Khashoggi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation that he praised in his recent columns in The Washington Post, along with the 'moderate rebels' in Syria. The Muslim Brotherhood exists to rid the Muslim world of Western influence and its adherents aspire to instil the Quran and the Sunnah as the "sole reference point for ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community and state". The only difference between Muslim Brotherhood members and radical Islamic Wahhabists is that the former is willing to accept some form of democracy in their political system.
During the late 1980s and 1990s Khashoggi was employed by the Saudi intelligence services (and allegedly US forces) in Afghanistan. It is claimed that he was an advisor to the former head of Saudi intelligence Prince Turki Al Faisal, who resigned from that position just ten days before the 9/11 attacks. Khashoggi befriended Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and Sudan and supported his jihad against the Soviets in newspaper articles he wrote at the time. He interviewed bin Laden several times and met with him in Tora Bora, and Sudan in 1995. Khashoggi was, therefore, the only non-royal Saudi who knew of the royals' intimate dealings with al-Qaeda in the lead-up to the 9/11 terror attacks. But no one should think that Khashoggi was a mere disinterested journalist. Below is a picture of him (top left with RPG on shoulder) with the Afghani Mujahedin, in a newspaper article he wrote himself.
In March 2003, Khashoggi became the editor-in-chief of the Saudi daily Al Watan. Less than two months later however, he was fired by the Saudi ministry of information because he had allowed a columnist to criticize the Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya, considered the founding father of Wahhabism. Two years later, when his former mentor Prince Turki was appointed Saudi Ambassador to the USA in 2005, Khashoggi became his media aide.
In April 2007, Khashoggi again began to work as editor-in-chief for Al Watan. But in May 2010 he allegedly resigned "to focus on his personal projects", although there was speculation that he was forced to resign due to Saudi government displeasure at articles published in the paper that were critical of the Kingdom's harsh Islamic rules.
After 2010 Khashoggi maintained ties with Saudi elites, including those in its intelligence apparatus. In 2015 he launched the satellite news channel Al-Arab, based in Bahrain outside Saudi Arabia, as the country does not allow independent news channels to operate within its borders. The news channel was backed by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, and partnered with US financial news channel Bloomberg Television. But the channel was on air for less than 11 hours before it was shut down by Bahrain. Khashoggi was also a political commentator for Saudi and international channels, including MBC of South Korea, BBC, Al Jazeera and Dubai TV.
In December 2016, a report in the Middle East Eye said Khashoggi had been banned by Saudi Arabian authorities from publishing or appearing on television "for criticising US President-elect Donald Trump."
In September 2017, Khashoggi fled Saudi Arabia after the Saudi government banned him from Twitter, where he had almost 2 million followers. He moved to the USA where he began writing for the CIA's paper of record, The Washington Post. Since then, he has written articles that harshly criticized the Saudi government and crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman, and the country's King Salman. He also opposed the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and, earlier this year, established a new political party called Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), which was viewed by Crown Prince Mohammed as a threat to his rule.
Jamal Khashoggi, a prolific writer and commentator, was working quietly with intellectuals, reformists and Islamists to launch a group called Democracy for the Arab World Now. He wanted to set up a media watch organization to keep track of press freedom.Khashoggi's moves in this direction, undoubtedly with the help of intelligence types and other 'interested parties' in the USA, was an understandable concern for MBS and co. 'Democracy-promotion' is, after all, how Westerners (specifically, the CIA) organize dissidents for overthrowing foreign regimes.
He also planned to launch an economic-focused website to translate international reports into Arabic to bring sobering realities to a population often hungry for real news, not propaganda.
Part of Khashoggi's approach was to include political Islamists in what he saw as democracy building.
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Khashoggi had incorporated his democracy advocacy group, DAWN, in January in Delaware, said Khaled Saffuri, another friend. The project was expected to reach out to journalists and lobby for change, representing both Islamists and liberals, said another friend, Azzam Tamimi, a prominent Palestinian-British activist and TV presenter.
