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Given all the talk of tech companies (like Buzzfeed) taking Saudi money, and the actual public assassination of a reporter by the Saudis in the last week, I fin

Given all the talk of tech companies (like Buzzfeed) taking Saudi money, and the actual public assassination of a reporter by the Saudis in the last week, I find it really coincidental and convenient that an article is released right now talking about US assassinations in the Mid East.

pjc50 8y ago
Two sides of the same coin: these are ""private"" mercenaries fighting on behalf of the UAE in the multi-faceted war in Yemen. UAE are allied with Saudi there.
jsonne 8y ago
deleted
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Iranian propaganda would be keeping a big, bright, spotlight squarely on Khashoggi. They don't want anyone in the MidEast thinking about anything else right now. That's part of the reason it's so critical for us to get out in front of this thing. The Saudis need to understand that they have gone too far this time. (We probably should have drawn the line when they kidnapped the prime minister of another nation. We should've never let them get away with that.)
  - jsonne 8y ago
    I mean the article pretty explicitly lumps this together with the Saudis and even goes so far as to call it part of a proxy war against Iran. "The UAE and Saudi Arabia lead an alliance of nine countries in Yemen, fighting what is largely a proxy war against Iran. The US is helping the Saudi-UAE side by providing weapons, intelligence, and other support." Seems its in their interest to pile on against the Saudis with even more evidence of wrongdoing. (Not that I'm a staunch supporter of the Saudi regime by any means. Just interesting timing is all.)
bilbo0s 8y ago
The Saudis probably. A not so subtle demonstration of their ability to air our dirty laundry if we get too upset about them offing that journalist.
- lvs 8y ago
  You know, it's possible for there to be two simultaneous wrongs. We can be outraged by both of them at the same time.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    >We can be outraged by both of them at the same time... They don't care if we, the people of the US, are outraged. Their goal is to get the government of the US to back off. And they are probably trying to do that by firing this shot across the bow of the government of the US. They likely have proof that ties the government of the US to many such actions across the MidEast region.
    - yayana 8y ago
      They want the US to stop playing fast and loose and illegally on their behalf?
    - AsyncAwait 8y ago
      This story involves the UAE, who are Saudi allies, so don't think so.
      - paganel 8y ago
        I'd say they're reluctant allies. The article also mentions that the guy they were supposed to be assassinating found refuge in Saudi Arabia after the botched attempt, so clearly he was not the type of guy the Saudis wanted dead. > The reason, a spokesperson for Al-Islah said in a phone interview, is that Mayo is alive — he had left the building 10 minutes before the attack and as of July was living in Saudi Arabia.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> and the actual public assassination of a reporter by the Saudis in the last week Is this another journalist in the last week, or is this a reference to Jamal Kashoggi (who was apparently killed two weeks ago today, the same day he disappeared into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, right?)
kibwen 8y ago
If you read the article, it's about UAE assassinations in the middle east, performed by a US company. This isn't a smokescreen intended to divert from or whatabout the Kashoggi story, or if it were it would be an inept one.
forapurpose 8y ago
I doubt they just started investigating this story when the journalist was assassinated. For a story like this, the investigation probably began months or years ago, as a wild guess.
jonathankoren 8y ago
Claiming that journalism is being influenced by foreign money is one hell of a charge. Do you have anything, anything at all, to support that? Perhaps I'm naïve, but I find it hard to believe that Buzfeed was sitting on a ~6500 word article, that probably took months to research, just in case the Saudi royal family got into a bit of a pickle.
yongjik 8y ago
Or maybe, now that everyone's enraged that a journalist was brutally killed, it is a good opportunity to ask the sticky question "OK, what do we do when an American does something similar?" Because now it's a bit inconvenient to claim the difficulty of realpolitik and how your sound sleep at night is sustained by hardworking ex-soldiers murdering people in Yemen's streets.

pjc50 8y ago

Two sides of the same coin: these are ""private"" mercenaries fighting on behalf of the UAE in the multi-faceted war in Yemen. UAE are allied with Saudi there.

jsonne 8y ago

deleted

bilbo0s 8y ago
Iranian propaganda would be keeping a big, bright, spotlight squarely on Khashoggi. They don't want anyone in the MidEast thinking about anything else right now. That's part of the reason it's so critical for us to get out in front of this thing. The Saudis need to understand that they have gone too far this time. (We probably should have drawn the line when they kidnapped the prime minister of another nation. We should've never let them get away with that.)
- jsonne 8y ago
  I mean the article pretty explicitly lumps this together with the Saudis and even goes so far as to call it part of a proxy war against Iran. "The UAE and Saudi Arabia lead an alliance of nine countries in Yemen, fighting what is largely a proxy war against Iran. The US is helping the Saudi-UAE side by providing weapons, intelligence, and other support." Seems its in their interest to pile on against the Saudis with even more evidence of wrongdoing. (Not that I'm a staunch supporter of the Saudi regime by any means. Just interesting timing is all.)

bilbo0s 8y ago

The Saudis probably. A not so subtle demonstration of their ability to air our dirty laundry if we get too upset about them offing that journalist.

lvs 8y ago
You know, it's possible for there to be two simultaneous wrongs. We can be outraged by both of them at the same time.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  >We can be outraged by both of them at the same time... They don't care if we, the people of the US, are outraged. Their goal is to get the government of the US to back off. And they are probably trying to do that by firing this shot across the bow of the government of the US. They likely have proof that ties the government of the US to many such actions across the MidEast region.
  - yayana 8y ago
    They want the US to stop playing fast and loose and illegally on their behalf?
  - AsyncAwait 8y ago
    This story involves the UAE, who are Saudi allies, so don't think so.
    - paganel 8y ago
      I'd say they're reluctant allies. The article also mentions that the guy they were supposed to be assassinating found refuge in Saudi Arabia after the botched attempt, so clearly he was not the type of guy the Saudis wanted dead. > The reason, a spokesperson for Al-Islah said in a phone interview, is that Mayo is alive — he had left the building 10 minutes before the attack and as of July was living in Saudi Arabia.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> and the actual public assassination of a reporter by the Saudis in the last week Is this another journalist in the last week, or is this a reference to Jamal Kashoggi (who was apparently killed two weeks ago today, the same day he disappeared into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, right?)

kibwen 8y ago

If you read the article, it's about UAE assassinations in the middle east, performed by a US company. This isn't a smokescreen intended to divert from or whatabout the Kashoggi story, or if it were it would be an inept one.

forapurpose 8y ago

I doubt they just started investigating this story when the journalist was assassinated. For a story like this, the investigation probably began months or years ago, as a wild guess.

jonathankoren 8y ago

Claiming that journalism is being influenced by foreign money is one hell of a charge. Do you have anything, anything at all, to support that? Perhaps I'm naïve, but I find it hard to believe that Buzfeed was sitting on a ~6500 word article, that probably took months to research, just in case the Saudi royal family got into a bit of a pickle.

yongjik 8y ago

Or maybe, now that everyone's enraged that a journalist was brutally killed, it is a good opportunity to ask the sticky question "OK, what do we do when an American does something similar?" Because now it's a bit inconvenient to claim the difficulty of realpolitik and how your sound sleep at night is sustained by hardworking ex-soldiers murdering people in Yemen's streets.