Recommendable! I agree with much of what is contained in this opinion piece. The main question is why would the crown prince take on such an enormous risk to get rid of a journalist by killing him?
This so called short report does not contain any evidence! Almost all of it is rather speculative and amateurish! The only link to MBS mentioned is that the alleged members of the team that supposedly captured and/or killed Kashoggi (his body was never recovered) were closely associated with MBS.
"... So, when the CIA authors a report on the death of a Saudi journalist at the hands of Saudi henchmen, it isn’t surprising that the report, issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), fingers Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. What is surprising that the report on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi is just three-quarters of a page of amateurish innuendo. ...
We don’t know whether the crown prince ordered Khashoggi’s murder, or ordered his capture, or ordered anything at all. ...
The report is more an indictment of the politicization of the CIA than a document that tells the government anything worthwhile about Saudi Arabia. ...
And even if we did know for sure, why would we seek to create a political crisis in Saudi Arabia, an important ally, and a major oil producer? ...
We don’t know whether the crown prince ordered Khashoggi’s murder, or ordered his capture, or ordered anything at all. ...
The report is more an indictment of the politicization of the CIA than a document that tells the government anything worthwhile about Saudi Arabia. ...
And even if we did know for sure, why would we seek to create a political crisis in Saudi Arabia, an important ally, and a major oil producer? ...
In fact, the report was released by the administration to topple the crown prince from power. It doesn’t matter whether the report is credible—it matters that President Joe Biden says it is. And it matters that it works in favor of Iran. Biden is on a “charm offensive” to woo the Iranians back into negotiations over a new pact on the Iranian nuclear program. The Iranians expect to be paid in advance and undermining Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a hot ticket. ...
Even while President Donald Trump was in office, John Kerry was meeting with Iran’s foreign minister, working out the framework of a deal once Biden was elected. While this most certainly was a violation of the Logan Act ..."
Therefore, the report is best understood in context with other reckless moves by the Biden administration: “freezing” arms sales to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, halting intelligence assistance to the Arab Coalition opposing the Houthis, removing the Houthis from the terror list, ...
Biden’s delay in calling Israel’s prime minister is part of the same policy, as is significant backtracking on reaffirming U.S. policy over Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and undermining the Abraham Accords by halting the sale of F-35s to the UAE. ...Even while President Donald Trump was in office, John Kerry was meeting with Iran’s foreign minister, working out the framework of a deal once Biden was elected. While this most certainly was a violation of the Logan Act ..."
Some excerpts from the 4 pages report:
"... Since 2017, the Crown Prince has had absolute control of the Kingdom's security and intelligence organizations, making it highly unlikely that Saudi officials would have carried out an operation of this nature without the Crown Prince's authorization. ...
At the time of the Khashoggi murder, the Crown Prince probably fostered an environment in which aides were afraid that failure to complete assigned tasks might result in him firing or arresting them. This suggests that the aides were unlikely to question Muhammad bin Salman's orders or undertake sensitive actions without his consent. ...
The IS-member Saudi team that arrived in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 included officials who worked for, or were associated with, the Saudi Center for Studies and Media Affairs (CSMARC) at the Royal Court. At the time of the operation, CSMARC was led by Saud al-Qahtani, a close adviser of Muhammad bin Salman ...
The IS-member Saudi team that arrived in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 included officials who worked for, or were associated with, the Saudi Center for Studies and Media Affairs (CSMARC) at the Royal Court. At the time of the operation, CSMARC was led by Saud al-Qahtani, a close adviser of Muhammad bin Salman ...
The team also included seven members of Muhammad bin Salman's elite personal protective detail, known as the Rapid Intervention Force (RIF). The RIF-a subset of the Saudi Royal Guard-exists to defend the Crown Prince, answers only to him, and had directly participated in earlier dissident suppression operations in the Kingdom and abroad at the Crown Prince's direction. We judge that members of the RIF would not have
participated in the operation against Khashoggi without Muhammad bin Salman's approval. ...We have high confidence that the following individuals participated in, ordered, or were otherwise complicit in or responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi on behalf of Muhammad bin Salman. We do not know whether these individuals knew in advance that the operation would result
in Khashoggi's death. ..."Here is a link to the CIA report as it was published by the Washington Compost:
No comments:
Post a Comment