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Jamal Khashoggi Disappears, a Mystery Rattling the Middle East
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LONDON — Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi dissident, met two friends for lunch last Monday in London to discuss a newspaper column he had drafted lamenting the lack of free speech in the Arab world. “Everyone is fearful,” he wrote.

But Mr. Khashoggi appeared to have little fear about his plans for the next day: to pick up a document from the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He brushed aside warnings from his friends that his criticism of the kingdom’s rulers had drawn their enmity, making the consulate dangerous territory.

The consular staff, he assured them, “are just ordinary Saudis, and the ordinary Saudis are good people,” recalled one of his lunch companions, Azzam Tamimi.

On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Khashoggi entered the consulate. He has not been seen since.

Turkish investigators say that a team of 15 Saudi agents killed him inside the consulate, several officials told The New York Times and other news organizations. “He was killed and his body was dismembered,” Turan Kislakci, the head of Turkish Arab Media Association, said officials had told him.

 
• Category: Foreign Policy • Tags: Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia 
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  1. Sean says:

    Jamal Khashoggi was a member of Saudi Arabian intelligence and an associate of the ruling inner circle, who then used his insider’s knowledge gained because he was trusted to defame the leaders of his country (a bit like Georgi Markov). Just like Skripal keeping in touch with the Russia embassy, Khashoggi was stupid enough to think that professional diplomats were not two-faced bastards reporting back to people who were furious at his betrayal and wanted him dead.


    Video Link

    • Replies: @Almost Missouri
    , @El Dato
  2. Usually, a target is taken out like the Clintons did Seth Rich. Usually, you want arguable deniability. To openly take out a target is meant to send a message. MBS is drunk with power and he thinks that he can insult his sponsors and others. Based upon information and belief, I believe that The Company will finally act and MbS will soon be replaced. The Company never did like him to begin with. MBS is failing everywhere. Yemen, Syria, Qatar, Iraq, etc. are all failures of MBS. China is also displeased with MBS as he has been stirring up trouble in Xinjiang. Russia cannot be happy that MBS was and is behind the lower oil price. Who are his allies? He has only one and that is his father, who is hardly competent.” King Salman is virtually incapacitated by dementia.

    • Replies: @Z-man
  3. ‘Jamal Khashoggi Disappears, a Mystery Rattling the Middle East’

    First off, there’s no mystery; in a surreal display of his thuggery, that new Crown Prince obviously ordered Khashoggi’s murder.

    Second, we won’t do anything. More than any other state, Saudi Arabia was implicated in 9/11 — yet we did nothing. We won’t do anything now.

    In fact, if the Times et al don’t hush up soon, Israel will order them to hush up. This is headed for the memory hole within the week.

    • Replies: @Ron Unz
    , @Sean
    , @ploni almoni
  4. Ron Unz says:
    @Colin Wright

    In fact, if the Times et al don’t hush up soon, Israel will order them to hush up. This is headed for the memory hole within the week.

    Well, I doubt this, but we’ll seen.

    More than any other state, Saudi Arabia was implicated in 9/11 — yet we did nothing. We won’t do anything now.

    Well, I don’t claim to be the world’s greatest expert on 9/11, but isn’t your theory *totally* insane? What exactly would be the *motive* of the Saudis in attacking America? And how would they then have organized the gigantic cover-up? Maybe you’re one of those types who claims that Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, and Libby were all Saudi agents, and the Saudis also control Hollywood and most of the American media…

  5. @Sean

    Thanks for explaining that. The MSM sure doesn’t.

  6. @Ron Unz

    ‘…Well, I don’t claim to be the world’s greatest expert on 9/11, but isn’t your theory *totally* insane? ‘

    Lol. Twenty three of the twenty four bombers in 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia — and their leader was a scion of one of Saudi Arabia’s leading families.

    Of course al-Qaeda was a non-state actor — but if we ever seriously intended to address it, Saudi Arabia was the logical place to start.

    …or one would think it would have been obvious.

    But no. Iraq turned out to be the place to go. Go figure.

  7. Well they did all jump on the 1st planes out of the USA completely unaffected by the travel ban whose purpose was to stop foreign nationals jumping on the 1st planes out of the USA after 9/11. 19 of the twenty hijackers were Saudis. Wahibism is Saudi in origin. It did lead to a war on terror which if everything went to plan would have ended with the overthrowing of their mortal enemy Iran. Maybe there was a considerable overlap in motives between Saudi Arabia and neoconservatives.

    • Agree: Sean
    • Replies: @Colin Wright
  8. @Yellowford

    I don’t think the Saudi state itself organized the attacks. However, many wealthy Saudis have financed both al Qaeda and al-Qaeda like groups — and they do so as part of an ideology that is inextricably linked with the whole structure of the Saudi state.

    If — hypothetically — we actually wanted to address Sunni Islamic terrorism, then Saudi Arabia would be the only rational place to start.

    • Replies: @ploni almoni
  9. El Dato says:
    @Sean

    Jamal Khashoggi was a member of Saudi Arabian intelligence and an associate of the ruling inner circle, who then used his insider’s knowledge gained because he was trusted to defame the leaders of his country (a bit like Georgi Markov).

    Really sounds like a Saudi Barbarian circumlocution of “guy with sources who says things we don’t want him to say”.

    Khashoggi was stupid enough to think that professional diplomats were not two-faced bastards reporting back to people who were furious at his betrayal and wanted him dead.

    It sadly seems so, but what was he supposed to do?

    Also:

    Boxed off: If Saudi dictatorship murdered & dismembered critic in Turkey, how would Erdogan respond?

    ‘They all take Saudi money’: Suspected murder of WaPo columnist by Saudi Arabia ignored by UK press

    WikiLeaks weren’t the only ones taking note of how British media have been covering the story in a surprisingly calm and low-key manner, however. Some on Twitter made comparisons to how the UK papers had covered the recent alleged murder of Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko, who turned out to be alive and playing an elaborate trick on the media.

    Some pointed out that the Saudis are the “international untouchables” due to their close relationships with the US and UK governments. While the Guardian did run a column about Khashoggi on its front page, some Twitter users noted that it seemed like the newspaper was trying to downplay the story by not making it the main focus.

    … the London-based Financial Times was forced to withdraw its Saudi correspondent and close its Riyadh bureau after the government accused the paper of publishing “lies” about the country. In 2017, Saudi investor Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel bought a 30 percent stake in the Independent newspaper, which also prompted concern that the paper would not be truly independent anymore.

    • Replies: @Sean
    , @Verymuchalive
  10. Sean says:
    @Colin Wright

    . More than any other state, Saudi Arabia was implicated in 9/11 — yet we did nothing

    Since 1990 (when Saddam invaded Kuwait) America had armed forces in Saudi Arabia, much to the outrage of many Saudi Arabians. Osama bin Laden’s main objection to the Saudi family dictatorship was that the self styled Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques required an infidel army’s protection. Bin Laden achieved his objective, because the US withdrew from Saudi Arabia in 2003–the same year it invaded Iraq. The connection is obvious.

