Jamal Khashoggi

#633
#633
05_never_again said:
Why didn't Obama, or Bush, or Clinton want to upset it though? Trump is doing nothing out of the ordinary from past Presidents.
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No Saudi Crown Prince or Royal Family member did anything close to murdering a journalist in a foreign consulate during Bush's or Obama's administration. If we don't push back they and others have a license to murder anyone anywhere.
 
#634
#634
I wish the Dims cared this much about US citizens that get killed at the hand of illegals as much as they do about a non citizen getting killed.

The hypocrisy is astounding.
 
#635
#635
AirVol said:
I wish the Dims cared this much about US citizens that get killed at the hand of illegals as much as they do about a non citizen getting killed.

The hypocrisy is astounding.
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The fact that you don't see the difference is unsurprising
 
#636
#636
These Saudi's have been brutal for centuries cutting off body parts for crimes, suppressing women in ways we are all against like stoning, people disappearing some US citizens but now we have a problem with them? I have always been against dealing with them but it inevitably comes back to, we need the oil and we need to sell then stuff to avoid them ending up with all the money, when I say all I mean all. Its the Muslim version of the Beverly Hillbillies on steroids over there! I against a small group of individuals with this much money.
 
#640
#640
Hunerwadel said:
No Saudi Crown Prince or Royal Family member did anything close to murdering a journalist in a foreign consulate during Bush's or Obama's administration. If we don't push back they and others have a license to murder anyone anywhere.
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You're right, they "may or may not" have funneled money or aided the Saudi hijackers on 9/11 in some way. Obama did a couple large arms sales to them, providing them with weapons used in their intervention in Yemen. They are a brutal regime and always up to some kind of activity like this. That hasn't stopped them from being an "ally" of the United States ever since the end of WWII.
 
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#641
#641
ClearwaterVol said:
He is acting like a fool. "Maybe he did it, maybe he didn't" Either we stand for something or we don't.
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We stand for whatever "promotes American interests." Always have, always will, and no different from any other country on planet Earth. Trump is just more brazen and open about what the actual policy is, just like he is on every other issue. Obama, Bush, et al. would have crafted some much better-sounding statement condemning the killing. Trump says "maybe he did, maybe he didn't" and ends a bunch of sentences with exclamation points. The action taken (or lack thereof) is precisely the same.

@utvolpj is right in that we need to stop with the claims that Trump's treatment of Saudi Arabia is somehow beyond the pale or different than administrations before him. Trump is simply falling in line with long-standing United States foreign policy on this issue.
 
#642
#642
05_never_again said:
We stand for whatever "promotes American interests." Always have, always will, and no different from any other country on planet Earth. Trump is just more brazen and open about what the actual policy is, just like he is on every other issue. Obama, Bush, et al. would have crafted some much better-sounding statement condemning the killing. Trump says "maybe he did, maybe he didn't" and ends a bunch of sentences with exclamation points. The action taken (or lack thereof) is precisely the same.

@utvolpj is right in that we need to stop with the claims that Trump's treatment of Saudi Arabia is somehow beyond the pale or different than administrations before him. Trump is simply falling in line with long-standing United States foreign policy on this issue.
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I don't disagree with you about how Obama and Bush would have handled this, except that you are minimizing the message the "maybe he did, maybe he didn't" line is sending to the CIA... They left no room for doubt in their conclusion. Trump shouldn't either.
 
#643
#643
BowlBrother85 said:
I don't disagree with you about how Obama and Bush would have handled this, except that you are minimizing the message the "maybe he did, maybe he didn't" line is sending to the CIA... They left no room for doubt in their conclusion. Trump shouldn't either.
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That's what he does. He's always been skeptical of assessments by the intelligence agencies from Day 1 of the campaign. And, honestly, a little doubt about their conclusions isn't totally unwarranted.

Regardless, what Trump says is irrelevant. Should the statement have had more condemning language so everyone feels better? The lack of action if this occurred under an Obama or Bush presidency would be exactly the same.
 
#645
#645
05_never_again said:
That's what he does. He's always been skeptical of assessments by the intelligence agencies from Day 1 of the campaign. And, honestly, a little doubt about their conclusions isn't totally unwarranted.
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That's where we will just have to agree to disagree... Given the fact that a bone saw was present at the murder, they clearly had planned to kill and dismember this man. It is not believable that such a pre-meditated hit would have taken place without the express consent of Mohammed bin Salman.
 
#646
#646
BowlBrother85 said:
That's where we will just have to agree to disagree... Given the fact that a bone saw was present at the murder, they clearly had planned to kill and dismember this man. It is not believable that such a pre-meditated hit would have taken place without the express consent of Mohammed bin Salman.
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That was some James Bond bad guy type stuff.
 
#647
#647
BowlBrother85 said:
That's where we will just have to agree to disagree... Given the fact that a bone saw was present at the murder, they clearly had planned to kill and dismember this man. It is not believable that such a pre-meditated hit would have taken place without the express consent of Mohammed bin Salman.
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I totally agree with the bolded sentence, and honestly I'm more inclined to believe the CIA's conclusion in this case because it makes the official US position look untenable. But it also isn't unreasonable to be skeptical of what they say generally.

Some of their bigger intelligence failures have occurred when the CIA's conclusion lined up the policy the US wanted to take, like Iraq having WMDs. In this case, their conclusion (that MBS ordered the hit) makes US policy (an alliance with MBS) look bad, so it is probably more likely to be true.
 
#649
#649
05_never_again said:
I totally agree with the bolded sentence, and honestly I'm more inclined to believe the CIA's conclusion in this case because it makes the official US position look untenable. But it also isn't unreasonable to be skeptical of what they say generally.

Some of their bigger intelligence failures have occurred when the CIA's conclusion lined up the policy the US wanted to take, like Iraq having WMDs. In this case, their conclusion (that MBS ordered the hit) makes US policy (an alliance with MBS) look bad, so it is probably more likely to be true.
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Trump resorted to another one of his tactics with that statement which bothers me. Blaming the victim. He cited the completely unsubstantiated claim from the Saudi's that Khashoggi was a member of the Muslim brotherhood. That had no place in an official statement from the White House and only served the purpose of presenting Khashoggi as an unsympathetic victim in order to soften the appearance of Trump's passive position on Saudi brutality.
 
#650
#650
Sandman 423 said:
What would any other president do?
I don’t think they would say the same thing as Trump but I don’t think they would do anything meaningful about it either.
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That is anyone's guess. The Bush family also had very close ties to the Saudi's which is well documented. It's hard to say whether or not Obama would have imposed the Magnitsky Act against Mohammed bin Salman but I tend to agree with you... Nevertheless, the statement itself matters... and Trump really blew it with that weak and rambling garbage.
 
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