6 ms·

Whether this murder-scandal blows over or not, it makes the case for a random "one-damned-thing-after-another" version of history. One day, the real-politic th

by netcan 8y ago

Whether this murder-scandal blows over or not, it makes the case for a random "one-damned-thing-after-another" version of history. One day, the real-politic thing works. All money is green. A feudal monarchy makes a fine ally. The next it isn't, it doesn't. The next day, one little murder in the journalist persecution capital of the world threatens to blow up the entire alliance, military, political & economic. Saudi Arabia's had an erm.. "eventful" power transition (MBS') but it isn't fundamentally different. It's a monarchy in the real, undiluted sense. Laws and courts are mostly religious. There are no rights, on paper or in practice. No freedom of speech, affiliation, religion or concious. No pretense of these either. Religion & Monarchy share power with eachother. Neither are bound by rule of law or by the people in any way. Are these barriers to alliance, trade or investment? Whatever your answer, I don't see what Khashoggi's murder changes. Yet, this murder (or some other catalyst event, if this blows over) can change everything. It really does seem like random chance.

tompccs 8y ago
That's one way of looking at it. Another is that the West's see-no-evil hear-no-evil approach to the Saudis has always been fundamentally unstable, and an event like this was bound to happen at some point. Glad that if finally has, even if it did take the murder of a journalist (who had a dubious stance on democratic rights to begin with) to light the touchpaper.
- telchar 8y ago
  I'm not convinced that this will change anything in the near term. While the Obama administration had started (cautiously) pivoting from Saudi to Iran (see the nuclear deal, increased criticism of the Saudis, very limited engagement in Syria), the current admin threw that away and has reaffirmed their affiliation with the Saudis. So while they might make a show of being upset, after the way they snubbed Iran they have nowhere to go if they want to pivot from the Saudis to a different potential regional ally. Further, Trump is expressly in favor of violence against journalists [0] so he's not going to push for punishment for this. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/10/19/trump-encourages-violence-against-reporters-and-his-supporters-cheer https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/10/19...
  - dantheman0207 8y ago
    > So while they might make a show of being upset, after the way they snubbed Iran they have nowhere to go if they want to pivot from the Saudis to a different potential regional ally The answer to that is Turkey; it's the last remaining regional power that has a chance of being seen as the de facto leader of the muslim middle east. For anyone who has been watching closely, the hidden story here is the way Erdogan has masterfully handled both the press in order to drive public opinion. A couple weeks ago every major Turkish and U.S. newspaper ran almost the exact same story (as far as the facts) and it was straight off of Erdogan's desk. Turkey has been very effective at driving the news cycle and painting the Kingdom of S.A. into a corner. The Turks have also been trying very hard to create a close relationship with the Trump White House - the very first scandal of the administration was when it was revealed that Michael Flynn had taken >$500K from a Dutch company run by a prominent Turkish businessman with close ties to Erdogan.
- borkt 8y ago
  It's not the event that happened but rather the reaction (which I think you are implying). The saudi regime kills people regularly who in the US would not even have committed a crime, but we allow it. This murder occurred at an embassy in a very anti-journalism country and on Saudi soil technically. He wasn't even a US citizen. The only difference I can see is that the details of this one got out because they botched it. Had his wife not been waiting outside I'd venture to say we would not have heard a word about this.
- kiliantics 8y ago
  There have been more than enough events to trigger this though. I find it interesting how when people like Obama or Trudeau are cosy with the Saudis, the media is mostly silent about the injustices. It was only once the story could be used to hurt Trump around the time of an election that the liberal media latched onto it. This is not to say that Trump is unworthy of the criticism but I think many other leaders, including those who vocally champion human rights, are just as culpable when it comes to Saudi Arabia.
duxup 8y ago
I suspect most such high profile events tend to be as part of a series of events / the state of things. Let's say this truly was a one off and Saudi Arabia was a better place, I doubt we'd see the same response if this was a one off event. You should also add Turkey's response to the list of randomness. Turkey didn't have to make a big deal about it, had they not done so we would likely know very little other than that someone went missing there.
empath75 8y ago
I think it's an emperor's new clothes sort of situation. All it takes is for some event to happen so that people can't politely ignore the rot.
rdtsc 8y ago
> A feudal monarchy makes a fine ally. The next it isn't, it doesn't. The next day, one little murder in the journalist persecution capital of the world threatens to blow up the entire alliance, military, political & economic. Just like selective law enforcement is a tool used to oppress and exert power so is selective outrage used to drive public opinion. There is something odd about this case. It is a terrible crime of course and should be condemned. But it seems we went from the head of Interpol disappearing in China and everyone not caring much, to let's start a war with SA over a journalist most people haven't heard of before. Something is unusual and I feel there is more to the story and more to the motivation to push the story at this point in time.
- hobs 8y ago
  The connection is that they have grisly details to his murder, connected it to personal stories (did his wife get the recording he made with his apple watch? did who call whom before he died? Did it happen while he was still alive?) instead of generic humdrum disappearances among the elite. How a story is told matters a lot to how people react to it.
  - netcan 8y ago
    I agree. Though, how the story gets told is a sort of random chance event too. At least in terms of material there's plenty of anecdotal dirt always. A few years back there was a ton bit of scandal around executions of witches/sorcerers. Official, public executions... for magic. MBS' first big notable act was a giant rounding up of Saudi businessmen and aristocrats, threatening them and confiscating their wealth/power.
- naeem 8y ago
  Is Russian bot-net spreading and inciting outrage through millions of fake accounts in order to destabilize SA in the Middle East roaming too far into tin-foil-hat theory?
  - cryoshon 8y ago
    no, it isn't. but even if there WAS a russian botnet pushing the story, SA deserves to fall.
FussyZeus 8y ago