On 2 October 2018, Khashoggi was seen entering the main door of the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul to obtain a document proving that he was divorced. This document would allow him to marry his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish citizen, who waited outside. By 4 PM, Khashoggi had not appeared despite the fact that office hours of the consulate were until 3:30 PM. His fiancée reported him missing when the consulate closed. While the Saudi government claims that he had left the consulate via a back entrance, Turkish authorities have said that CCTV cameras prove he did not.
Turkish police believe that Khashoggi was tortured and killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a 15-member team brought in from Saudi Arabia for the operation. One anonymous police source claimed that the dead body was chopped to pieces and quietly moved out of the consulate, and that all of this was "videotaped to prove the mission had been accomplished and the tape was taken out of the country".
Turkish authorities released what they claim is video of the Saudi assassination team that killed Khashoggi
The Saudi government (like most of its Western allies) has a long track record of killing (including by crucifixion) or 'disappearing' people they do not like.
Luring dissidents to meetings to "disappear" them is a common ruse used by authorities in Saudi Arabia, a prince from the Middle Eastern kingdom said, before revealing that at least five royals have vanished in the last week alone for speaking out against the disappearance of journalist Jamal al-Khashoggi.If the official Saudi government wanted to get rid of someone like Khashoggi, killing him in a Saudi embassy in Turkey would be the most high-profile, self-defeating, and therefore very worst, way to do it. Khashoggi's disappearance and likely demise is therefore, unlikely to be the work of the Saudi regime under MBS. There are many members of the 'House of Saud' who may have a grudge against MBS and who maintain close contacts with Western intelligence agencies. These same people would have easy access to the diplomatic passports used to gain entry to the embassy in Turkey, order the staff to leave, and do away with Khashoggi, leaving the blame to fall, naturally, on the official Saudi government.
In this respect, the murder of Khashoggi calls to mind the way in which high-profile Russian citizens (including journalists who were critical of the Russian government) have been killed on foreign soil, with the blame left to fall, naturally, on the Russian government, and Vladimir Putin himself (as some ignoramuses would have it). The murder of Khashoggi is more or less a carbon copy of this type of manipulative operation.
King Salman released a statement today hinting at some form of political intrigue behind the event: he emphasized the strength of Riyadh's relationship with Ankara and "stressed that no one could undermine their relationship."
But if that is the case, whoever pulled this off has done a fine job implicating MBS. Turkish journalists have posted headshots of the 15-man team alleged to have been responsible, and claim to have identified several of them:
According to this Twitter account, "Out of the 15 names @Sabah published, so far it seems there are 2 doctor officers, 2 intelligence officers, 2 pilots, and 8 of the 15 are Royal Guards, 6 of them from MBS's office and his closest circles." The Saudi media apparently insist they were all just tourists.
So either MBS is truly mad, sending members of his own coterie to carry out essentially a public assassination and receive all the bad press that obviously follows, or someone has made a strong effort in using people close to him to implicate him.
As for Trump, the grisly, high-profile murder comes at a very bad time. Trump and US Republicans are (supposedly) facing a tough midterm fight next month, one day after oil sanctions on Iran kick in on Nov. 4th. In order to avoid an oil crisis and a massive jump in oil prices, Trump needs the Saudis to gradually increase their oil output and keep gasoline prices reasonable, so as not to antagonize the U.S. motorist driving to the polls - at least that's the theory offered by Jim Krane, energy geopolitics fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute. Of course, higher oil prices don't just mean higher prices at the pump, but higher costs for US manufacturing, increased inflation and a reduction in economic growth.