    • Replies: @Colin Wright
    , @pensword
  11. Sean says:
    @Colin Wright

    The current Saudi Arabian regieme fears for its future if the ordinary Saudi Arabians continued to view it as as an American puppet. By the time of 9/11 the Saudis were suffering terrorism caused by Americans had to leave. But, for that to happen they had to remove Saddam and the Bathists from power in Iraq . The US has to have control over the vast oil wealth (power) of Saudi Arabia, anyone who threatens that will be subject to American military action. Saddam was, but the trouble is Bush the Elder did not finish the job. In part they were scared of the Iraqi army and the memory of Vietnam.

    Anyway, they made a serious mistake in not invading Iraq and overthrowing Saddam in the first Gulf war, because with Saddam still in charge of a large country he had to be deterred from trying an invasion again, but this time with Saudi Arabia by keeping an American army in Saudi Arabia.

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/01/09/wikileaks-april-glaspie-and-saddam-hussein/

    In the deterrence model, states are aggressive because they are simply greedy or ideologically driven, and the only way to avoid war is to pose a credible deterrent threat.

    Osama bin Laden was but one of many devout Saudis turned into an opponent of the Saud regieme because of the foreign infidel army they had in the country for a decade. The Saud family regieme are not too unhappy with the outcome of 9/11 being an invasion of Iraq and the Americans getting out of the country. If one is following a who benefits analysis, would it be the Saudi government that was behind the WTC 9/11 attack? Of course.

  12. @Sean

    ‘…Bin Laden achieved his objective, because the US withdrew from Saudi Arabia in 2003–the same year it invaded Iraq. The connection is obvious.’

    Indeed. However, I’m more focused on the idea that if we actually wanted to address Sunni terrorism, the state to confront would have been Saudi Arabia. Instead, we went off on a spectacularly irrelevant project to terraform Iraq, moved on to foment civil war in Syria, and now appear to be gearing up to attack Iran.

    None of that does anything to address Sunni terrorism — indeed, it has just the opposite effect. The inference is that we don’t actually want to do anything about Sunni terrorism, but on the contrary, find it a useful tool. The whole ISIS episode actually illustrated that. We did nothing effectual but simply bombed and baited it while actually channeling arms to it under the pretense that we were arming ‘Arab moderates.’ Remember when France’s premier announced ‘this is war’ after the Paris attacks?

    Well of course it was ‘war.’ France had been bombing ISIS for a year. What did they expect?

    Effectively, we nurtured and then baited ISIS to create a source of continuing global terrorism. Anyone could predict that if we destroyed the Syrian state while permitting Saudi Arabia to fund religious extremists in the Syrian desert that groups like ISIS would appear — and then it was simply a matter of bombing them to get their attention. It was all working splendidly, and it wasn’t until Turkey and Iran got fed up and started actually destroying the group that we had to quit our games and join in finishing them off.

    We — or to be more precise, the Israel lobby — want terrorist bombs going off regularly in the West. That creates the necessary war with Islam and also provides the necessary cover for such projects as the invasion of Iraq, and — coming up — the invasion of Iran.

    It also implies that we have zero genuine interest in ripping out the root of Sunni terrorism. That’s definitely in Saudi Arabia, and we do nothing about it at all. If one grants that we want the terrorism to continue, that makes complete sense.

    • Replies: @Dave Bowman
  13. Sean says:
    @El Dato

    It sadly seems so, but what was he supposed to do?

    Be loyal to his patron, country and wife (he was lured to the embassy for divorce paperwork, so he could remarry a Turk).

  14. Sean says:
    @Ron Unz

    What exactly would be the *motive* of the Saudis in attacking America?

    To cause what actually happened, an ending to the necessity of deterring Saddam’s Iraq, withdrawal of American armed forces from Saudi Arabia and deflating of popular discontent with the Saud family dictatorship for hosting an army of foreign infidels.

    And how would they then have organized the gigantic cover-up?

    They would have the advantage of running a running a double-bubble deception inasmuch they could use the hijackers being anti Saudi family regieme terrorists to deflect attention from the Sadi government. Infiltrating Osama bin Laden’s organisation would be child’s play for Saudi intelligence. And one could speculate that the death of Jamal Khashoggi was because the insiders thought he might know something which the Saudis could not afford to have leak out. Dead men tell no tales.

    Maybe you’re one of those types who claims that Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, and Libby were all Saudi agents

    In their calculations the Saudi planners might have counted on Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, and Libby to seize any opportunity to frogmarch Bush into an invasion of Iraq.

    In 2003 the Saudis got what they wanted. and there were no more big attacks. If it was Israel why would they not have done another one and blamed it on Iran? Unless …. Iran is not really a threat to Israel and just an excuse Israel uses to not negotiate a final settlement. Hmmm.

    • Replies: @Ron Unz
  15. Ron Unz says:
    @Sean

    What exactly would be the *motive* of the Saudis in attacking America?

    To cause what actually happened, an ending to the necessity of deterring Saddam’s Iraq, withdrawal of American armed forces from Saudi Arabia and deflating of popular discontent with the Saud family dictatorship for hosting an army of foreign infidels.

    But that’s simply insane…

    You’re saying the Saudi government attacked America on 9/11 and decided to leave a mountain of evidence implicating Saudis (e.g. including an undamaged passport recovered from the WTC inferno) and not an iota of evidence implicating Saddam. And they did all this in order to persuade the American government to attack Saddam.

  16. Anonymous [AKA "hinterland"] says:

    Lol. Twenty three of the twenty four bombers in 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia — and their leader was a scion of one of Saudi Arabia’s leading families.

    Of course, of course… lol.

  17. @El Dato

    Yes, it would be interesting to know how the Russian Press itself has reported on this story. Probably, not much.
    RT itself seems much more interested in trying to attack the British Press on the affair rather than use it against the Saudi Government. This is not surprising. The Russian Government has failed to bring the Yemen War to the notice of Security Council and abstained on investigating alleged Saudi and other war crimes.
    But there again, as the RT proudly proclaimed itself, Russia had sold $8 billion in arms and defence sales to the Middle East – $3 billion to Saudi Arabia alone.

    https://www.rt.com/business/410410-russias-arms-sales-middle-east/

    Yes Indeed, THEY ALL TAKE SAUDI MONEY

  18. Sean says:

    mountain of evidence implicating Saudis … including an undamaged passport

    There is equally little linkage between Saudi Arabian hijackers working for the sworn enemy of the Saudi Arabian government bin Laden, and Saddam’s Iraq, so if 9/11 was a false flag intended to cause Iraq to be invaded then the planners were alert to being too transparently direct about what they were intending to get (not “convince”) us to do. We are dealing with hyper-subtle minds who worry about any suspicion adhering to them.

    And they did all this in order to persuade the American government to attack Saddam.

