin points out that the combination of publicly reported information and gathered intelligence probably has yielded a “circumstantial” case of high-level Saudi involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance “but strongly so.” After receiving preliminary intelligence like this, other presidents”would have not tipped so early toward defending the Saudis,” he says, “and would have remained more circumspect publicly than Trump while putting huge pressure on them privately.”

By this point in a foreign policy crisis, the intelligence community, Pillar says, will generally provide the president with likely scenarios—say, the likelihood that this was an operation officially sanctioned by the Saudi government, the probability that bin Salman was directly involved, the possibility that he only learned of this after the fact, and so on. And it would continue to update its assessment, as new intelligence and public reports emerge. “Whatever information not in the public domain that the US intelligence community has obtained either through liaison with Turkey or through their own unilateral sources could strengthen the confidence of any assessment the community makes,” Pillar explains.

For the past few days, Trump and Pompeo have acted as if they are mere bystanders dependent on the Saudis and the Turks to conduct their respective investigations and report in. But that is more of a cover story. Public reports already indicate that Khashoggi was murdered and his body dismembered, with the involvement of Saudi officials closely tied to MSB. US intelligence services certainly can match (and evaluate) this reporting and go much further.

Trump and Pompeo are operating as if they are in an intelligence-free zone. Pompeo, who on Tuesday convivially met with bin Salman, has called for patience, highlighting the need to be “mindful” of Washington’s “long strategic relationship with Saudi Arabia.” And Trump, who has had business relations with the Saudis, has tweeted approvingly that Pompeo “is waiting for the results of the investigations being done by the Saudis and Turkey.” Yet scores, if not hundreds, of people within the US intelligence community are working feverishly to inform Trump and Pompeo of what transpired in the Saudi consulate—and what went on before and after.

The notion that Trump needs to wait on the Saudis comes across as an effort to buy MSB time to figure out how to handle this horrific mess. But as Trump has demonstrated before, when it comes to awful misdeeds committed by authoritarians he fancies, he can be more inclined to believe the perp than the public servants who work for him.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... oggi-case/

[Elvis]

oh so we're not allowed to post about peacocks

i did not know that....

i suppose you like to cut heads off peacocks

why do you hate birds?


Just stop it.

[seemslikeadream]

[Elvis]

Grow up.

[seemslikeadream]

you said this to me and you tell me to grow up?

oh so we're not allowed to post about peacocks

i did not know that....

i suppose you like to cut heads off peacocks

why do you hate birds?


Just stop it.

jack says this to me and you tell me to grow up?

SLAD, I've decided, because I can, that your posts may suggest you support babies and little bunny rabbits being thrown into giant boiling pots of oil for the sport of listening to their yelps as they hit. Why do you support that? You are not going to seriously deny that, are you? Present a complete argument for why you do not support the murder of babies and little bunny rabbits in exactly the fashion described so that we can debate it for a few pages. As you have shown, we are totally entitled to misrepresent you in any random fashion we please.

If he can write that I can respond in anyway I feel like .....it's not like I used any banned swear words
Jack got the reply his personal assessment of me deserved.....I did not start this

Saudi former diplomat called 'pivotal' in Khashoggi's apparent assassination

A general manager of Alarab TV, Jamal Khashoggi, looks on during a press conference in the Bahraini capital Manama, on December 15, 2014. The pan-Arab satellite news broadcaster owned by billionaire Saudi businessman Alwaleed bin Talal will go on air February 1, promising to "break the mould" in a crowded field.AFP PHOTO/ MOHAMMED AL-SHAIKH (Photo credit should read MOHAMMED AL-SHAIKH/AFP/Getty Images)
Ankara (CNN)Saudi intelligence officer and former diplomat Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb played a "pivotal role" in the apparent assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a source familiar with the Turkish investigation has told CNN.

The source said that Mutreb was fully aware of "the plot" of the operation.

Mutreb, who was the first secretary at the Saudi embassy in London and has been described as a colonel in Saudi intelligence, is closely connected to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. "He was seconded to an elite protection brigade within the Royal Guard to serve as the personal security force of [the crown prince]," a Saudi source told CNN.

Mutreb appeared in photographs alongside bin Salman during the crown prince's tour of the United States earlier this year.

