Tag: Jamal Khashoggi

  • 11 messages

    The WSJ has a big story on what exactly the CIA has on the murder of Khashoggi. It’s not paywalled, which I’ve noticed before the Journal sometimes does with major news about something of public importance; respect to them for that.

    Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent at least 11 messages to his closest adviser, who oversaw the team that killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in the hours before and after the journalist’s death in October, according to a highly classified CIA assessment.

    The Saudi leader also in August 2017 had told associates that if his efforts to persuade Mr. Khashoggi to return to Saudi Arabia weren’t successful, “we could possibly lure him outside Saudi Arabia and make arrangements,” according to the assessment, a communication that it states “seems to foreshadow the Saudi operation launched against Khashoggi.”

    …

    The CIA last month concluded that Prince Mohammed had likely ordered Mr. Khashoggi’s killing, and President Trump and leaders in Congress were briefed on intelligence gathered by the spy agency. Mr. Trump afterward questioned the CIA’s conclusion about the prince, saying “maybe he did; and maybe he didn’t.”

    The previously unreported excerpts reviewed by the Journal state that the CIA has “medium-to-high confidence” that Prince Mohammed “personally targeted” Khashoggi and “probably ordered his death.” It added: “To be clear, we lack direct reporting of the Crown Prince issuing a kill order.”

    The electronic messages sent by Prince Mohammed were to Saud al-Qahtani, according to the CIA. Mr. Qahtani supervised the 15-man team that killed Mr. Khashoggi and, during the same period, was also in direct communication with the team’s leader in Istanbul, the assessment says. The content of the messages between Prince Mohammed and Mr. Qahtani isn’t known, the document says. It doesn’t say in what form the messages were sent.

    Pompeo has told reporters there is no “smoking gun,” but no smoking gun ≠ maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. It doesn’t equate to a complete toss-up.

    Mr. Trump last week said the CIA only had “feelings” about Prince Mohammed’s involvement, a statement that irked current and former U.S. intelligence officials. U.S. intelligence assessments are rarely black-and-white, often relying on fragments of information gathered clandestinely.

    And that’s not the same as mere “feelings.” Those are what Trump has, and all Trump has, but people with functioning brains can do better than that.

    A U.S. official said that the U.S. government has recently developed information that under Mr. Qahtani, personnel from the Center for Studies and Media Affairs have for two years engaged in the kidnapping—sometimes overseas—and detention and harsh interrogation of Saudis whom the monarchy perceives as a threat. The interrogations have led to repeated physical harm to the detainees, the official said.

    The CIA assessment said that since 2015 Prince Salman “has ordered Qahtani and CSMARC to target his opponents domestically and abroad, sometimes violently.”

    It’s how they roll.

  • Annotated

    Aaron Blake at the Post on Trump’s disgusting “statement”:

    Perhaps anticipating a damning report, Trump released a long, exclamation-point-laden statement preemptively making the case for not punishing Mohammed or his father, King Salman, even if they were involved. It’s a remarkable statement that even includes a smear against the slain journalist, while insisting that Trump didn’t believe the smear.

    Below is the statement in full, with our annotations.

    Exclamation points don’t belong in official presidential statements. He might as well do a press conference with his underpants on his head.

    Statement from President Donald J. Trump on Standing with Saudi Arabia

    Annotation: As much as the content of the statement, the headline reveals exactly what it is: A pass. A statement “on standing with” another country is what you put when that country is unfairly maligned or experienced a crisis. It’s not what you say when you are going to hold someone accountable for wrongdoing.

    That is a pretty pregnant choice of words.

    Very. It’s most familiar to me from aggrieved dudebros on Twitter vowing to “stand with” Sam Harris or Jordan Peterson or Lawrence Krauss or [the list is long].

    America First!

    The world is a very dangerous place!

    Annotation: This is not how presidential statements usually begin – particularly on sensitive foreign policy matters involving tragedy.

    There are eight exclamation points in it, including six that Trump used on his own (separate from quoting someone else).

    And why don’t presidential statements usually begin with exclamations? Because it looks childish in an official government statement. It also looks overexcited, out of control, disinhibited.

    Representatives of Saudi Arabia say that Jamal Khashoggi was an “enemy of the state” and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, but my decision is in no way based on that — this is an unacceptable and horrible crime.

    Annotation: 1) This is a baseless smear against a slain journalist, and the president is repeating it while insisting that it doesn’t matter to him. Then why include it? Trafficking in this kind of innuendo in a presidential statement is remarkable, and will likely be criticized even by Republicans.

    2) Trump is disclosing something that Saudi Arabia actually denied.

    On the one hand Saudi Arabia says this so let’s drag it in, on the other hand the CIA says that so let’s throw up our hands and say how can we ever know.

    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!

    That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi.

    Annotation: To be clear: The CIA is preparing to report that it has high confidence that Mohammed was behind Khashoggi’s killing. Trump is basically arguing that we’ll never know for sure.

    As I argued this weekend, intelligence is an imprecise business, but if you require 100 percent proof of anything, you’ll never hold countries accountable for taking advantage of you. It’s an impossible standard.

    Trump is also bucking his own intelligence community again – just as he did with Russia’s 2016 election interference.

    Aaron Blake does good annotations.

  • A message to anyone in a position of power

    More.

    https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/1064943079529041920

  • It was over in minutes

    Oh god.

    This is awful. Be warned.

    What they did to Jamal Khashoggi:

    His killers were waiting when Jamal Khashoggi walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago. They severed his fingers during an interrogation and later beheaded and dismembered him, according to details from audio recordings published in the Turkish news media on Wednesday.

    Fuckfuckfuck.

    The US – and everyone else – should sever ties with Saudi Arabia this instant.

    It was all over within a few minutes, the recordings suggested.

    A senior Turkish official confirmed the details that were published in the pro-government daily newspaper Yeni Safak.

    The leaking of such details, on the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was visiting Turkey, reflected an escalation of pressure by the Turkish government on Saudi Arabia and the United States for answers on the fate of Mr. Khashoggi, a prominent dissident journalist who wrote for The Washington Post.

    Hey, don’t bother Mr Pompeo, he’s very busy sharing yuks with Mohammed Bin Salman.

    After he was shown into the office of the Saudi consul, Mohammad al-Otaibi, the agents seized Mr. Khashoggi almost immediately and began to beat and torture him, eventually cutting off his fingers, the senior Turkish official said.

    “Do this outside. You will put me in trouble,” Mr. al-Otaibi, the consul, told them, according to the Turkish official and the report in Yeni Safak, both citing audio recordings said to have been obtained by Turkish intelligence.

    “If you want to live when you come back to Arabia, shut up,” one of the agents replied, according to both the official and the newspaper.

    “Horrendous tortures were committed on Khashoggi, who came to the consulate for documents,” the Yeni Safak account said.

    As they cut off Mr. Khashoggi’s head and dismembered his body, a doctor of forensics who had been brought along for the dissection and disposal had some advice for the others, according to the senior Turkish official.

    He told them to listen to music while they worked.