    Certainty of success would not be the essential thing. First and foremost, a Saudi government 9/11 would have been intended to trick America into thinking that the government of Saudi Arabia could not possibly have been behind 9/11. The objective for the Saud regieme of precipitating an Israel Lobby landslide of soft power pressure for toppling Saddam would be heavily weighted with a prime directive to design the operation with priority for long term evasion of responsibility and punishment over attaining the objective. Once the Saudi government agency reported to the King that thet had a plan fulfilling this crucial caveat of impunity, then they would be given the order to go ahead and mount the operation.

    If it did not work, they could try against with a false flag somewhat less tangential to the objective of getting America out of Saudi Arabia and securing the reign of the House of Saud. However, a second attempt and less cryptic operation promulgating a cast iron case against Saddam would be very vulnerable to a ‘who benefits?’ analysis, even it there was absolutely no connection to Saudi Arabia whatsoever. American intelligence might suspect Saudi Arabia, or much more likely Israel, if it was too perfect a frame of Saddam.

    Saudi Arabian intelligence planners of a false flag 9/11 would have certain things to work with.

    1) Osama bin Laden known to be an avowed enemy of the Saudi government and advocate of terrorism against them. He was already being hunted by the Americans, but they knew he was in Afghanistan they could not penetrate his operational security. Saudi intelligence would find it immeasurably easier to manipulate an bin Laden people than any Iraqis

    2) The foreign policy of the US in the hands of over the hill fpro Israel figures Cheney and Rumsfeld who Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, and Libby, all Israeli Lobby agents and itching for any excuse that could be used to invade Iraq, would find easy to con.

    3) A President who had more hereditary claim that qualification by achievement for the office. Not only was Bush weak minded, he believed his father was targeted for assassination by Saddam.

  19. It is simply insane to say Saudi Arabia attacked America on 9/11. You must give the Saudis royals credit they have been on a tightrope for God knows how long. How many Saudi royals are there? 5000? 10000? More? They are the Playboy’s of the western world and beneath them are the ultra strict ultra sour wahibism clerics. The royals struck a deal. Don’t go after us and we will throw money at you. You can’t have us but you can spread your wahibism all around the world. Finsbury mosque. Burma. Etc. Then there’s America. Oil sales dollars only. Sorted. We are your friends. Want to undermine ussr in Afghanistan? Our secret service will work with your secret service. Viola Al Qaeda. Want a false flag? The hijackers are idiots? We will hold their hands. Walk them through. Of course we didn’t expect them to actually pull it off. False flag. Mini pearl harbour. A couple of lost airliners. I don’t think they ever expected them to hit the towers let alone bring them down.

  20. @Colin Wright

    So I take it you accept unquestioningly the government 911 commission report completely except for them leaving out that Saudi Arabia was really behind it.

    You believe that 19 Saudis including “beginning” amateur pilots took over the airplanes and crashed them into the towers and the pentagon. The result being that the 3 towers collapsed into their own footprint at almost free fall speed. Is that correct?

    Again what would be their motive? Why the hell would they do that? Why would they deliberately try to create hatred towards Arabs and Muslims by Americans? How does that benefit the Saudis? What would be the point? The answer is obvious there is none and they weren’t behind it.

    No, the only so-called nation that benefited from 911 is and was Israel. They are the most likely suspects.

    • Replies: @Colin Wright
    , @Sean
  21. @Colin Wright

    Points taken.

    But it would be so much smarter, easier, more accurate and more readable if, instead of repeatedly saying “WE” when referring to those who make the mind-bogglingly evil and suicidally-stupid foreign policy decisions, as if those people were the “ordinary people” of the western world, you would simply say instead, “the Zionists”, “the Israel lobby”, or simply “Jews”.

    And Yes, I am perfectly well aware they are not always the same thing and to suggest they are will inflame Jewish feeling. Watch me not care.

    • Replies: @Colin Wright
  22. Now RT is claiming that the BBC, far from ignoring the Khashoggi story, is now responsible for Khashoggi’s detention/death. Just like any other State Broadcaster or MSM, RT is shameless.
    Even if the weapons were used against its ally, Syria, or against Iran, Russia would sell these weapons to Saudi Arabia, if the price was right. $10 billion a year retainer for 20 years. That’ll do nicely.
    https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjyo9nskv3dAhUDvxoKHXbGDO8QqOcBMAB6BAgEEAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fuk%2F440865-bbc-interview-saudi-journalist%2F&usg=AOvVaw2eII79ul8i9EXbWgeXxmxZ

  23. renfro says:

    Motive for eliminating Khashogg ?
    I also repeat my prediction that MbS will be assassinated.

    https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/09/mohammad-bin-salman-is-scared-of-saudi-expats/

    Mohammad bin Salman Is Scared of Saudi Expats

    (excerpt)

    ”The rationale behind the alleged act becomes easier to understand when it is properly seen as part of a larger pattern. Khashoggi’s rise to prominence was part of an unprecedented—and generally underappreciated—development in recent Saudi history that Mohammad bin Salman has been treating as a threat to his rule: More Saudis than at any time in recent memory have fled the kingdom, with many seeking asylum in Western countries.

    The trend started just as the young prince rose to power in 2015, when he became defense minister, and continued as he became crown prince in June 2017. According to data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 47 Saudis were granted asylum in fiscal year 2016, up from 39 and 33 in the two previous years. The numbers tended to be lower than 10 in the years after 9/11 and lower than 20 after the Arab Spring. No other Gulf country has seen such an increase in asylum-seekers. The numbers, otherwise small if compared with those of other countries in the region, appear to be only a minor indicator of a broader trend. Activists and officials say a larger number of political dissidents live in self-imposed exile without formally seeking asylum, as Khashoggi did, and many others are in the process of applying.

    Just as important are the reasons that Saudis are fleeing. Whereas they once tended to leave because of social oppression related to sectarian tensions or discrimination against gender or sexual orientation, Saudis are increasingly leaving because they feel their freedom of expression—especially the right to criticize their government—has become unduly restricted at home. That’s why they have sought to live abroad, beyond Riyadh’s reach, where they can and do speak their minds freely.
    The Saudi government has responded by trying to intimidate the growing number of expatriates. This has become evident in Canada, which has recently found itself in a diplomatic feud with Riyadh over its human rights record and is among the countries that has seen an uptick in Saudi asylum applicants. According to local Canadian media, at least 20 students are applying for asylum in Canada after defying government orders to immediately return home or cease speaking to media about their ordeal.
    Even in Canada, some Saudis say they are still not safe. The case of Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi with political asylum in Canada, sheds light on the circumstances surrounding Khashoggi’s disappearance. Abdulaziz says he was approached in August by two men allegedly carrying a verbal message from Mohammed bin Salman to return home, where he would be officially immune from harm. After refusing to go back, two of his brothers and a handful of his friends were arrested. Saudis living in exile believe that such attempts are designed to contain criticism outside the country and are wary of fellow Saudis who approach them with similar messages.
    “If [you] do not side with the government, you are seen as a traitor. The number of dissidents is unprecedented,” said one Saudi national living in exile in the United States. “I know a lot who were tricked to go back and then were arrested. This has been done [many times]. It’s traditional practice, I guess, to trick people to go back.”
    At home, the number of Saudis punished for dissent is staggering. A senior official from a Gulf country allied with Saudi Arabia said several thousand Saudi public figures have been rounded up since last September, a far cry from the numbers reported in local and international media. Most of those rounded up were released after signing a statement pledging they would refrain from criticizing the government. Saudi citizens familiar with the process say people were compelled to sign.
    Those arrested in Saudi Arabia, according to their families, were also approached to make similar pledges or even asked to spread pro-government messages on social media to millions of followers in some cases. As a result, Saudi public figures today tend to echo government rhetoric, publicly stay out of politics, or find themselves serving an indefinite jail sentence.”