Under the US Magnitsky Act, the US is supposed to impose sanctions against any country involved in extra-judicial killings (I know, 'pot-kettle-black'). In recent days, top senators on the Foreign Relations Committee have asked Trump to impose sanctions against anyone found responsible for Khashoggi's fate. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the obvious choice would be oil sanctions, to which the Saudis would not react well - they threatened to respond to sanctions with oil prices reaching "$100, or $200, or even double that figure", pricing barrels in currencies other than the US Dollar, and "over 30" other responses to be implemented "directly, without flinching an eye". Yeah, the Saudis know bluster just as well as Trump.
This could possibly scupper Trump's plan for Saudi help in successfully embargoing Iranian oil, and would put his (and Jared Kushner's) cushy relationship with MBS on ice, not to mention those $$billions in arms sales. Is this a good enough reason for Trump's 'deep state' enemies to play a role (if only through their contacts in Saudi Arabia) to organize the public murder of Khashoggi? To 'sour' the relationship between Trump and MBS and give him a major Middle Eastern problem? Is the US 'deep state' at a point where they are willing to 'regime change' their long-term and vitally important Middle East ally? If we look to the opinion of raging anti-Trumper John Brennan on the murder of Khashoggi, the answer seems to be 'yes'.
I am confident that U.S. intelligence agencies have the capability to determine, with a high degree of certainty, what happened to Khashoggi. If he is found to be dead at the hands of the Saudi government, his demise cannot go unanswered - by the Trump administration, by Congress or by the world community. Ideally, King Salman would take immediate action against those responsible, but if he doesn't have the will or the ability, the United States would have to act. That would include immediate sanctions on all Saudis involved; a freeze on U.S. military sales to Saudi Arabia; suspension of all routine intelligence cooperation with Saudi security services; and a U.S.-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the murder.But while MBS may be facing a direct challenge to his rule, he can be confident that he is not entirely bereft of friends:
Khashoggi and the Jewish questionWhatever the truth about who killed Jamal Khashoggi, his death and the context in which it happened leaves no doubt that he was missing many pieces of the puzzle and found out too late that he was just another pawn in a much larger and increasingly dirty game of global geopolitics.
Eran Lerman, the vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies and a former deputy national security council head, said: "It is certainly not in our interests to see the status of the Saudi government diminished in Washington."
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Lerman envisions a scenario where Jewish political organizations in Washington - such as the American Jewish Committee, which he once worked for as head of its Israel office - may actually go to Capitol Hill, as they have done in the past, and discreetly lobby for the Saudis, something that could paradoxically bring the two countries even closer together.
Reader Comments
The phrase Cuo Bono comes to mind, would this benefit Saudi Arabia, judging by the negative publicity in the MSM definitely not.
And with the US arms deal worth billions of dollars in the balance, who could possibly benefit from destabilizing the middle east even more.
Not suggesting that SA is innocent of such crimes, but one wonders.... What a tangled web is being woven....
It's interesting that Trump just yesterday would feed them this very same "alibi", and lo, and behold... it's the one they use! Rogue shooters, you can't wake this sh*t up!
So, since they say Khashoggi went "rogue" by wanting his freedom, and valuing his life, it was ok by Saudi standards (cause we know money buys a high standard) to envision a rogue group, unbeknownst to the prince, although acting on behalf of his wishes, killing him in a beating gone wrong, and dicing him up into manageable pieces? Nevermind that a forensics expert just happened to he along for the trip.
Nothing to see here people! Big money, investments involved here! Lets look at the big picture, and realize this ain't London, and Saudis will be Saudis!
*MSM pans to kittens frolicking
If Trump says "rogue," then rogue is code for cabal, as in deep state cabal. Since they are currently losing in the battle against him, this is exactly the kind of thing they would pull at a time like this to get back at him. Trump formed an alliance with the Saudi leadership to oust the cabal last November and destroy the financing they provided. The cabal has been on the ropes ever since. A murder to cause tension and animosity between allies is their retaliation.
It would seem that the primary goal here was not to whack Mr. K, so much as to raise a crop of unanticipated conquences and take advantage of the turbulence to increase ones' wealth/power.
