I guess it's nice that easily observable things are now actually being confirmed by the government again. This was strongly suspected at the time but never by any official sources, and it's nice to actually have it come out. This is probably generally a result of a shift in policy against viewing Saudi Arabia as a stabilizing government in the region which seems like a correct evaluation.
This is a mere eyewash to keep your votes in your pocket. If you really think Biden admin is going to have a concrete change in the middle East policy (regarding arms sale, etc.) I have a bridge to sell to you.
Um, merely declassifying this report already is a major change in US policy. Furthermore, Biden is reportedly refusing to even speak with MBS, as reported in the NY Times article about this:
"Ahead of the report’s release, Mr. Biden spoke to King Salman of Saudi Arabia. Although the official White House description of the call did not say that the two men discussed the report, other officials said the purpose of the discussion was for Mr. Biden to explain why he was releasing the findings and outline the administration’s next steps. The administration has made clear that Mr. Biden will speak only to King Salman, his counterpart as head of state, and will not speak directly to the crown prince.
Whether the new administration’s attempt to bypass the 35-year-old crown prince and deal only with his 84-year-old and often ailing father will succeed remains to be seen."
> The Biden administration has paused arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as it conducts a wider review of agreements worth billions of dollars made by the Trump administration, sources familiar with the matter told CNN Wednesday.
Simply not lying to us is a very large step in the right direction, though. You don't have to be in the tank for the Biden administration to recognize that it was VERY BAD that the previous administration engaged in (or at least acceded to) a coverup of a state-sanctioned murder.
Middle East nations have at least since the Obama era largely been left to their own devices (more than in the past), and operate happily that way. They're not looking to the US or anyone for approval.
Sadly I think you're right, there is no sign of a return to the Iran deal even, let alone an actual change of policy there. This is housekeeping at most.
I think he means what is also sad is that the powerful in SV dont care. Words matter but I doubt he meant that is sadder then the tragedy that happened in the embassy.
This can be difficult because the money is often funneled through other entities (as LPs to VC and growth funds, etc.)
I've had more than one VC tell me they couldn't guarantee that there was no Saudi money in their fund, even though they didn't have any direct KSA LPs.
I would hope we (Seam) are one of them. K, granted it's extremely hard to trace all the LPs of a fund; but at the very least we don't take calls with questionable funds/individuals. Once we've shipped our first product, I'll try to write down why, and propose a framework by which founders can better assess the money they're taking. NOT all money is green.
Isn't that a good sign? I prefer people investing in new tech than killing people just to stay in the old tech.
The more they are able to diversify their profits away from oil towards renewables (or other assets), the faster we all can transition to cleaner tech.
oh, I think it just creates a morally hazardous situation where it's harder to push back on stuff like the Khashoggi killing because we like their money.
I remember when SA and UAE wanted to build fabs in the middle east in their never ending effort to diversify away from oil. They soon realized they don’t have the workforce without importing skilled labor. SA has one of the [hardest-to-motivate workforces] in the world.
Even worse, SV is located in a country that is not better than Saudi Arabia when we talk about extra-judicial killings (just think about Obama-era drone killings)
And still has a military-run black site for illegal detainment and torture. And not only that, they refuse international law and to subject their war criminals to prosecution. Strike that, they have a law allowing themselves to invade anyone investigating their war criminals, have sanctioned such investigators, and actively pardon war criminals.
The drone killings are not good, but in no way equivalent to the ills of SA. The murder of a journalist isn't the same as the murder of a wanted violent criminal.
Trump continued (and even increased) the drone killings, but removed the reporting requirements. Calling it the "Obama-era drone killings" ignores the unprecedented amount of killings under the previous administration.
>Treasury will unveil sanctions today on General Ahmed al-Asiri, former deputy head of the Saudi intelligence services, and the Saudi Rapid Intervention Force for their involvement in the Khashoggi assassination. Crown Prince MBS will NOT be sanctioned, per officials.
>A new State Department policy named the Khashoggi Ban will also be unveiled today, which will allow State to restrict and revoke visas to any individual believed to be involved in targeting/harassing/surveilling dissidents and journalists extraterritorially.
>Then White House chose not to penalize the crown prince directly despite intel report concluding he approved the operation that led to Khashoggi's murder. One senior administration official said that to do so would put the U.S. in an extremely “hostile” position wrt KSA.
>"The aim is recalibration, not a rupture, because of the important interests that we do share" with Saudi Arabia, the senior admin official said. U.S. officials and departments will continue to deal with MBS at the appropriate levels.
>More from SAO on why MBS was not sanctioned: "The United States as a matter of practice has not generally applied sanctions on the highest leadership of countries with whom the US has diplomatic relations. Nor even generally speaking on the leaders of countries with which 1/
>the US has no relations. And having looked at this extremely closely over the last 5 weeks, there was unanimous conclusion that there were other more effective means to dealing with these issues going forward."