    • Replies: @Sean
  24. @Dave Bowman

    ‘…And Yes, I am perfectly well aware they are not always the same thing and to suggest they are will inflame Jewish feeling. Watch me not care.’

    I agree that one should call a spade a spade — and indeed, those who oppose Israel and its machinations often allow fears of being labeled ‘anti-semitic’ to render themselves ineffectual. That’s actually the main use accusations of ‘anti-semitism’ are put to these days; to deter frank analysis and condemnation of Israel and the Israel Lobby.

    However, it’s not just Jews. In America, while the generals and guiding thinkers are Jews, the vast majority of the foot soldiers are Christian Evangelicals. Absent thirty million Evangelicals singing hosannahs of praise to Israel and the viler the better, all that Jewish money and influence would only be able to do so much.

    If you doubt this, look at where the ‘no’ votes come from in all those 402-18 Congressional votes for Israel come from. The ‘no’s’ never, never come from districts with lots of Evangelicals.

    It may be a Jewish car, but it’s Christian gasoline in the fuel tank.

  25. renfro says:

    Khashoggi’s Apple watch

    ”A Turkish security official told Reuters news agency the Apple watch Khashoggi was wearing at the time of his disappearance was being looked into by Turkish investigators.

    Security and intelligence agents in Turkey are now analyzing the watch, believing it may provide important clues as to Khashoggi’s whereabouts or what happened to him.

    The device would potentially be able to provide investigators with data such as the journalist’s heart rate and location”

    Note to self; Make sure the Zionist and politicians I may snatch aren’t wearing apple watches.

  26. @2stateshmustate

    ‘So I take it you accept unquestioningly the government 911 commission report completely except for them leaving out that Saudi Arabia was really behind it…’

    No. I really think planes were hijacked and flown into the Twin Towers, that this caused the Towers’ collapse, and that al Qaeda carried out the hijackings and attacks.

    However, I am convinced Israel knew of the attacks before they happened, and I am entirely open to the possibility that they facilitated them in some way.

    Otherwise, various parties, including Ron Unz, seem to have taken my remarks to mean that I think the Saudi government itself carried out the attacks. Not at all; I merely meant that Saudi Arabia as a whole is the society that spawned these attacks — and indeed, most of Sunni Muslim terrorism in general. If we actually want to halt Sunni Muslim terrorism — which I don’t believe we do — then Saudi Arabia is the place to start, and there’s little point in going elsewhere.

    • Replies: @Miro23
  27. A more detailed picture of Khashoggi’s murder emerges.

    https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-1433170798

    I’m still betting on it all going down the memory hole.

  28. pensword says:
    @Colin Wright

    Go figure.

    Easy: Oded Yinon + “Clean Break” = Destabilizing/neutralizing neighbors inimical to Israel.

    There are no longer unknown variables to this equation. Nothing to figure out.

  29. pensword says:
    @Sean

    Osama bin Laden’s main objection to the Saudi family dictatorship was that the self styled Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques required an infidel army’s protection.

    This was the last grievance cited among bin Laden’s alleged litany of motives, which was topped rather clearly by American support for Israeli tyranny against Palestinians.

    Factor in Oded Yinon, “Clean Break,” Mossad ordnance experts shepherding future hijackers, dancing Shlomos raising lighters in the midst of the carnage, arrested Israelis reflexively alluding to “problematic Palestinians” while in possession of a sockful of cash and maps highlighting routes throughout Manhattan ~ not to mention the consequential “benefit” of the attacks openly admitted by Israeli statesmen as well as Israel’s storied history of false flag attacks ~ all among an egregiously swollen stockpile of evidence, and the Middle East’s Only Democracy™ becomes a much likelier suspect.

    On 9/13/2001, William Safire penned an essay entitled “Inside the Bunker,” still available in the NYT archives. In this piece, we learn that those perpetrating the attacks had knowledge of “top secret code words” which revealed that “the terrorists may have a mole in the White House — that, or informants in the Secret Service, F.B.I., F.A.A. or C.I.A.” Both Insight Magazine‘s May 2000 exposé of comprehensive Israeli espionage throughout the upper echelons of American government and Clinton appointed CIA-Director John Deutch’s “improper handling of classified information” prior to the same year provide a fairly conspicuous trail of breadcrumbs leading to the most probable parties who would possess such knowledge. (Deutch is Jewish.)

    Arguendo, even if the House of Sa’ud were involved, it wouldn’t have been possible without Israel.

    • Replies: @Sean
  30. @Colin Wright

    Ron Unz was kind enough to take the time to correct your gross error of understanding with regards to that momentous event. Some people at least attempt to conceal their intellectual shortcomings and I would suggest that you read several articles on this site re 9/11 plus the comments and refrain from further commenting until you do.

    You could start with Ron’s recent American Pravda: 9/11 Conspiracy Theories.

    • Troll: Colin Wright
  31. APilgrim says:

    Jamal Khashoggi

    Say, wasn’t he an ‘Arab Spring’ proponent?

    Say, wasn’t ‘Arab Spring’ the biggest Foreign Policy disaster since Yalta?

    Say, doesn’t he write propaganda columns for WAPO?

  32. Miro23 says:
    @Colin Wright

    No. I really think planes were hijacked and flown into the Twin Towers, that this caused the Towers’ collapse, and that al Qaeda carried out the hijackings and attacks.

    OT, but the problem is that airliners crashing into massive buildings of this type don’t cause them to collapse ( also WTC7 – not hit by any aircraft). This much we know, so the 9/11 issue starts from there.

    The relevant questions are who wired these buildings, how did they gain access and what parts of the government/media were/are covering for the planners?

    • Replies: @Sean
  33. Sean says:
    @2stateshmustate

    I do not actually think Saudi Arabia was responsible for 9/11, but it is also dubious that Israel was.

    No, the only so-called nation that benefited from 911 is and was Israel. They are the most likely suspects.

    Exactly. Why wouldn’t they be worried that the Saudi Arabian government would not know in a heartbeat who was behind 9/11 and why, and defend themselves by denouncing Israel publicly as the culprit doing it to cause an invasion of Iraq. That would make the bamboozling of America into an invasion an extremely difficult thing.

