President Donald Trump signaled Tuesday that he will not take strong action against Saudi Arabia or its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the death and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In an exclamation-mark laden statement subtitled “America First!” Trump said that “our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event — maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!”
Trump Signals U.S. Won’t Take Punitive Measures Against Saudi Crown Prince Over Journalist’s Killing
Pretty much since day 1 the priority of Trump’s administration has been to help Saudi Arabia get away with murdering this journalist. I wonder what he’ll do next time Putin kills somebody.
Remember Trump campaigning on forcing Saudi Arabia to go to trial for 9/11? Yeah, if you believed that, I bet you still believe Mexico’s going to pay for a wall.
JOURNALIST or FOREIGN AGENT? Why did WaPo have a foreign agent writing for them?
Jamal Khashoggi: Journalist Or Agent Of Influence?
Khashoggi worked for the Qatari government shaping the columns he submitted to The Washington Post always pushing a harder line against the Saudi government.
The Qatar Foundation was paying Khashoggi to produce content critical of Saudi Arabia’s government. In a
piece written for The Federalist, Jim Hanson, president of the SSG, states that sources have informed the group that “documents showing wire transfers from Qatar” were discovered in Khashoggi’s apartment in Turkey. These sources claim the Turkish authorities quickly hid the documents to conceal the alleged collusion between the journalist, Turkey, and Qatar. It’s worth pointing out that nearly all of the details relating to Khashoggi’s death were provided by Turkey’s government, which is no friend to Saudi Arabia.
And, of course, Khashoggi violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act by creating propaganda for Qatar’s government without filing the appropriate paperwork with the United States. And of course WaPo never informed their readers that they had a foreign propagandist writing for them.
Qatar was using Khashoggi – and possibly others – to launch an information warfare campaign against Saudi Arabia. After the journalist’s death was confirmed there was a concerted effort to use Khashoggi’s murder to drive a wedge between Washington and Riyadh.
Qatar is in the midst of a diplomatic conflict with Saudi Arabia and it is a strong ally of Turkey and has been strengthening its ties with Russia and Iran, two countries that are often at odds with the interests of the United States and Saudi Arabia. Qatar’s government sought to undermine diplomatic ties between Trump and the up-and-coming Saudi leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who many blamed for Khashoggi’s killing.
Many read Khashoggi’s pieces in
The Washington Post that they presented as a simple activist fighting against the tyranny of the Saudi Arabian government. Actually Khashoggi was an unregistered agent of a foreign government, fighting an information war on behalf of Qatar. He was also formerly associated with the
Muslim Brotherhood, an organization which has spawned multiple radical Islamic terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda.
The notion that actors working on behalf of hostile governments could use major U.S. news outlets to disseminate propaganda is disturbing.
Americans already have to sift through screeds of deceptive stories published by these outlets which seek to promote a left-wing agenda; the reality that consumers must also account for the possibility that foreign governments might manufacture U.S. news makes it even more difficult to believe the Fake News that they peddle.