This is similar to how Modi was banned from entering the US for overseeing the Gujrat massacres but was suddendly a champion of human rights when he became PM. Might is always right sadly.
They should add SA to the banned countries list for ISP's, banks, hosting, etc seize all known funds in USA banks, end all sales, all business, etc... Saudia Arabia will be begging for water in ten years, with climate change impacts.
Make them the "new" Iran in terms of business dealings with America. All shares that Saudi Prince owns in America companies becomes owned by the Government and is auctioned off.
I find it deeply disturbing that this was known by the US intelligence community the entire time yet they were suppressed from sharing publicly because of certain people being compromised. Ugh.
Remember the 9/11 redacted pages about the Saudis leaving? Oil and $$$.
The US and the world must decarbonize to remove the power from these feudal, vicious "drug dealers." The US wouldn't need to protect SA if most of NATO countries' energy could be had elsewhere. It would be essential to remove nukes and military arms from SA and Iran to ensure peace in the region.
The US is already a net oil exporter, and the EU mostly gets their fossil fuels from Russia. That's why anti-interventionist voices are so frustrated these days; it's increasingly rare to see any concrete justification for why regional conflicts in the Middle East are actually relevant to the US.
This makes sense to me. The idea that "the truth sets you free" is not just false, but in some cases even "privileged". If the political situation in the ME gets worse, it isn't necessarily Americans, or at least the current generation, who will be most harmed.
I'd argue it is up to US intelligence and the current Administration to make these decisions, or at least that's how the system is designed - and I would agree that any systems needs to be selective in what information is public - radical political honesty works about as well as radical social honesty, just with even more terrible consequences.
That's not to say 'there aren't problems with this, the most pressing being how to trust the authorities involved, especially when they are essentially given the means to bury their crimes, and control the very information by which their actions may be (democratically) measured - but I guess these are the paradox of the modern, democratic mega-nation.
This was known to the world. When a foreign critic is invited to an embassy, dismembered, and his body disposed of, you can be sure that all the key people in leadership knew about it, and those in a position to stop it must have approved it. The only possible reason why someone in the Saudi government would not know about it would be if they were an outsider that was generally excluded from the flow of sensitive information. Say the minister of agriculture or something.
Much of this story was published in Proof of Conspiracy in 2019, curated from major media reporting. The media just didn't cover the release at the time.
I don't know. It's not like the US government kept this as a closely-held secret or tried to convince anyone it wasn't true; they just didn't want to officially acknowledge it for diplomatic reasons. International politics works that way sometimes, and I'm not sure it's fair to characterize that as being "compromised".
Why is this in particular deeply disturbing? Your tax dollars are responsible for thousands of murders and hundreds of thousands of negligent homicides every year. Why is it that one guy getting killed for doing something that was illegal for him to do in his country is the thing that is getting to you?
I have a friend who relocated from Saudi Arabia to America. He said MbS most likely watched the dismemberment via video link as entertainment. Nothing in the Kingdom like that happens without MbS' approval. It's unlikely that anyone went rogue because it's a very hierarchal society with strict rules.
Were there any revelations on how the Turkish intelligence managed to uncover the murder?
There were claims that they listened through his Apple Watch but this claim lacks any substance, they must have bugged the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul where the murder took place.
May I ask an honest question? I cannot understand why Jamal Khashoggi is mainly referred as a "journalist". Reading his Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal_Khashoggi), apparently he is a Saudi dissident, a critic of the Saudi government. Yes he did write lots articles for newspaper, mostly criticize the Saudi government. But does this make him a journalist?
According to the Wikipedia page, I don't think he was an independent journalist. He had connections with the Saudi government and other organizations.
Quote: "After his second resignation, Khashoggi maintained ties with Saudi Arabian elites, including those in its intelligence apparatus. In 2015, he launched the satellite news channel Al-Arab, based in Bahrain outside Saudi Arabia, which does not allow independent news channels to operate within its borders. The news channel was backed by Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and partnered with U.S. financial news channel Bloomberg Television, it was also rumored to have received financial support from the King of Bahrain, Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa.[69] "
Quote: "In December 2018, The Washington Post revealed that Khashoggi's columns "at times" were "shaped" by an organization funded by Saudi Arabia's regional nemesis, Qatar, including by proposing his topics, giving him drafts, goading him, and giving him research."
I am not saying it is wrong to be a political dissident, but those should disqualifying you from being called as a "journalist", right?
What? I don't think people write lots articles for newspaper are called journalist. "columnist" is the right term for people write lots of opinion pieces.
I upvoted you because I have wondered similar things myself. He is portrayed as a random journalist, but from what I have been able to research, is very much connected to politically powerful families in the region.
Not that it makes killing him any better, of course, but it does add another layer of depth to the story.
Watch The Dissident, they talk much about this. In short yes, but he did it out of national pride, and he was very vocal of his dismissal of the ruling class later on, leading to his murder.