    Given that they are known to have a a good secret service and an obvious motive, how could Israel know that the CIA, NSA. DIA and FBI would not instantly suspect them and have that confirmed by the Saudis. Why would they be unconcerned that CIA special units /Delta force would not then grab the Mossad art students and take them to a secret prison and keep them there and torture the truth out of them.

    It may be objected that the Israel Lobby is too powerful for those things to happen but if that is so why would Israel need to stage 9/11 in the first place? And the extreme likelihood of Saudi Arabia retaliating for the loose frame by publicly accusing Israel of faking the whole thing to get Iraq invaded is not something that Israel could effectively counteract unless they already had established total control over America. But if they had total control, why would they need 9/11?

    • Replies: @2stateshmustate
    , @pensword
  34. Sean says:
    @Miro23

    OT, but the problem is that airliners crashing into massive buildings of this type don’t cause them to collapse

    Who would try to fake something that cannot happen? It defeats the purpose of a false flag.

    • Replies: @Miro23
  35. APilgrim says:

    KSA is properly pursuing their national interests, which differ from Globalist Objectives.

    The present world price of O&G, is to the economic advantage of OPEC. These price levels also benefit O&G exporters such as Russia & the USA. Iran production is unneeded. Venezuela & Canada Tar Sands production is still unprofitable. So the present price is good for the long-term competitive O&G commercial interests of KSA, Russia and the USA.

    WAPO is evil. WAPO columnists, reporters, editors & publishers are EVIL.

    Let them die.

  36. @Ron Unz

    Well, we are told that the participants were Saudis, led by a Saudi. That may not be true, but the fact remains that the US government is on record as believing a bunch of Saudis did something pretty horrendous, without disrupting relations.

    So, it is quite easy to imagine that if other Saudis now actually do something horrendous, the US will not feel obligated to respond.

  37. Sean says:
    @pensword

    This was the last grievance cited among bin Laden’s alleged litany of motives, which was topped rather clearly by American support for Israeli tyranny against Palestinians

    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-a-close-encounter-with-the-man-who-shook-the-world-2278035.html
    June 1996 Just 10 days before, a truck bomb had torn down part of the US Air Force housing complex at al-Khobar in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, and we were speaking in the shadow of the deaths of the 19 US soldiers killed there. And Bin Laden knew what he wanted to say. “Not long ago, I gave advice to the Americans to withdraw their troops from Saudi Arabia. Now let us give some advice to the governments of Britain and France to take their troops out – because what happened in Riyadh and al-Khobar showed that the people who did this have a deep understanding in choosing their targets. They hit their main enemy, which is the Americans. They killed no secondary enemies, nor their brothers in the army or the police in Saudi Arabia… I give this advice to the government of Britain.” He said the Americans must leave Saudi Arabia, must leave the Gulf. The “evils” of the Middle East arose from America’s attempt to take over the region and from its support for Israel. Saudi Arabia had been turned into “an American colony”.

    He did mention Israel in his interview with Robert Fisk years before 9/11. However I think it is clear Osama bin Laden was infuriated by there being a foreign army in his country. He intended to get that situation rectified, and it was after 9/11.

    https://www.npr.org/2018/06/13/619447088/new-yorker-how-trump-israel-and-the-gulf-states-plan-to-fight-iran
    For years now, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stressed a point about the Middle East, most Arab nations remain officially opposed to Israel. But, Netanyahu says, some key nations quietly work with Israel.

    Israel and Saudi Arabia had converging agendas on Iraq, and they are getting surprisingly close of late. If history is any guide this presages an American attack on Iran.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/jamal-khasoggi-missing-saudi-arabia-journalist-istanbul-opposition-mbs-a8575671.html
    Mr Khashoggi had parallel careers. He was both a journalist and an adviser to a powerful Saudi prince, Turki bin Faisal

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3570751.stm
    The head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisel, remembers his amazement at Bin Laden’s request to use his mujahideen fighters to overthrow the Marxist regime in neighbouring Yemen.

    Khashoggi knew too much.

  38. Z-man says:
    @Prof Watson

    Good points Prof. To me MBS looks like an idiot savant. His association with the Zionist Orthodox Jew Kirshner taints him even more.

  39. @Sean

    I would love to see the Saudis indicted for 911. If that happened you can bet that the defense (if allowed) would present the vast amount of evidence pointing to Israeli involvement. The Israelis would and are doing every thing they can to prevent this.

    Is it possible that some Saudis of high rank were in on 911? Maybe, but because the patsys in the government’s 911 story are Saudis doesn’t mean it was a Saudi operation or even that they had peripheral involvement. Personally I could care less about the Saudis and if they were involved I’d love to see them hang along with the Israelis.

    We’ve seen many times where people of ME descent were entrapped by the FBI on trumped up terrorism charges. This by means of using paid informants who are doing their best to incite unsuspecting patsy’s to say or do anything that can be construed terrorism. This is not difficult to do because most middle easterners hate Israel for its crimes against Arabs.

    On top of which at least 4 of the so-called hijackers were still alive after the attacks
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1559151.stm

    Yes for the present, the Israeli lobby and its fifth column in the US is too powerful especially with its control of the MSM. But that will and is changing.

    Regarding why would the Israels if they have total control of the US government need to do 911. The answer is because they operate by deception, that is their stock in trade.

    The traitor and Israeli asset Bush was elected in large part because he campaigned on a platform of non-involvement in foreign conflicts. This of course was an outright lie. According to his Sec of Treasury Paul O’Neill at Bush’s first Cabinet meeting the invasion of Iraq was the number 1 priority.
    http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/oneill.bush/

    The Israelis needed a so-called Pearl Harbor type even to create hatred towards Arabs and in particularly toward Saddam and Iran to get Americans to accept an American war in the ME.

    The Israelis know damn well that they had better not be seen by the majority of Americans as the instigators of all American’s involvement in ME. They operate by deception. Although they were arrogant enough to have spelled out their plan in the Project for a New American Century;
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/iraq-syria-iran-are-we-to-destroy-iran-next/

    I could go on and on, but I don’t have time. The truth is readily available. I suggest Mr. Christopher Bollyn’s You Tube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVkCxsQWaDo
    Video Link. Who did 911.

    • Agree: renfro
  40. Z-man says:
    @Colin Wright

    At the very least Israel was aware of the Mohammad Atta led al-Qaeda cell and did not inform it’s main benefactor ‘US’ in order to nudge the American public into more anti Arab/Muslim sentiment.

    • Replies: @Colin Wright
    , @Z-man
  41. Sean says:
    @renfro

    Motive for eliminating Khashogg ?