Such a Hegelian analysis of this act of evil, is almost certainly the correct one. And while the MSM will assure the Proles that the authorities (and, by implication or overt statement, that they too - the MSM) are 'on the case,'
I'm fairly confident we will never, in our lifetimes, acquire enough information to point a cofident finger at someone/country/agency/group as being 'most likely' behind this; Ccrtainly not even enough to have a 'best guess' that could break past a preponderance (51%/49%) standard of proof. (I would guess that it's a 'group', though.)
One fair guess we can make: who or whatever the MSM tends to try to sell to the 'ignoramasses'* as a 'possible culprit', is almost certainly thoroughly innocent of this mess and was likewise unaware of it in advance.
It's always nice to read your stuff. I love well informed and open minded discussion from an experienced soul, whose past writings are consistent with logic and open minded enough to admit any errors they might make, rather than the presumption filled proganda of the MSM.
Great Job!
R.C.
* Term just hopped out at me. I'd bet it's beem used before somewhere.
RC
Wouldn't it be cool if the killer scum decided to throw parts from the plane and one landed on a Russian Cruiser just as that plane was en route to S.A.?
Just wishful thinking. (Pros would / have already buried his remains someone in the Saudi Desert.) This certainly WAS ,meant to scare certain souls.
R.C.
time will tell i guess
Fine article. What this incident importantly reveals to me is the power of the media, which is a truly important fact to have it displayed so powerfully.
Hospitals, school buses, wedding parties, the Saudis and their head vampire MbS have murdered tens upon tens of thousands of people in Yemen, and threaten to starve hundreds of thousands if not millions to death, and the media has totally ignored it, because of their corporate links to the Military-Industrial Complex and the oil industry. The world remains blissfully and complacently unaware and uncaring of the Yemeni genocide.
However, the Saudis made a terrible mistake when they murdered a prominent media personality. This time, they have offended the REAL power in our world, the corporate media, who are making a cause celebre of this event, and will not allow it to be forgotten. The media is stirring up the public, and consequently their governmental followers, (never "leaders"), all over the world, and it is a wonder to behold how effective the firestorm of media condemnation is in moving governments to action.
Think about it, and wonder. The media rules reality on this planet, and actually creates reality for the vast majority of its people. This demonstration of that truth is a landmark and a revelation to us all.
- LG.
"They Cut Him Up While He Was Still Alive" Grisly Details of Saudi Journalist Killing Emerge
[Link]
Just don't imagine the rest of us have any skin in your game. We want all of you gone. Period.
As soon as Saudi oil goes dry, whacko the place will be looking like Libya.
MBS did it -- Khashoggi's old man set the tone, by selling over priced shit for decades -- MBS, he's a fool. His weakness is his impulsiveness.
And the money is running out and the oil is running out, hell he put 5% of Aramoco up for sale, and the Chinese bought it up in heartbeat.
MBS holds his brothers and cousins for ransom until he gained a $ Billion US.
That dumb fuck did it and it will be his undoing.
Oops, I guess his name is 'SalmAn'. "Nevermind...." Emily Litella.
A Quiz for all. PLEASE do not look it up. Please use your memories:
What was the name of the guy in The Godfather (knife in the hand on the bar, then killed, then fish in newspaper and The actor from Barney Miller* (appropriately his character's name in that TV show was 'Fish') says, "It's an old sicilian message. It means 'X' 'sleeps with the fishes.'"
OK, WHAT WAS THE KILLED CHARACTER'S NAME (PHONICALLY?) (HINT: it was four syllables and ended with "brazzi' = " (last 2 syllables "braht zee".sleeps with the fishes?
This may relate to Berenstein Bears dimension shift questions.
Remember the name? Again, please don't look it up.
R.C
Your article was extremely informative as to the background of Khashoggi, and raised intriguing questions. In particular, this:
"In this respect, the murder of Khashoggi calls to mind the way in which high-profile Russian citizens (including journalists who were critical of the Russian government) have been killed on foreign soil, with the blame left to fall, naturally, on the Russian government, and Vladimir Putin himself (as some ignoramuses would have it). The murder of Khashoggi is more or less a carbon copy of this type of manipulative operation."