> It's a monarchy in the real, undiluted sense. This is the part that blows my mind, really. I didn't think there were any true Monarchies left, especially not in a country that wealthy and prominent in the world stage.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
Don't you find it interesting how politicians on both sides of the aisle are relatively reserved in seeking direct response? We've become far more dependent upon that backwards little monarchy than we should have allowed ourselves to ever become. Saudi Arabia is still king of oil. And the US dollar is indirectly backed by oil. Saudi Arabia and most other major oil producers, thanks to prescient agreements from the 70s, only settle oil contracts in the dollar. This does phenomenal things for our economy. Oil is the most in demand resource in the world, and the USD is not only a guarantee to access to oil but practically required for said access. Imagine we do some silly things like 'print' (not how money is made, but that's another topic) countless billions to trillions of dollars to pay for things we can't afford, such as pointless wars (not really pointless - Iraq/Libya/Iran all moved to of settle their oil for currencies outside the dollar, as Syria and Venezuela have now also done) or to inflate the stock market by injecting money into it resulting in inflation and calling that 'growth'. Or imagine we grew so deeply in debt that our only ever chance of possibly paying off old debt was by taking on ever more new debt in a cycle that seems to have no possible happy ending. These things might normally have an effect on an economy or currency's value or stability. But with the petrodollar if the value of the dollar goes down, this incentivizes other nations to further increase their holdings of USD to ensure a stable access to a certain amount of oil. And, like magic, the massive quantities of money start being removed from the market and tucked under the national bed's of a variety of different governments. The petro dollar means we can basically do whatever we want economically, and the rest of the world has to take it, while smiling. This is why Saudi Arabia is able to flaunt their position. Do you remember Majed Abdulaziz Al-Saud? Neighbors saw a bleeding crying woman fleeing his mansion in Beverley Hills. He'd engaged in rape, assault, various forms of drug use, and all other sorts of fun stuff. Our response? He was released on bail and then, lo and behold, simply flew back to Saudi Arabia, and then it just disappeared from the news. It's the same story here. This is really big news, and this is something that the media and politicians could completely cripple Trump with. Yet, for the first time in his two years in office, they're remaining relatively reserved. The reason is that we need to make a big deal of this, and ho and hum about what should be done. But in the end, I think the chances of us doing anything, beyond token gestures, are basically 0. If we became enemies with Saudi Arabia, it would be a a potentially fatal blow to our economy, as it would mean the immediate and utter end of the petro dollar. Granted that dollar is already dying, but it's dying a long, slow, and protracted death. This would be self decapitation by contrast. Even the good old 'regime change' or 'bringing democracy' isn't the same with Saudi Arabia as with the rest of the world. From a PR perspective Saudi Arabia has Medina and Mecca. They would be able to successfully spin the invasion as an attack on Islam. And Saudi Arabia also has extensive military forces. In spite of being a relatively small nation they are the third largest spender in the world on their military, and spend some 10% of their GDP exclusively on military - we only spend about 3% by contrast. We can't invade them and we can't really turn against them. We're the most dominant nation in the world, but Saudi Arabia is our Achilles' heel, and they know it.
pvaldes 8y ago
Khashoggi is the last of a long list of the journalists killed by hitmen in all the planet; From Russia, Peru, Cambodia, Bossnia to Mexico. Abel Bueno, Dimitry Kholodov, Kruno Marinovic, María Carlín, Chan Dara... etc, etc: https://cpj.org/data/killed/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed%5B%5D=Confirmed&type%5B%5D=Journalist&typeOfDeath%5B%5D=Murder&typeOfDeath%5B%5D=in%3Aimpunity%3AComplete%20Impunity&sourcesOfFire%5B%5D=Military%20Officials&start_year=1992&end_year=2018&group_by=year https://cpj.org/data/killed/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed%5... This outrageous case has also a big "the drop that filled the glass" component.
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  > "the drop that filled the glass" Honestly, this feels like an extremely optimistic take. Journalists are regularly killed around the world, yes. But how many people even heard about it when Daphne Galizia was murdered? It's hard for a string of atrocities to add up when most of them don't even register with people. The nastier take here is that this is some combination of a regional spat (Turkey suddenly has a stick to hit Saudi Arabia with) and nationalistic/journalistic self interest (when Russian and Maltese journalists are killed, they're honored, but when journalists with US papers are killed, it's time to do something). I'd really like to think this is the culmination of building outrage, but every time I see somebody post about the death of a journalist who was "a US resident working with a US newspaper!" I become a little more convinced that it's mostly a nationalistic sentiment that these things don't happen to us.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Justsignedup 8y ago
The straw that broke the cammel's back is always a random chance. Something has been brewing and the right combination of events caused it to explode. The saudi monarchy would have certainly not killed that one man, but instead made a smear campaign against him had they known of the blowback. The sad thing is I bet multiple people have been executed for failing to foresee this. Point is: Shit is so damn random.
ArchTypical 8y ago
> I don't see what Khashoggi's murder changes It's a definitive and publicized example of behavior that other people (eg Me) have been familiar with for decades. SA is a dangerous and chaotic absolute monarchy that is equatable to Saddam's Iraq. This changes people's minds about dealing with SA. This gives the western public an opportunity to do a casual review of current news and possibly dig into history, for further confirmation.
neffy 8y ago
Yes, it's really fascinating isn't it. For the first time in decades, the US stands up to the Saudi's. Not even 9/11 was able to make them do that. I wonder if it's anything to do with US oil production recently going higher than it was in the 1960's? https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34772 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34772 There's always a reason...
eloisant 8y ago
My understanding is that Saudi Arabia went from a dictature but where power was held together by 100 princes, taking decisions with committees, to a dictature with a single strong man (MBS). That's pretty different.