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/jamal-khasoggi-missing-saudi-arabia-journalist-istanbul-opposition-mbs-a8575671.html
    Even before his self-imposed exile, friction began to mount, beginning under King Abdullah, predecessor to the reigning King Salman. He was fired from the editorship of al-Watan, a leading Saudi newspaper. In 2015, Mr Khashoggi was named head of the new Bahrain-based pan-Arab television channel bankrolled by Prince al-Waleed bin Talal; it was ordered to close down within hours of its launch. The final straw came with the arrests of hundreds of royal family members, including Bin Talal, on vague corruption charges. They were locked up inside the Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh

    He picked the wrong horse, but that does not explain why the Saudi Arabian government was so desperate to silence him that they created an international incident over an obscure journalist.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/from-travels-with-bin-laden-to-sparring-with-princes-jamal-khashoggis-provocative-journey/2018/10/07/c1290f28-ca3d-11e8-ad0a-0e01efba3cc1_story.html
    Khashoggi was embedded with bin Laden’s circle of associates, traveled extensively with the al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan

    Khashoggi was the right hand man of the Head of Saudi Arabian intelligence, and close to Osama bin Laden, and was in Afghanistan with him. Khashoggi knew something; very dangerous knowledge to have after he became less than totally reliable because it was something the Saudi Arabian government could under no circumstances have allowed him to divulge. I think it may have been about 9/11.

  42. pensword says:
    @Sean

    Why wouldn’t they be worried that the Saudi Arabian government would not know in a heartbeat who was behind 9/11 and why, and defend themselves by denouncing Israel publicly as the culprit doing it to cause an invasion of Iraq. That would make the bamboozling of America into an invasion an extremely difficult thing.

    This assumes that such an accusation would have the effect you describe. Quite simply, it wouldn’t. Israel has demonstrably greater influence via American government infiltration and media ownership. This isn’t even debatable.

    Why would they be unconcerned that CIA special units /Delta force would not then grab the Mossad art students and take them to a secret prison and keep them there and torture the truth out of them.

    This is laughable. The FBI had over 200 Israeli “art students” detained and this, of itself, raised sustained caterwauling from top Israeli officials, who used individuals such as Alan Dershowitz and Richard Armitage to free the suspects before an investigation into their activities could be completed.

    And you imagine secreting these “students” to a black site would go unnoticed by Israel and its American coteries?

    Incredible.

    It may be objected that the Israel Lobby is too powerful for those things to happen but if that is so why would Israel need to stage 9/11 in the first place?

    The question is predicated on a logical fallacy ~ namely, that Israel couldn’t have perpetrated the 9/11 attacks because it is already powerful enough to get whatever it wants. Nobody assumes Israeli omnipotence.

    The Oded Yinon Plan and the neoconservative “Clean Break” proposal provide glaring proof that Israel sought regime change in Iraq and Syria. The Project for a New American Century explicitly references the necessity of a “new Pearl Harbor”-style attack in order to advance an agenda that dovetails with Israeli hegemonic ambition. And quite predictably, following this “new Pearl Harbor,” the American public widely supported the American invasion of Iraq premised upon the lie that Saddam possessed WMDs.

    Tell us: Barring the 9/11 attacks, how else do you imagine the American public might have been duped into advocating such a colossal blunder? Are you that naive to think that Israel would win their support for such stupidity without first blinding them by the fog of a manufactured war?

  43. Miro23 says:
    @Sean

    @Miro23

    OT, but the problem is that airliners crashing into massive buildings of this type don’t cause them to collapse

    Who would try to fake something that cannot happen? It defeats the purpose of a false flag.

    You’re assuming that there would be a public debate afterwards.

    IMO it was mostly designed to initiate a National Emergency with a generalized ME war (inc. Iran), and most importantly activate existing COG (Continuity of Government) legislation to suspend Democracy.

    In these circumstances, 9/11 would have achieved its purpose and nobody would be questioning anything in the new Zioglob Deep State dictatorship.

    • Replies: @Sean
  44. T. Weed says:

    I agree with Ron Unz that Sean and Colin Wright are…well, their theories about Saudis pulling off 9-11..”insane”. It was Israelis dancing and high-fiving on that Weehawken rooftop as they watched the towers come down. They were celebrating their handiwork. A housewife saw them, called the police, they were stopped in their van, in which dogs smelled explosives, the Israelis (five of them, I think) were Mossad, they failed FBI lie detector tests, but the Jew in charge of our homeland security at the time let them go back to Israel. Had they been Arabs, they’d have been waterboarded. When they got back to Israel (they were good at wiring buildings to collapse, but pretty dumb) one of them blurted out that they had been sent to America to “record” the event. Mr. Wright and Sean are ins..well, misinformed, if they think that jet fuel is hot enough to melt the steel in those buildings. The Saudis were patsies, just like the “lone nut” who killed JFK. The same tribe benefited from both murders.

    • Agree: renfro
    • Replies: @Sean
    , @2stateshmustate
  45. Anon[130] • Disclaimer says: • Website

    Russia didn’t do it?

  46. Sean says:

    No. I don’t assume Israeli omnipotence, but rather them thinking through a plan to make sure it has no unnecessary risks. I did not say Israel couldn’t have done a false flag with Saudis, I said they wouldn’t have because it would implicate the Saudi government and give them a reason to exculpate themselves by publicly revealing what Israel was up to. Using Saudis to frame Iraq would have incurred a huge risk of the Saudi government screaming to all and sundry that Israel was behind it and its lobbyists were going to get the US to invade Iraq. Completely unnecessary to use Saudis and extremely likely to provoke the Saudi government.

    As it happened the art students were actually rounded up by the FBI, which rather suggests the FBI can pick up all of these people (because they did so). If the 9/11 collapse were a demolition then the CIA has explosive experts who would quite possibly realize this was some kind of false flag on watching the films of it and so has the Army. If the CIA, DIA. and Joint Chiefs go to the President about a huge mass murdering false flag plot possibly by a friendly foreign government then he has the authority to order detentions of unlawful combatants and their sharp interrogation. If the intelligence services had said they thought the art students might be involved, they would have been kept and anyone agitating for their release would have been suspect. Taking the chance that the hundreds of art student would be released seems a very foolhardy plan to go with if any of the art student or Mossad agents still in the US and vulnerable to being broken had knowledge that could implicate Israel. Once you hear that door back shut, there is a chance someone could break right there. The Army is for the purpose of killing America’s enemies, and they kill lots of innocent people every war, they have people willing to torture possible innocent people as well I suspect.

    In an attempt to show that the 2001 9/11 was designed to precisely produce the event of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, you ask how else could the US have invaded Iraq except in the aftermath of the 9/11 that actually happened.

    I will give you two ways that would have achieved that result, and much more quickly (Israel needed to stop the Saddam-backed Palestinian suicide bombers remember), predictably, and safely than the desperate leap in the dark that a false-flagging of the 9/11 that actually happened would have been for Israel.