As it so happens, another article has just appeared on Russia-Insider.com discussing the ridiculousness of the entire Skripal poisoning case The article is an interview with Alexander Brass, an Israeli expert on international terrorism and the methods used for state-sponsored assassinations: [Link]
You should read that article for your own interest, but among many other things Brass says about the Skripal case are these:
"I want to explain how the special services work. If you need someone to eliminate, then this is a very serious operation, which is being prepared for a long time. A very significant material and human resource is allocated. We are talking about dozens of employees. On the territory of this state, an “advanced command post” is being created.
"In the operation, a technical support group, a logistics group, a cover group, an external surveillance group and a group of performers are involved. The performers themselves appear at the very last moment. They do not go anywhere, lighting up on cameras, do not use public transport, but move on rented cars, which they do not rent themselves. And the more, they will not stop in hotels, but will live in safe houses provided by the logistics group.
"Such groups do not come under the passport of their country, do not go to the embassy for obtaining a visa, leaving fingerprints. This is complete nonsense. Professionals do not work that way. If the GRU acted, both the killers and the other participants in the operation would come to the UK on the passports of other countries that have visa-free relations with it.
"Here, two alleged GRU officers go to the embassy, leave their fingerprints there, get a visa, stop at the hotel, pass under all the cells. This you will not find even in ladies’ detective novels.
"I can give many examples. In 1978, the well-known international terrorist Vadia Haddad, one of the founders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was killed. “Mossad” did not take responsibility for this, but sewed in a bag you can not hide. A potent biological poison was mixed with chocolate. Within three months he died of a painful and incomprehensible illness in the GDR clinic. His autopsy was conducted at the University of East Berlin. No trace of poison was found. The doctors assumed that he died of leukemia.
"If the GRU decided to eliminate Skripal, then I have a question: why was the “Novichok” used? This is not a remedy, it’s a chemical weapon of mass destruction. It’s like dropping an atomic bomb on a city to kill one criminal. When special services eliminate an object, they always try to do it so that no autopsy shows that he was poisoned.
"Take the last unsuccessful attempt of the Israelis to kill Khaled Mashaal, one of the leaders of the terrorist organization Hamas. He would have been killed if he had not been given an antidote at the last minute.
"Everything happened on September 25, 1997 on one of the streets of Amman – the capital of Jordan. Just some passer-by, who was next to Mashaal, “accidentally” stumbled and splashed the liquid from the can of Coke to his neck. The next day Mashal would have died of a heart attack, and no traces. But the performers were seized on the spot. After that, the King of Jordan Hussein demanded that Israel provide an antidote, and in return promised to release Israeli agents."
Joe, these observations tell us a few things: First, the Israelis were NOT involved, UNLESS their intent was to pin the blame on MbS, which is highly unlikely, as there has been no hint of a falling-out between him and the Israelis. Second, we must question how professional are the Saudi intelligence hit squads, assuming such exist. Could they be THAT clumsy and unprofessional? Possibly - the Saudis are used to simply kidnapping people and chopping their heads off with large swords quite publicly. So why not do so in this case? Maybe because Khashoggi was too influential for them to do that so he had to be eliminated secretly?
Now, if the intent was to embarrass MbS, why not conduct a public murder on the streets of Istanbul to implicate MbS, like the British staged the false flag Skripal case to implicate Putin and Russia? Why do this elaborate operation in secret behind the closed doors of the Saudi Consulate, and apparently try very hard to hide it?