by netcan 8y ago

tompccs 8y ago

That's one way of looking at it. Another is that the West's see-no-evil hear-no-evil approach to the Saudis has always been fundamentally unstable, and an event like this was bound to happen at some point. Glad that if finally has, even if it did take the murder of a journalist (who had a dubious stance on democratic rights to begin with) to light the touchpaper.

telchar 8y ago
I'm not convinced that this will change anything in the near term. While the Obama administration had started (cautiously) pivoting from Saudi to Iran (see the nuclear deal, increased criticism of the Saudis, very limited engagement in Syria), the current admin threw that away and has reaffirmed their affiliation with the Saudis. So while they might make a show of being upset, after the way they snubbed Iran they have nowhere to go if they want to pivot from the Saudis to a different potential regional ally. Further, Trump is expressly in favor of violence against journalists [0] so he's not going to push for punishment for this. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/10/19/trump-encourages-violence-against-reporters-and-his-supporters-cheer https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/10/19...
- dantheman0207 8y ago
  > So while they might make a show of being upset, after the way they snubbed Iran they have nowhere to go if they want to pivot from the Saudis to a different potential regional ally The answer to that is Turkey; it's the last remaining regional power that has a chance of being seen as the de facto leader of the muslim middle east. For anyone who has been watching closely, the hidden story here is the way Erdogan has masterfully handled both the press in order to drive public opinion. A couple weeks ago every major Turkish and U.S. newspaper ran almost the exact same story (as far as the facts) and it was straight off of Erdogan's desk. Turkey has been very effective at driving the news cycle and painting the Kingdom of S.A. into a corner. The Turks have also been trying very hard to create a close relationship with the Trump White House - the very first scandal of the administration was when it was revealed that Michael Flynn had taken >$500K from a Dutch company run by a prominent Turkish businessman with close ties to Erdogan.
borkt 8y ago
It's not the event that happened but rather the reaction (which I think you are implying). The saudi regime kills people regularly who in the US would not even have committed a crime, but we allow it. This murder occurred at an embassy in a very anti-journalism country and on Saudi soil technically. He wasn't even a US citizen. The only difference I can see is that the details of this one got out because they botched it. Had his wife not been waiting outside I'd venture to say we would not have heard a word about this.
kiliantics 8y ago
There have been more than enough events to trigger this though. I find it interesting how when people like Obama or Trudeau are cosy with the Saudis, the media is mostly silent about the injustices. It was only once the story could be used to hurt Trump around the time of an election that the liberal media latched onto it. This is not to say that Trump is unworthy of the criticism but I think many other leaders, including those who vocally champion human rights, are just as culpable when it comes to Saudi Arabia.