    1) It seems to me that framing Saddam’s Iraq with a mostly Iraqi hijacker team for 9/11 would be one way of getting a swift and sure invasion of Iraq. It is a way that would be consistent with a new Pearl Harbor, for if I remember correctly the US immediately declared war on the country that had attacked Pearl Harbor. The putative false flagging of 9/11 as it in fact happened was only likely to produce the invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion of Afghanistan delayed the invasion of Iraq for over a year.

    2) The invasion of Iraq was not on the basis that Saddam had been involved in 9/11 it was because he refused to submit to weapons inspectors. America could have demanded Saddam submit to weapons inspections and then invaded him when he refused.

    • Replies: @renfro
    , @pensword
    , @pensword
  47. Sean says:
    @T. Weed

    I do not actually believe 9/11 was the work of the Saudis, but if it was a false flag it was them.

    Sean are ins..well, misinformed, if they think that jet fuel is hot enough to melt the steel in those buildings

    OK, fine. They were trying to fake the appearance of something happening that is in fact impossible. And it was filmed from every angle and anyone can see it was faked. So the 9/11 collapses are in both theory and practice clearly not as the official narrative has it: double impossible. They don’t care it is a blatantly obviously impossible false flag and demolition story because they control everything. Assuming all this, their need to do 9/11 seems less than pressing. If they could do it they would not have to. Maybe their purport is beyond my understanding. I do have a touch of the schizotypal in my thinking so maybe I am just talking nonsense in the witching hour.

    Khashoggi knew more than anyone outside the handful of people in the Saudi royal family inner circle about Osama bin Laden’s links to the Saudi government, of that there is little doubt. And once he became an opponent of the Saudi government the regieme stopped at nothing to silence him. One might reasonable infer that Khashoggi knew something that the Saudi Arabian government needed to keep a secret. It quite possibly was about bin Laden.

    • Replies: @Ron Unz
  48. Sean says:
    @Miro23

    Net of Magic: Wonders and Deceptions in India (1991):

    I’m writing a book on magic, I explain, and I’m asked, Real magic? By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. No, I answer: Conjuring tricks, not real magic. Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic.

    When something appears to have happened that is impossible, as in the act of a stage magician, there is always a public debate afterwards; only about how it was made to look as if had actually happened. No one is fooled into thinking that it really has happened.

    • Replies: @Miro23
  49. Ron Unz says:
    @Sean

    I do not actually believe 9/11 was the work of the Saudis, but if it was a false flag it was them.

    Okay, let me get this right…

    You’re saying maybe, just maybe 9/11 was a Saudi false-flag. And the Saudis covered up their involvement by ensuring that all the hijackers were Saudis, Osama the alleged mastermind was a Saudi, and there was a mountain of other evidence all traced back to the Saudis.

    What a totally diabolical false-flag plot…

    • Replies: @Sean
  50. @Z-man

    ‘At the very least Israel was aware of the Mohammad Atta led al-Qaeda cell and did not inform it’s main benefactor ‘US’ in order to nudge the American public into more anti Arab/Muslim sentiment.’

    That is exactly my opinion. I’ll add that the readiness of their cameramen demonstrates that they were aware not only that there was going to be an attack, but that they knew the details down to the day, time, and targets.

    The vast number of Israeli ‘art students’ who suddenly decamped afterwards demonstrates that this was a rather elaborate operation. My guess is that the Saudis were carefully — if unwittingly — shepherded through the whole thing.

  51. renfro says:
    @Sean

    No. I don’t assume Israeli omnipotence, but rather them thinking through a plan to make sure it has no unnecessary risks. I did not say Israel couldn’t have done a false flag with Saudis,

    The Israelis dont ‘think through risk’. They think nothing of running a risk because even if caught they lie, cry antisemite and demand the US get them out of it.
    Israelis are always trying to infiltrate groups. That a Mossad group was living on the same block as the hijackers in Fla should give you a clue. I feel fairly certain the Mossad was sheparding the hijackers along their way.

    February 6, 2000: Apparent Mossad Attempt to Infiltrate Al-Qaeda

    India’s largest Newsweekly reports that it appears a recent Mossad attempt to infiltrate al-Qaeda failed when undercover agents were stopped on their way to Bangladesh by Indian customs officials. These 11 men appeared to be from Afghanistan, but had Israeli passports. One expert states, “It is not unlikely for Mossad to recruit 11 Afghans in Iran and grant them Israeli citizenship to penetrate a network such as bin Laden’s. They would begin by infiltrating them into an Islamic radical group in an unlikely place like Bangladesh.” [Week, 2/6/2000]

    • Replies: @Sean
  52. @T. Weed

    I just want to add one thing about JFK’s murder, always keep in mind that Robert Kennedy
    was ostensibly murdered by a Palestinian.

    Robert Kennedy had a good chance of being elected. The scum who had his brother murdered could not allow him to take the presidency because he would use his powers to get them. They had to have him killed.

    I think the fact that the patsy in that murder was a Palestinian points to the Israelis as the true murderers. If that wasn’t a false flag operation, I don’t know what is.

    BTW Robert Kennedy’s brother has said recently that he does not believe Sirhan was the killer.

    • Replies: @T. Weed
  53. Z-man says:
    @Z-man

    Oh and that was a heinous thing for the Israelis (our so called friend) to do, going to their character, or lack thereof, as a people.

  54. Miro23 says:
    @Sean

    When something appears to have happened that is impossible, as in the act of a stage magician, there is always a public debate afterwards; only about how it was made to look as if had actually happened. No one is fooled into thinking that it really has happened.

    Some points here:

    – The public weren’t invited to a magic show on 9/11.

    – The high rises really collapsed. It wasn’t an illusion.

    – I was entirely fooled by the Arab Terrorist story. Jets flying into high rise buildings are not something that I was familiar with.

    – It was only 8 years later that I discovered that a third high rise (Building 7) also collapsed that day, and I wondered why the 9/11 Commission Report was completely silent about it.

    – I now understand the fakery (there are many entry points when you look), and the fact that Israelis and US Zionists appear all over this False Flag. Also the complexity of the operation, with its level of access, planning, execution and media involvement was way beyond anything the Saudis were capable of.

    – That 9/11 is being investigated at all, shows that it was basically a failure. Since Sept. 11 2001 the US should have been under an Emergency Administration (dictatorship) in line with existing COG (Continuity of Government) legislation = No independent publications and busy days for Homeland Security and its then head Michael Chertoff (curiously a physical lookalike of Joseph Goebbels).

  55. Sean says:
    @renfro

    In 1994 the government of Saudi Arabia stripped Osama bin Laden (in exile in Sudan) of his Saudi citizenship, and cut off the bin Laden family business’s lucrative contracts that had made them billionaires. Faced with ruin his family publicly denounced and disowned him and took away his share of the family business. His mother went to Sudan to try and get him to renounce his opposition to the Saud regieme in Saudi Arabia, but bin Laden could not be moved. Do you know who bin Laden’s family sent next because they thought he might be able to succeed in convincing Osama bin Laden where his own mother’s tears had failed? It was his old friend “the pious young journalist Jamal Khashoggi” who as we now know also happened to be right hand man of Prince Turki al-Faisel, head of the Saudi Arabian secret service.