Khashoggi wasn't obviously different from Anderson Cooper (scion of the Vanderbilts and CIA agent to boot) or Jenna Bush (whose father started several disastrously profitable wars). In order to call these people "journalists", the definition had to be loosened somewhat, but that happened some time ago.
He was also a terrorist: a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is classified as a terror organization by many states (including SA). So how is this different than other states killing terrorists?
Readit News
I guess the Turkish state reports were official enough.
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
"Ahead of the report’s release, Mr. Biden spoke to King Salman of Saudi Arabia. Although the official White House description of the call did not say that the two men discussed the report, other officials said the purpose of the discussion was for Mr. Biden to explain why he was releasing the findings and outline the administration’s next steps. The administration has made clear that Mr. Biden will speak only to King Salman, his counterpart as head of state, and will not speak directly to the crown prince.
Whether the new administration’s attempt to bypass the 35-year-old crown prince and deal only with his 84-year-old and often ailing father will succeed remains to be seen."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/27/politics/us-pauses-saudi-uae-...
Where is the outrage? All the social media platforms are silent.
https://vicki.substack.com/p/silicon-valley-runs-on-saudi
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Deleted Comment
I've had more than one VC tell me they couldn't guarantee that there was no Saudi money in their fund, even though they didn't have any direct KSA LPs.
The more they are able to diversify their profits away from oil towards renewables (or other assets), the faster we all can transition to cleaner tech.
Why do you believe this?
> Obama-era drone killings
The drone killings are not good, but in no way equivalent to the ills of SA. The murder of a journalist isn't the same as the murder of a wanted violent criminal.
Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/22/obama-drones-trump-kill...
>A new State Department policy named the Khashoggi Ban will also be unveiled today, which will allow State to restrict and revoke visas to any individual believed to be involved in targeting/harassing/surveilling dissidents and journalists extraterritorially.
>Then White House chose not to penalize the crown prince directly despite intel report concluding he approved the operation that led to Khashoggi's murder. One senior administration official said that to do so would put the U.S. in an extremely “hostile” position wrt KSA.
>"The aim is recalibration, not a rupture, because of the important interests that we do share" with Saudi Arabia, the senior admin official said. U.S. officials and departments will continue to deal with MBS at the appropriate levels.
>More from SAO on why MBS was not sanctioned: "The United States as a matter of practice has not generally applied sanctions on the highest leadership of countries with whom the US has diplomatic relations. Nor even generally speaking on the leaders of countries with which 1/
>the US has no relations. And having looked at this extremely closely over the last 5 weeks, there was unanimous conclusion that there were other more effective means to dealing with these issues going forward."
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/13653707662047477...
UPD
https://www.state.gov/accountability-for-the-murder-of-jamal...
Make them the "new" Iran in terms of business dealings with America. All shares that Saudi Prince owns in America companies becomes owned by the Government and is auctioned off.
The US and the world must decarbonize to remove the power from these feudal, vicious "drug dealers." The US wouldn't need to protect SA if most of NATO countries' energy could be had elsewhere. It would be essential to remove nukes and military arms from SA and Iran to ensure peace in the region.
I'd argue it is up to US intelligence and the current Administration to make these decisions, or at least that's how the system is designed - and I would agree that any systems needs to be selective in what information is public - radical political honesty works about as well as radical social honesty, just with even more terrible consequences.
That's not to say 'there aren't problems with this, the most pressing being how to trust the authorities involved, especially when they are essentially given the means to bury their crimes, and control the very information by which their actions may be (democratically) measured - but I guess these are the paradox of the modern, democratic mega-nation.
I seriously don't know why it makes the news now.
Deleted Comment
There were claims that they listened through his Apple Watch but this claim lacks any substance, they must have bugged the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul where the murder took place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_Saudi_role_in_Septembe...
According to the Wikipedia page, I don't think he was an independent journalist. He had connections with the Saudi government and other organizations.
Quote: "After his second resignation, Khashoggi maintained ties with Saudi Arabian elites, including those in its intelligence apparatus. In 2015, he launched the satellite news channel Al-Arab, based in Bahrain outside Saudi Arabia, which does not allow independent news channels to operate within its borders. The news channel was backed by Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and partnered with U.S. financial news channel Bloomberg Television, it was also rumored to have received financial support from the King of Bahrain, Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa.[69] "
Quote: "In December 2018, The Washington Post revealed that Khashoggi's columns "at times" were "shaped" by an organization funded by Saudi Arabia's regional nemesis, Qatar, including by proposing his topics, giving him drafts, goading him, and giving him research."
I am not saying it is wrong to be a political dissident, but those should disqualifying you from being called as a "journalist", right?
> But does this make him a journalist?
I think you answered that yourself. As to the perceived quality, that's a different matter and is subjective.
Not that it makes killing him any better, of course, but it does add another layer of depth to the story.
I'd be surprised if a journalist DID'T have connections to government officials. For many (depending on what you cover) that's a big part of the job.