After weighing all the pros and cons, and applying Occam's Razor, my own suspicion is this: MbS himself personally ordered this hit, without the full knowledge of the Saudi Intelligence Services, who would have ensured it was done far more professionally. The team that was gathered, including only two "intelligence professionals" among the 15 participants, was MbS' own creation, probably recruited via a combination of bribery and threats. The reason this is the most likely scenario, is because the case neither fits the profile of a professional job as described by Alexander Brass in the R-I interview, nor the profile of an attempt by someone else to embarrass MbS, which would have been done more publicly. It falls somewhere in between the two, and fits the profile of an amateur job with powerful political and financial backing. Therefore logic points to MbS, a man who has gotten away with genocide in Yemen, and gotten away with imprisoning and shaking down other members of his extended family for billions of dollars in ransom, and gotten away with intimidating the President of Lebanon to resign, and gotten away with any number of crimes under Saudi Law and International Law. Most likely, this record uf successful crimes led him to believe he could organize this latest crime and get away with it also.
Please let me know if you agree. I recommend you browse the article on Russia-Insider as well, and see if it sheds light on the case. Thanks so much.
- L.G.
R.C.
*God how I hate to clarify ANYTHING as NOT Sarcasm as I ALWAYS declare any .sarcastic retorts* etc. I.e., I write what I mean and mean what I write, unless I declare a sarcasm present notice.
Sarcasm: 'The last refuge of thedefeated wit. (S. Johnson?)'
RC
It's just an on-going power struggle. Obviously MBS has enemies; after all there was a palace coupe right? So this is unlikely to be anything but a carefully crafted retaliation upon MBS, and considering Mr. Khashoggi's past, well there's no way to know what's real and what isn't. The whole thing could easily be fake. The power backing the previous rulers have very deep pockets and would obviously stop at nothing to get back to where they were. Not that I think that's possible, but hey if you can't read the writing on the TV screen from the last failed colossal error, then I imagine they are still so delusional that they think she can maybe win another dog race.
MBS isn't where he is by accident but rather by way of support. Just as Donald Trump has support, and so too does MBS, and here I'm not talking about the support of the people, but of others. The previous ruler's of that region of the world were in power with the support of another collective of supporters whom had other desires. They are now displaced and they don't like it much. It is that simple.
I am quite convinced (see above) that this was an amateur hit, organized by MbS, who does not have an intelligence background and therefore did not know how to do it secretly in an undetectable way. And if someone else wanted to embarrass MbS, it would have been done more publicly, on the streets of Istanbul, just like the Skripal hoax was done in the UK to embarrass and "retaliate against" Russia and Putin.
The fact that "The Saudis" allegedly attempted to cover up this murder and hide it, means it was NOT an attempt to discredit MbS, but was a serious operation. And the fact that it was so clumsy means it was done by an amateur non-intelligence-professional person, but one with the money and power to put the clumsy operation together. All of this points to MbS himself as the organizer and director of the murder.
What he has done in his hubris and arrogance is to severely discredit and embarrass the Sovereign State of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is an institution which existed before MbS came on the scene, and will exist after he is gone. It seems in the past several days, that he has disappeared from the public view, which could indicate a power struggle going on in the Kingdom between himself and his allies, and the institutions of the State which he has compromised by his action.
Which faction of power will prevail remains to be seen. If MbS loses, he may be accused by his own Institutions of State and deposed, and probably sent into exile, with the Kingdom admitting its guilt, blaming it on MbS and apologizing to the world and compensating the Khashoggi family. However, mere words of apology will not make amends and balance the scales, unless MbS is punished in some way.
If MbS loses the power struggle and is deposed, this would probably mean an end to the genocide in Yemen. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is mixed up in this. If Trump sees that MbS has become a political and moral liability, and Trump will be found guilty by association, he, Trump, will abandon MbS to save his own skin regardless of the $100 billion in arms sales. In fact, Trump, if he was smart, which he is not, he would privately communicate to the rest of the power elite in KSA that if they still want to buy those weapons, they will have to dump MbS, as he will have become a political liability to Trump, and Trump will be forced against his will to cancel the arms sales, unless MbS is deposed.
What interesting times we live in.