Several US officials have told CNN that any operation involving members of the crown prince's inner circle could not have happened without his direct knowledge.

Security camera images that purport to show the movements of Mutreb, one of 15 Saudi men believed by Turkish authorities to be connected to the disappearance and apparent death of Khashoggi, were published Thursday by a Turkish newspaper.

Turkish investigators continue to hunt for clues to what happened to Jamal Khashoggi amid growing indications that some of the men allegedly responsible for the journalist's killing have close ties to the highest levels of the Saudi government.

The four images, which pro-government paper Sabah said it obtained from Turkish security sources, purportedly show Mutreb in Istanbul on October 2.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 to obtain papers that would have allowed him to marry his Turkish fiancée. The insider-turned-critic of the Saudi government has not been seen since.

The surveillance images purportedly show:

Mutreb arriving at the Saudi consulate at 9:55 a.m. the day Khashoggi vanished. He is walking into the consulate. Others in the Saudi group that arrived that day in Istanbul appear to be behind him.
Mutreb in front of the residence of the consul general at 4:53 p.m. that day.
Mutreb, at the Movenpick hotel near the consulate, apparently checking out. He was one of several Saudis to have booked through October 5 but who checked out on October 2. There is no time stamp on this image. The suitcase next to him is circled but it's not known whether it belonged to him or another guest.
Mutreb arriving at the General Aviation Terminal of Istanbul's Ataturk airport at 5:58 p.m., shortly before the departure of a private aircraft which Turkish officials have previously said he boarded. That aircraft returned to Riyadh via Cairo after spending about one hour on the ground in Istanbul.
The images and their time stamps are consistent with what CNN has previously reported about Mutreb's movements on October 2, based on Turkish sources. The images of the person closely resemble others CNN has obtained of Mutreb.

This image purports to show Mutreb checking out of a hotel near the consulate.


Passport scans


Turkish officials also provided CNN with passport scans of seven other men they suspect to have been part of the 15-member Saudi team. The passport scans were taken on the day of Khashoggi's disappearance.

One of the passport scans appears to belong to Salah Muhammad al-Tubaiqi (spelled Salah Mohammed A Tubaigy in the document), listed as the head of forensic medicine at the Saudi Ministry of Interior.

In a 2014 interview with Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based Saudi newspaper, Tubaiqi lauded a mobile clinic designed to carry out autopsies in a record seven minutes as the first of its kind in the world. Tubaiqi, who was working as the forensic consultant and supervisor of the clinic at the time, told the newspaper it was his idea to design the clinic to allow coroners to perform forensic examinations and dissect bodies at crime and accident scenes.

Turkish officials provided CNN with this passport scan of Salah Muhammad al-Tubaiqi (spelled Salah Mohammed A Tubaigy in the document).

Tubaiqi spent three months studying at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine (VIFM) in Australia starting in June 2015, a spokeswoman for the institute, Deb Withers, told CNN on Thursday.

Tubaiqi was there as a forensic pathologist and his study was paid for by the government of Saudi Arabia, Withers said. He was the head of Saudi Arabia's Forensic Commission at the time of his visit to Australia, VIFM's annual report from 2014-2015 notes.

Withers told CNN that Tubaiqi's focus while at the institute was on methods in mass body identification, particularly related to the Hajj, according to his application for the placement at the VIFM.

Withers said Tubaiqi spent time viewing autopsies, viewing procedures in the mortuary and learning from radiologists concerning CT scans. He was not permitted to perform autopsies or any other procedures.

Turkish officials provided CNN with this passport scan of Muhammad Saad al-Zahrani. They used the spelling Mohammed Saad Alzahrani.


Another member of the group identified by Turkish official media and appearing in the passport scans is Muhammad Saad al-Zahrani, who has appeared on Saudi state TV alongside bin Salman. His name is spelled Mohammed Saad Alzahrani in the scanned document.

Turkish investigators wearing hazmat suits searched the Saudi consul general's residence in Istanbul on Wednesday, two days after the Saudi consulate in the city was searched.

The search at the residence, which also involved dogs, went into the early morning hours Thursday. There was no word on whether anything was discovered.

Turkish officials have told CNN that Khashoggi's body was dismembered after he was killed in the consulate. Riyadh has denied any knowledge of his whereabouts.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/18/middleea ... index.html