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C.I.A. Concludes That Saudi Crown Prince Ordered Khashoggi Killed
- godelmachine 8y ago>>Officials cautioned, however, that the American and Turkish intelligence agencies still do not have direct evidence linking Prince Mohammed to the assassination.
- na85 8y agoThat just means they don't have evidence they're willing to disclose, because the disclosure is outweighed by the potential harm to the national interest.
- salimmadjd 8y agoyou forgot to include the prior sentence: The evidence included an intercept showing a member of the kill team calling an aide to Prince Mohammed and saying “tell your boss” that the mission was accomplished.
- godelmachine 8y agoI don't think that's a direct evidence.
- anon007 8y agoDo you all think Silicon Valley should make a public statement and distance themselves from MBS? After all the photo-ops among executives at Apples, Google and FB it looks embarrassing to have a photo with a possible murderer out there. Or from the PR perspective, it's best to keep quiet and not remind the public at all and hope no one would bring it up?
- craftyguy 8y ago> Do you all think Silicon Valley should make a public statement and distance themselves from MBS? Silicon Valley should have made a public statement a long time ago about what MBS is doing to Yemen. It's quite ridiculous that being directly responsible for the deaths of thousands is A-OK, but ohhh kill one journalist and the western world loses their shit.
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoAnd a famine affecting millions.
- austincheney 8y agoI am not excusing any belligerents in the Yemen conflict, however the cause of that conflict is a coup that resulted in a failed extremist state. Conditions for the people of Yemen would be dire no matter which way that military intervention went. This is, unfortunately, the reason why that conflict isn't getting more attention.
- anoncoward111 8y agoSpare me. Countries can figure their shit out pretty quickly when they aren't being attacked by rich foreign neighbors.
- mayukh 8y agoWhat?? Africa, Latin America, whole swathes of planet earth, time and over again that disagree vehemently with that. Who needs enemies (or hostile neighbors) when corrupt and greedy denizens breed within.
- Sag0Sag0 8y agoWhat are you talking about? Latin America and Africa have had non stop foreign intervention since the 16th century. Rich angry neighbours / foreign interventions have always created huge amounts of corruption and instability and are the root cause of many of these countries problems. You also seem to be implying that African and Latin American people are just naturally more corrupt than the inhabitants of other nations which is a kinda bizarre theory.
- azernik 8y agoThe rules are always different for government leaders and officials.
- Edmond 8y agoOnly a servile culture would have led to all those SV head honchos prostrating themselves as they did for the prince...I took one look at the photos and wondered how is it that none of their handlers advised them against it...Wannabe reformed dictators using eager and naive westerners to burnish their reputation is an old and well known tactic.
- notyourday 8y ago> Do you all think Silicon Valley should make a public statement and distance themselves from MBS? You so funny. Did you see WeWork just raising money from Softbank a week or two ago? When SV's virtue signaling meets demands in rent, SV virtue becomes dropping on its knees in front of anyone who would give it money.
- mayukh 8y agoAwww. Do you mean publicly distance themselves? Of course they have ! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME) Privately ($ with a B in the front of it), let's be real, would you ?
- jhallenworld 8y agoI'm wondering if this is to head off Trump allowing Fethullah Gulen from being extradited.. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/if-trump-sacrifices-fethullah-gulen-protect-saudi-arabia-he-will-ncna937281 https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/if-trump-sacrifices-fe... Erdoğan wants him, but in return for what? Maybe preventing the audio of the killing ending up on YouTube (or otherwise made public). If the CIA is saying MBS ordered the killing, the effect is maybe the same. Also: why does the CIA care what happens to Gulen?
- tehwebguy 8y agoWait so we might keep Gulen, infuriate Erdoğan and get the audio publicly released? Talk about win-win-win!
- thaumasiotes 8y agoHow is keeping Gulen a win?
- ben_jones 8y agoAs if Google wouldn't take down the video immediately
- onetimemanytime 8y agoDoesn't Gulen have a right to challenge this in US Courts? Any lawyers here...does he have a chance in courts? The process in Turkey surely seems political.
- mengibar10 8y agoAccording to mutual agreement between Turkey and US, US is actually obliged to return him Turkey. As far as I understand from what I read Erdogan does not want him back to Turkey but extradited to a 3rd country, not sure why. Probably he won't be able to run his network as efficiently as he can from say South Africa.
- 8y ago
- JohnBooty 8y agoInteresting, very interesting. Which "American officials" leaked this to the NYT, and why? > The Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to American officials 1. Leaked late on a Friday. The traditional time to release news that you hope gets forgotten ASAP. So the "sources" wanted this story out there, but not too out there? Maybe this isn't significant; maybe the leakers wanted the news out there sooner but the NYT didn't run the story right away. 2. Leaked to a liberal-leaning news source as opposed to one more friendly to conservatives. Don't know what to make of that decision either but it was a conscious one. 3. What were they hoping to accomplish by making it public? Most obvious explanation: they leaked this because they didn't trust the White House to tell the public about this; they feared the White House would simply bury this finding in order to maintain their relationship with Saudi Arabia. Alternate explanation: The White House leaked it themselves. Gives them an "excuse" to punish Saudi Arabia while claiming they had no choice in the matter since the "CIA leak" tied their hands. In other words, they are attempting to eat their cake and have it too... punishing the Saudis and trying to maintain a good relationship with them. (folks, why the downvotes? If you don't want politics on HN, fine, but I didn't post the story. I just replied to it... and I hardly feel my post here is partisan or negative in any way...)
