Biden’s risky outreach to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince

BidenPresident said:
Prince Khalid bin Salman of Saudi Arabia is hardly a household name but should be notorious. As the oil-rich kingdom’s ambassador to Washington in the fall of 2018, he assured journalist and Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi he could safely collect some papers he needed at the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul, according to CIA analysis that has been reported in The Post. Khashoggi went in but never emerged; he was murdered by Saudi agents. The then-ambassador may not have known that Khashoggi would be killed. Wittingly or not, however, he subsequently falsely told various news outlets, The Post included, that the Saudi government had no idea where Khashoggi was. Khalid bin Salman denies that he told Khashoggi to go to Istanbul. His credibility in Washington badly damaged, he returned to Saudi Arabia in February 2019.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...ns-risky-outreach-saudi-arabias-crown-prince/
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Why do so many seemingly care about Khashoggi, he was hardly a saint?

The fate of Khashoggi has at least provoked global outrage, but it’s for all the wrong reasons. We are told he was a liberal, Saudi progressive voice fighting for freedom and democracy, and a martyr who paid the ultimate price for telling the truth to power. This is not just wrong, but distracts us from understanding what the incident tells us about the internal power dynamics of a kingdom going through an unprecedented period of upheaval. It is also the story of how one man got entangled in a Saudi ruling family that operates like the Mafia. Once you join, it’s for life, and if you try to leave, you become disposable.

In truth, Khashoggi never had much time for western-style pluralistic democracy. In the 1970s he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, which exists to rid the Islamic world of western influence. He was a political Islamist until the end, recently praising the Muslim Brotherhood in the Washington Post. He championed the ‘moderate’ Islamist opposition in Syria, whose crimes against humanity are a matter of record. Khashoggi frequently sugarcoated his Islamist beliefs with constant references to freedom and democracy. But he never hid that he was in favour of a Muslim Brotherhood arc throughout the Middle East. His recurring plea to bin Salman in his columns was to embrace not western-style democracy, but the rise of political Islam which the Arab Spring had inadvertently given rise to. For Khashoggi, secularism was the enemy.

He had been a journalist in the 1980s and 1990s, but then became more of a player than a spectator. Before working with a succession of Saudi princes, he edited Saudi newspapers. The exclusive remit a Saudi government--appointed newspaper editor has is to ensure nothing remotely resembling honest journalism makes it into the pages. Khashoggi put the money in the bank — making a handsome living was always his top priority. Actions, anyway, speak louder than words.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/death-of-a-dissident
 
Primavera said:
Why do so many seemingly care about Khashoggi, he was hardly a saint?


In truth, Khashoggi never had much time for western-style pluralistic democracy. In the 1970s he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, which exists to rid the Islamic world of western influence. He was a political Islamist until the end, recently praising the Muslim Brotherhood in the Washington Post. He championed the ‘moderate’ Islamist opposition in Syria, whose crimes against humanity are a matter of record. Khashoggi frequently sugarcoated his Islamist beliefs with constant references to freedom and democracy. But he never hid that he was in favour of a Muslim Brotherhood arc throughout the Middle East. His recurring plea to bin Salman in his columns was to embrace not western-style democracy, but the rise of political Islam which the Arab Spring had inadvertently given rise to. For Khashoggi, secularism was the enemy.
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yes he was a nebbish . it's crazy to make state policy dependent on him
 
dukkha said:
needless cacophony on Biden's part. he's not alone of course
That and the Iran deal undermined the special relationship, and stymied expansion of the Abraham Accords

Biden pays much too much attention to "authoritarian dictators" in terms of policy making
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watch this, and tell me again how anything Biden does concerning Saudi Arabia can even be compared to how the U.S. is expected to deal with a nation that has so much influence on the price of oil in the world. Trump, just like the Bush family, did what Republicans do when in office--take advantage of every single opportunity to enrich themselves at the expense of the country.
 
Henry said:
watch this, and tell me again how anything Biden does concerning Saudi Arabia can even be compared to how the U.S. is expected to deal with a nation that has so much influence on the price of oil in the world. Trump, just like the Bush family, did what Republicans do when in office--take advantage of every single opportunity to enrich themselves at the expense of the country.
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Well, we were competing with the Sauds in oil production while Trump was president. Now Biden can't even talk to them. He did this to us. It's all on him.

The Sauds liked Trump, they don't like Biden.

Biden is who put the US into a position to where there's going to be a shortfall of oil supply in America. He did it day 1 and there's really no reason he should have to be asking the Saudis for oil.

Yet he did that, and it will have repercussions worldwide. This summer will be like none you have ever seen.
 
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BidenPresident said:
Remember Mr. Biden’s promise, during his presidential campaign, to make Saudi Arabia “a pariah” — and not only because of the Khashoggi assassination? Saudi Arabia treats domestic dissidents harshly and continues to wage a destructive war in neighboring Yemen, though a tentative U.S.-backed cease-fire is currently in place. Mr. Biden began his term by making public U.S. intelligence confirming MBS’s role in the Khashoggi case and refusing to deal directly with the crown prince. But Mr. Biden did not impose an asset freeze and U.S. travel ban on MBS, as he could and should have done. Furious nevertheless, MBS refused subsequent outreach from the president and snubbed U.S. requests to help alleviate rising oil prices by pumping more Saudi crude.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...ns-risky-outreach-saudi-arabias-crown-prince/
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Consider this risky outreach to Saudi Arabia demonstrated by one of the lowest life forms on Earth that being tRump, his entire treasonous family and in-laws and criminal repuke associates of the gutter of sedition:

Defying Congress, Trump sets $8 billion-plus in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, UAE

Trump, declaring a national emergency because of tensions with Iran, swept aside objections from Congress on Friday to complete the sale of over $8 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.

The Trump administration informed congressional committees that it will go ahead with 22 military sales to the Saudis, United Arab Emirates and Jordan, infuriating lawmakers by circumventing a long-standing precedent for congressional review of major weapons sales.

Members of Congress had been blocking sales of offensive military equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for months, angry about the huge civilian toll from their air campaign in Yemen, as well as human rights abuses such as the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...apons-sales-to-saudi-arabia-uae-idUSKCN1SU25R

There’s nothing “America First” about Trump’s Saudi policy
Trump does seem to make money off it personally.

Trump must be giving thanks this morning for press coverage of his extraordinarily inappropriate statement on the murder of dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump has secretive sources of income and murky financial ties to Saudi interests, and keeps touting entirely bogus statistics about the jobs impact of arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, much of the coverage of his statement simply takes at face value his assertions that his handling of this issue is driven by American interests — rather than by his own self-interest or the interests of his donors in the defense contracting industry.

For example, take two New York Times articles this morning: First, Mark Landler described the statement as “a stark distillation of the Trump worldview: remorselessly transactional, heedless of the facts, determined to put America’s interests first, and founded on a theory of moral equivalence.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...14/trump-khashoggi-saudi-arabia-america-first
 
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