Putting a human face on a controversy tends to cement the controversy in people's minds. Rosa Parks was not the only nor the first person to be arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat [0], but she was the one whose case was made famous. But Khashoggi was not merely just someone known who was killed, he was someone known for speaking out against the Saudi prince. People who are killed because of their (legal) work, by the powers most threatened by their work, generally get more sympathy.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks#Her_refusal_to_move
A power network in the West was pushing Muhammad bin Salman a the reformer and the good guy in an imminent attack on Iran.
Khashoggi's Apple Watch helped solve the case as he recorded his own murder. And suddenly MbS has turned out to be a "butcher" killing a journalist in a Saudi Arabian consulate. So the power network has a dilemma.
Now the irony is that Apple is one of targets for Saudi money in Silicon Valley money.
The other thing that's fascinated me for a while is the breaking point for certain regimes or systems. Regimes can survive decades of abuse, but when the breaking point arrives it's never what you think it would be. The large scale Arab Spring revolt was triggered, as best we can tell, by the public suicide of a harassed street vendor (Mohamed Bouazizi). A tragic story for certain, but a surprisingly small trigger when compared to the decades of abuse and conflict in the region.
With that framework in place, it would not surprise me one bit if something like a murdered journalist is the straw that breaks the camel's back in the relations between Saudi and the west. Set against the backdrop of 9/11, persistent human rights abuses, and staggering civilian deaths in Yemen, one journalist is a very small drop of blood in a large ocean. But that's how these things go sometimes.
The main reason this became a story is because the Saudis where caught red handed by Turkey, and that Turkey saw that they could use this to damage Saudi Arabia.
If you've been following the story, it is fairly clear that information coming out of Turkey has been timed to inflict the most damage to Saudi Arabia and disrupts its relationships with the west.
>Surely he has powerful family members who are outraged and connected.
>The only problem with this theory is that the same might have been said of Bin Talal and nobody blinked at his arrest.
The clear answer to me is that the Washington Post has more influence & power to stoke public outrage than a Saudi billionaire does. Which... really isn't very surprising.
+E.g. Russian dudes in jogging pants going to Salisbury to see the cathedral..
Khashoggi's murder had emotional force, while the war in Yemen did not, because the media was able to focus on one person's story and make us empathize. Also, as far as the US media were concerned, they were able to identify with him as a US resident and a reporter. Not surprisingly, news organizations heavily cover attacks on their brethren.
People aren't buying it and it also helps lift the curtain on politics and people get to see the dark machinery behind the clean cut curtain politics likes to have.
Politics definitely helps manipulate tons of markets but in the world we are in right now and the way I imagine most people feel about the way the governments represent them around the world people seem to be sick of not only that but the way the government's power has a stranglehold on media. People like to say people are stupid but I don't think they are stupid enough to have the wool pulled over their eyes all the time.
Killing a journalist is always a bad idea because journalists are the ones in charge of the message / media.
> In conclusion, the saying was attributed to Joseph Stalin by 1947, but the evidentiary support for the linkage was not clear to QI. Columnist Lyons stated that the words were spoken during a meeting “of the highest ranking Commissars”. Perhaps a statement was made by a witness, but QI has not located such a document at this time. The satirist Kurt Tucholsky placed a similar remark into the mouth of a French diplomat in a piece that was available in German by 1925.
1) The American media is rallying around one of its own. This means more headlines but doesn’t mean much about what action ultimately gets taken.
2) Incredible incompetence on the part of the Saudis, resulting in being caught completely red handed. They’re so unable to come up with a convincing lie about what happened that even Donald Trump can’t deny it was a state sponsored hit.
Essentially, conducting an attack/murder at a consulate is considered far out of the standard diplomatic procedure. Bin Salman (who wasn't initially aware who conducted the attack) was outraged and demanded answers (not knowing the chain of responsibility would route back)
Of course, he is related to Dodi Fayed (the dude killed with Diana), and his uncle is Adnan Khashoggi, the billionaire arms dealer. The entire family was very well connected in the West, especially the elite (British monarchy, Washington DC, etc).
But beyond that, he was also a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a diametrically opposing philosophy to Al Saud's Salafism (but still islamist and regressive, in my opinion. Bin Laden was a member, someone who Jamal was friendly with for a long time).
Perhaps the American media are more closely aligned with MB than with Al Sauds. This would explain the outrage to me. The GCC nations are extremely anti MB. However, MB has a relatively positive presence in the US. Here is an article from WaPo about when CAIR was designated as a terrorist org in UAE due to MB ties (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/11/17...).
I think the US generally turns a blind eye to both MB and Saudi atrocities. However, MB is a little better connected socially in the US (elites, civil rights orgs, etc) compared to Saudi, which is better connected on a federal level (aid, trade, investments).
I don't see how it's relevant to his murder, other than to try to smear the victim. That Princess Diana was murdered is an unsubstantiated rumor.
> But beyond that, he was also a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a diametrically opposing philosophy to Al Saud's Salafism (but still islamist and regressive, in my opinion. Bin Laden was a member).
Now I'm not sure if these are more smears or not. Is there a basis for them?
Do you know much about the Ikhwan Muslimeen? If not, then you are missing a huge part of MENA politics over the last 90 years, and the more recent Saudi vs. rest of MENA spats (ex: Qatar). Might be worth reading up on them. Start from end of Ottoman Empire and don't skip over Sayyid Qutb.
Of course there is. I have no idea why there is such a viceral reaction to a nuanced viewpoint of why a guy got dismembered. It’s not a simple “he was a cool WaPo journalist who criticized the Saudi family “
It reminds me of how so many smart people supported the Iraq war in 2003, including American media like NYT.
I implore people to not do that again.
It reminds me of how so many smart people make decisions based on an anecdotal basis, including American media like NYT. I implore people to not do that again.
side note: your background is wild. you have been around the block a time or two..I think you have some good stories to tell.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/10/19/o...
I think the US generally turns a blind eye to both MB and Saudi atrocities.
I do agree with you on this point. I think the United States's complicity in atrocities committed by the Saudi regime is abhorrent.
I am speaking as someone who lived under salafi rule and have a strong dislike of Saudi Arabia. To suggest I am using Saudi talking points is absolutely bizarre, ignorant and uneducated.
You can have your own list of equivalent or worse actions by several allies.
So what triggered the recent reaction?
The Washington Post suggests that it’s because it humanized the action. A lone journalist — a writer whom we may have read — attacked in a brutal fashion.
But what no one mentions is that his uncle was a famous billionaire and his cousin was Dodi al Fayed.
Surely he has powerful family members who are outraged and connected.
The only problem with this theory is that the same might have been said of Bin Talal and nobody blinked at his arrest.