- Consultant32452 8y ago>Most obvious explanation: they leaked this because they didn't trust the White House to tell the public about this; surely they feared the White House would simply bury this finding in order to maintain their relationship with Saudi Arabia. Prediction: The White House is going to maintain its relationship with Saudi Arabia anyways. All this might do is force the administration to make some sort of symbolic gesture of finger wagging at them.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- acct1771 8y agoControlled disclosure. Keep the focal point of news off the Saudi-Israel paradigm.
- bvxvbxbxb 8y agoMy mechanic from Dubai concluded this 5 weeks ago.. nothing in Saudi Arabia moves without MBS ordering it. Most likely, MBS watched the killing, and possibly dismemberment, live via encrypted video link.
- mengibar10 8y agoEverybody is dragging their feet not to blame MBS. Why? it's just because murderer is a filthy rich guy. You do not need be from Dubai to arrive the same conclusion.
- boomboomsubban 8y agoIf it went down anything like how the Saudi aid reported, practically everything was done over Skype. As we know that the intelligence community has been granted unfettered access to Skype, this entire investigation seems like a show crafted to sway public opinion, making me doubtful anything will change. Still, always interesting to see how much more important one US resident is versus thousands of Yemeni civilians.
- tyingq 8y agoI agree, but the US isn't in a great position to decry civilians being killed by bombings in a proxy war.
- boomboomsubban 8y agoYes we are, they are American bombs that can only be dropped with help from the American armed forces. The blood is on our hands.
- saosebastiao 8y agoIt could have easily turned out differently. Our president was thinking about handing over a US resident to Erdogan so he can be killed, just so he could get Erdogan to lay off of Bin Salman for killing another US resident. And let's not forget how we experienced a coordinated terrorist attack by 15 Saudis that killed thousands of Americans and we decided to go to war with Iraq and Afganistan to get them back. Our diplomatic/business relationship with SA has always been more important than American lives. The only thing that made this different is that this time there were some people in power who decided to make it a big deal.
- simonh 8y agoThis is just so lazy. Yes many of the 9/11 guys were Saudi citizens, but you can’t draw straight lines between that and the Saudi government. Toppling the house of Saud is an explicit goal of Al Qaeda. It’s like suggesting Snowden is clearly acting on behalf of the US government because, duh, he’s a US citizen. As for people in power making the Khashoggi case a big deal, that would be the Turkish government. They have many reasons for disliking the Saudi leadership, so many I won’t even try.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- branchless 8y agoShould have done the armco ipo.
- nradov 8y agoTurkey has been playing a masterful game of "trickle truth" perfectly timed with the media cycle to undermine the Saudi regime. I'm surprised at how well they're managing international propaganda considering that many of their previous efforts on other issues were clumsy and ineffectual.
- gaius 8y agoIn the UK we have a phrase for government departments who issue statements like this: “Ministry of the Bleedin’ Obvious”
- Tsubasachan 8y agoTrump must be seething with envy, he'd have the entire CNN staff assassinated like that.
- _cs2017_ 8y agoCIA has a long history of misleading the public, and even the Congress. Examples: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-morell-apologizes-colin-powell-about-cia-pre-iraq-war-wmd-evidence/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michael-morell-apologizes-colin... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_co... https://www.cnn.com/2013/08/19/politics/cia-iran-1953-coup/ https://www.cnn.com/2013/08/19/politics/cia-iran-1953-coup/ Why do people still take their statements, and even their leaks, as truth?
- yayana 8y agoCIA statements against CIA sponsored despots are significant as they prefer to lie to their advantage. (If the CIA's behavior with Saddam and Osama are precedent, we might want to mentally prepare to hear the stupidest war rally speach of all time.)
- nickthemagicman 8y agoYeah but doesn't take a billion-dollar intelligence program to look at the evidence and determine what happened to Kashoggi. The CIA in this case is merely reflecting the sentiments of countless govts, news agencies, and individuals.
- jillesvangurp 8y agoThe noteworthy thing here is not that the Saudi's are doing stuff like this but that the CIA is calling them out on it instead of helping their former ally to bury the bodies and get away with it. It's a big change. The Saudi's have been instrumental for decades in the foreign policy of the US in the middle east. And that's despite al queeda, IS, etc being founded by Saudi's and openly funded by them. For decades it was very convenient for the US to provide active military support to the Saudi's in various ugly wars by proxy in the region and look the other way when it came to such things like genocide, occasional bombing of schools, hospitals, etc., Muslim extremists, and public beheadings. However, recent focus on energy independence and a string of embarrassing incidents around e.g. Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc. seems to be souring the relationship. Times are changing.
- PeterMikhailov 8y agoMy new YC application is for an app that detects when dang goes home for the weekend by detecting when cranks start commenting on threads for links to non tech news.
- AKifer 8y agoGiven the link between the US and the KSA, from a pure analyst view, if the CIA is giving away conclusion like that publicly, it's highly probable that something is brewing and under preparation somewhere.