I’m curious if Jamal Khashoggi is related to Adnan Khashoggi - the big 80’s Saudi arms dealer and Iran-Contra conspirator? Would this relationship have anything to do with his disappearance?
(Fun fact: Adnan once sold his superyacht The Nabila which was featured in the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again to…Donald Trump!)
Can’t find any solid references online.
I saw the lear jet that held SA staff and others take off that day from DCA. So, yeah, fuck them.
This doesn’t seem terribly bright on SA’s part. If it was meant as a warning to sympathizers, I could see it easily backfiring. Isn’t this (sort of) what led to the Arab Spring? It may have been more along the lines of what @anon62577920 suggested – not necessarily that he fought back, but they didn’t plan for it (whatever they were trying to do) to finish this way.
On the other hand, Putin seems to have this sort of thing done with impunity, so maybe he’s emboldened them…
I wonder how this could be related to Elon’s financial backing.
I think the very broadbased rebellion against the Shah in the late 70s would say otherwise.
That’s because they’re not as smart about these things as the Russians. For example, if this story had been about Russia kidnapping and killing a dissident in this manner the topic here would have seen at least one or two paid trollies showing up within 12 hours to muddy the waters.
The KSA doesn’t have their own sophisticated disinformation support structure in place, and are probably too arrogant and myopic to think one is necessary. They’re probably under the impression that they can make this bad PR go away by paying off the right U.S. and Turkish officials.
And THAT is the sound of cheque books opening.
The House of Saud’s solution to any problem. They’re like the parents of the affluenza kid: ignorant rednecks who gained the superpower of wealth through sheer luck.
Any/Every. Same difference.
Start here:
And look what they got.
I’ll agree in the sense that the Shah’s regime set a high bar for awfulness (one word: SAVAK), one that the House of Saud none-the-less managed to vault with ease (and a boost from the U.S.).
For a start, perhaps a country that got its start in a rebellion against an abusive and greedy monarchy a couple of hundred years ago might want to stop backing them today.
That was more a comment on their desperation and lack of alternatives to the Shah than it was a reason to praise his terror regime. This was a decade after the US and UK had made it clear to Iranians (as they continue to do to the Saudis) that liberal democracy was not something they’d risk having in a petro-state:
I’m not going to defend the SAVAK and torture of prisoners, but I will point out a couple of things:
“Whereas less than 100 political prisoners had been executed between 1971 and 1979, more than 7900 were executed between 1981 and 1985. … the prison system was centralized and drastically expanded … Prison life was drastically worse under the Islamic Republic than under the Pahlavis. One who survived both writes that four months under warden Asadollah Lajevardi took the toll of four years under SAVAK.[6] In the prison literature of the Pahlavi era, the recurring words had been “boredom” and “monotony.” In that of the Islamic Republic, they were “fear,” “death,” “terror,” “horror,” and most frequent of all “nightmare” ( kabos ).” [7] [ from Human rights in the Imperial State of Iran - Wikipedia ]
And in terms of a terror regime - in 1979 the incarceration rate in Pahlavi Iran was “48 prisoners for every 100,000 people” (Iran Human Rights Documentation Center - Rights Disregarded: Prisons in the Islamic Republic of Iran). Compare that to a certain ‘civilised democracy’ which has an incarceration rate over 1000 prisoners for every 100,000 people, that is the US, which now bans books entirely in certain state prisons.
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You still won’t find many saying that, in any country, having an absolute monarch in power is markedly better than having a bunch of religious fundie priests in charge. Of course KSA is particularly bad because it effectively has both in power.
I’ll take an absolute monarch over religious fundies any day. You always have a chance of an enlightened ruler in the case of absolute monarchs (which are rarely absolute in a strict sense anyway), but religious fundies in power guarantee misery.
The House of Saud should never have gained power. If western powers had supported the Hashemites, I’m convinced the world would be a better place today.
Yes it is.
“Saudi Arabia’s muscle will be on display next week, when American technology and financial titans gather at the investor conference in Riyadh that the crown prince will attend. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will represent the Trump administration at the meeting, which participants have called “Davos in the Desert” and is held at the same Ritz-Carlton hotel where Prince Mohammed jailed dozens of wealthy Saudis in what he said was an anticorruption campaign.”
“Among the prominent figures scheduled to take part are Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase; Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of the Blackstone Group; and Dara Khosrowshahi, the chief executive of Uber.”
“Two other scheduled attendees have ties to Mr. Trump: Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a financier who is a friend of the president’s; and Dina H. Powell, a Goldman Sachs executive and former deputy national security adviser who worked closely with Mr. Kushner on Saudi Arabia and is a leading candidate to replace Nikki R. Haley as ambassador to the United Nations.”
“The Treasury Department said Mr. Mnuchin was still planning to attend.” -NYTimes
Marketing a new line of wallpaper no doubt.
I’ll forgo making that choice and choose liberal democracy, as the Iranians tried to do in the 1960s before the U.S. and UK decided that an authoritarian aristocrat with a brutal secret police force would work better for them.
I won’t, since what are described as liberal democracies are in fact capitalist oligarchies, ever since Cromwell made the world safe for capitalism. They only seem ‘freer’ and ‘nicer’ to those who sit in positions of privilege.
I think this is by far the most fascinating news story currently, and the only one that is certain to be made into a movie some day. Also seems like the weird kind of event that could start a war. Hopefully not one of Franz Ferdinand proportions.
You prefer an anarcho-syndicalist commune?