duxup 8y ago

I suspect most such high profile events tend to be as part of a series of events / the state of things. Let's say this truly was a one off and Saudi Arabia was a better place, I doubt we'd see the same response if this was a one off event. You should also add Turkey's response to the list of randomness. Turkey didn't have to make a big deal about it, had they not done so we would likely know very little other than that someone went missing there.

empath75 8y ago

I think it's an emperor's new clothes sort of situation. All it takes is for some event to happen so that people can't politely ignore the rot.

rdtsc 8y ago

> A feudal monarchy makes a fine ally. The next it isn't, it doesn't. The next day, one little murder in the journalist persecution capital of the world threatens to blow up the entire alliance, military, political & economic. Just like selective law enforcement is a tool used to oppress and exert power so is selective outrage used to drive public opinion. There is something odd about this case. It is a terrible crime of course and should be condemned. But it seems we went from the head of Interpol disappearing in China and everyone not caring much, to let's start a war with SA over a journalist most people haven't heard of before. Something is unusual and I feel there is more to the story and more to the motivation to push the story at this point in time.

hobs 8y ago
The connection is that they have grisly details to his murder, connected it to personal stories (did his wife get the recording he made with his apple watch? did who call whom before he died? Did it happen while he was still alive?) instead of generic humdrum disappearances among the elite. How a story is told matters a lot to how people react to it.
- netcan 8y ago
  I agree. Though, how the story gets told is a sort of random chance event too. At least in terms of material there's plenty of anecdotal dirt always. A few years back there was a ton bit of scandal around executions of witches/sorcerers. Official, public executions... for magic. MBS' first big notable act was a giant rounding up of Saudi businessmen and aristocrats, threatening them and confiscating their wealth/power.
naeem 8y ago
Is Russian bot-net spreading and inciting outrage through millions of fake accounts in order to destabilize SA in the Middle East roaming too far into tin-foil-hat theory?
- cryoshon 8y ago
  no, it isn't. but even if there WAS a russian botnet pushing the story, SA deserves to fall.

FussyZeus 8y ago

> It's a monarchy in the real, undiluted sense. This is the part that blows my mind, really. I didn't think there were any true Monarchies left, especially not in a country that wealthy and prominent in the world stage.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago

Don't you find it interesting how politicians on both sides of the aisle are relatively reserved in seeking direct response? We've become far more dependent upon that backwards little monarchy than we should have allowed ourselves to ever become. Saudi Arabia is still king of oil. And the US dollar is indirectly backed by oil. Saudi Arabia and most other major oil producers, thanks to prescient agreements from the 70s, only settle oil contracts in the dollar. This does phenomenal things for our economy. Oil is the most in demand resource in the world, and the USD is not only a guarantee to access to oil but practically required for said access. Imagine we do some silly things like 'print' (not how money is made, but that's another topic) countless billions to trillions of dollars to pay for things we can't afford, such as pointless wars (not really pointless - Iraq/Libya/Iran all moved to of settle their oil for currencies outside the dollar, as Syria and Venezuela have now also done) or to inflate the stock market by injecting money into it resulting in inflation and calling that 'growth'. Or imagine we grew so deeply in debt that our only ever chance of possibly paying off old debt was by taking on ever more new debt in a cycle that seems to have no possible happy ending. These things might normally have an effect on an economy or currency's value or stability. But with the petrodollar if the value of the dollar goes down, this incentivizes other nations to further increase their holdings of USD to ensure a stable access to a certain amount of oil. And, like magic, the massive quantities of money start being removed from the market and tucked under the national bed's of a variety of different governments. The petro dollar means we can basically do whatever we want economically, and the rest of the world has to take it, while smiling. This is why Saudi Arabia is able to flaunt their position. Do you remember Majed Abdulaziz Al-Saud? Neighbors saw a bleeding crying woman fleeing his mansion in Beverley Hills. He'd engaged in rape, assault, various forms of drug use, and all other sorts of fun stuff. Our response? He was released on bail and then, lo and behold, simply flew back to Saudi Arabia, and then it just disappeared from the news. It's the same story here. This is really big news, and this is something that the media and politicians could completely cripple Trump with. Yet, for the first time in his two years in office, they're remaining relatively reserved. The reason is that we need to make a big deal of this, and ho and hum about what should be done. But in the end, I think the chances of us doing anything, beyond token gestures, are basically 0. If we became enemies with Saudi Arabia, it would be a a potentially fatal blow to our economy, as it would mean the immediate and utter end of the petro dollar. Granted that dollar is already dying, but it's dying a long, slow, and protracted death. This would be self decapitation by contrast. Even the good old 'regime change' or 'bringing democracy' isn't the same with Saudi Arabia as with the rest of the world. From a PR perspective Saudi Arabia has Medina and Mecca. They would be able to successfully spin the invasion as an attack on Islam. And Saudi Arabia also has extensive military forces. In spite of being a relatively small nation they are the third largest spender in the world on their military, and spend some 10% of their GDP exclusively on military - we only spend about 3% by contrast. We can't invade them and we can't really turn against them. We're the most dominant nation in the world, but Saudi Arabia is our Achilles' heel, and they know it.

pvaldes 8y ago

Khashoggi is the last of a long list of the journalists killed by hitmen in all the planet; From Russia, Peru, Cambodia, Bossnia to Mexico. Abel Bueno, Dimitry Kholodov, Kruno Marinovic, María Carlín, Chan Dara... etc, etc: https://cpj.org/data/killed/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed%5B%5D=Confirmed&type%5B%5D=Journalist&typeOfDeath%5B%5D=Murder&typeOfDeath%5B%5D=in%3Aimpunity%3AComplete%20Impunity&sourcesOfFire%5B%5D=Military%20Officials&start_year=1992&end_year=2018&group_by=year https://cpj.org/data/killed/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed%5... This outrageous case has also a big "the drop that filled the glass" component.

Bartweiss 8y ago
> "the drop that filled the glass" Honestly, this feels like an extremely optimistic take. Journalists are regularly killed around the world, yes. But how many people even heard about it when Daphne Galizia was murdered? It's hard for a string of atrocities to add up when most of them don't even register with people. The nastier take here is that this is some combination of a regional spat (Turkey suddenly has a stick to hit Saudi Arabia with) and nationalistic/journalistic self interest (when Russian and Maltese journalists are killed, they're honored, but when journalists with US papers are killed, it's time to do something). I'd really like to think this is the culmination of building outrage, but every time I see somebody post about the death of a journalist who was "a US resident working with a US newspaper!" I become a little more convinced that it's mostly a nationalistic sentiment that these things don't happen to us.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Justsignedup 8y ago

The straw that broke the cammel's back is always a random chance. Something has been brewing and the right combination of events caused it to explode. The saudi monarchy would have certainly not killed that one man, but instead made a smear campaign against him had they known of the blowback. The sad thing is I bet multiple people have been executed for failing to foresee this. Point is: Shit is so damn random.

ArchTypical 8y ago

> I don't see what Khashoggi's murder changes It's a definitive and publicized example of behavior that other people (eg Me) have been familiar with for decades. SA is a dangerous and chaotic absolute monarchy that is equatable to Saddam's Iraq. This changes people's minds about dealing with SA. This gives the western public an opportunity to do a casual review of current news and possibly dig into history, for further confirmation.

neffy 8y ago

Yes, it's really fascinating isn't it. For the first time in decades, the US stands up to the Saudi's. Not even 9/11 was able to make them do that. I wonder if it's anything to do with US oil production recently going higher than it was in the 1960's? https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34772 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34772 There's always a reason...

eloisant 8y ago

My understanding is that Saudi Arabia went from a dictature but where power was held together by 100 princes, taking decisions with committees, to a dictature with a single strong man (MBS). That's pretty different.