  56. T. Weed says:
    @2stateshmustate

    Yes, of course Sirhan was a patsy, like Oswald. The shots that killed Kennedy in the hotel kitchen came from behind, up close, not in front, where Sirhan was. He was the perfect patsy: young, confused, easily hypnotized or drugged, and what better propaganda for Israel! See, America? Poor little Israel is also a victim of these wicked Palestinians! Sirhan claims to have no recollection of that evening in the hotel. The Elders play chess, others, checkers.

  57. Sean says:
    @Ron Unz

    If not the King, the chief of Saudi Arabian intelligence may well have been in a position to know about 9/11 beforehand, and Khashoggi was a close adviser to that very official. Khashoggi’s secret service boss, Turki bin Faisal Al Saud, has been implicated in many people’s opinion as being somehow involved in assisting with bin Laden’s preparations for 9/11. The 28 classified pages of the official 9/11 report are, according to several people who have seen them, including an unnamed congressman quoted by the New Yorker, incontrovertible evidence of funds from certain members of the Saudi Arabian government/Saud family finding their way to bin Laden’s 9/11 infrastructure. One might also consider that Zacarias Moussaoui, the “20th hijacker” has alleged that Turki bin Faisal funded some parts of the operation. He may have had complex motives for not stopping 9/11, but he certainly could have the reasonable expectation that bin Laden was pegged as an enemy of the Saudi state. A false flag in that restricted ‘turning a blind eye’ sense by a single spymaster-prince resentful at being edged out of his position would not make it a Saudi false flag admittedly. Nevertheless, I believe Khashoggi maybe knew something and the Saudi Arabian government were worried he was getting ready to talk.

    After the 1994 suppression of the Sahwa movement and the removal of his own citizenship and fortune, Osama bin Laden saw himself and was regarded by the Saudi Arabian government as their chief tormentor. From exile in Sudan, he had been applauding the terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia that started in 1995 including Iranian backed terrorism such as the Khobar Towers bombing against the American army in Saudi Arabia, while prophesying the overthrow of the Saud family regieme. The official story is that Jamal Khashoggi’s boss, Turki bin Faisal Al Saud Director of Saudi Arabia General Intelligence Directorate, had been trying to have Osama bin Laden killed or kidnapped since 1990 (when they had their last meeting).

    Even if it is not true that against Bill Clinton’s wishes, Turki bin Faisal declined Sudan’s offer to extradite bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and swift execution, it seems likely that the Saudis could have had bin Laden killed in Sudan where he lived openly on an estate in reduced circumstances. Khashoggi is known to have visited him there in 1994. It was only in 1996 that bin Laden traveled back to Afghanistan, where he preached expelling America from Saudi Arabia. Twenty days after the the East African United States embassy bombings of 1998 America launched Operation Infinite Reach attacks on bin Laden in Afghanistan. Following this attempt by the US to kill him he went into hiding. As far as the world knew bin Laden and any Saudi Arabians taking orders from him were the sworn enemies of the Saud family government of “Saudi” Arabia.

    Turki bin Faisal Al Saud resigned as as head of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Directorate ten days before 9/11. His patron no longer in a position to help him, Khashoggi was distrusted by the inner circles of government, and left the country. We now know from intercepted communications between the government and their Embassy in Turkey that the Saudi Arabian government were frantic to silence him, and unable to lure him back, targeted him for a assassination at the predictable cost of a international public relations disaster (they did not bother to do that with bin Laden I note). Their reputation would have suffered rather worse damage if Khashoggi, safe in Turkey, had revealed that the Saudi government, or at least Turki bin Faisal Al Saud of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Directorate had known beforehand about 9/11, but deliberately did nothing to prevent it.

    • Replies: @renfro
  58. @Colin Wright

    Al-Qauida members were pissed at the US and primed for Mossad to hire and train them to carry out its mission! A very smart method of pulling the dumb Bush into the ME as we have witnessed it for the past 17 years! This well planned atrocity has given Israel a total freedom to do anything it wanted to accomplish with no consequences!

    • Replies: @Colin Wright
  59. @Ron Unz

    9/11 was the same as if 19 terrorists, 18 of them American, had attacked the Kaaba during ramadan, in order to bring “democracy” to Saudi Arabia, financed by a number of prominent US citizens, with names such as Rockefeller, Gates, Bezos, Trump even, but the US, though possessing an all invasive domestic security apparatus, claimed no knowledge or involvement.

    • Replies: @Colin Wright
  60. What’s new here? The house of Saud was always a crime family. The only new twist is that now they acted like a crime family openly – murdered the guy they considered a traitor. Only to be expected. Read “The Godfather”, for god’s sake.

  61. renfro says:
    @Sean

    Nevertheless, I believe Khashoggi maybe knew something and the Saudi Arabian government were worried he was getting ready to talk.

    So he was waiting 17 years to spill the beans on 911? Nonsense.

  62. Sean says:

    https://www.npr.org/2018/10/11/656682211/why-saudi-arabias-government-felt-threatened-by-journalist-jamal-khashoggi

    KELLY: Does it still strike you as puzzling, though? I mean, the reports being sourced to Turkish officials, Turkish investigators saying that this team of 15 people flew in on private planes with the express purpose of targeting Khashoggi – that just seems like a massive operation to take out one editor.

    HAMID: It sounds so crazy that it’s hard to get your head around it that Saudi Arabia would go this far to allegedly kill one of their critics.

    They clearly have the money to get him killed without making it so blatant who was doing it. One explanation is they needed to question Khashoggi to see what he knew that they didn’t (if anything), what he had told the Turks, and whether he had arranged for compromising material to be released on his death or disappearance as an insurance policy. The Turkish press are reporting that he was tortured during an interrogation before being killed.

    Khashoggi only left Saudi Arabia in June 2017, going to the US, where he was merely an advocate of faster reforms in Saudi Arabia. Khashoggi’s latest patron “Arabian Warren Buffett” Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud (who had annoyed the Saudi government by offering NYC $10 million as a token of sympathy for 9/11) contacted him in November supposedly asking him to return to Saudi Arabia. Within days, Prince Al-Waleed was arrested detained, allegedly tortured, and only released after three months. Khashoggi then accepted the protection of Erdoğan (who had accused Saudi Arabia of being non-Islamic and heretics) and was not only living in Turkey but making arrangements to marry a Turkish woman.

    Some of the sections of the supposedly now-fully-declassified 28 pages of the official 9/11 report remain withheld, and while obviously inconclusive they do pertain to elements of the Saudi Arabian state and ruling family involvement. In all likelihood there are a few things along those lines that the Saudi government knows, but America never found out about. And some things even the Saudi government may not know but merely suspect. Khashoggi probably knew more about the background to 9/11 than anyone alive.

    The Saudi Arabian government may not be sure what guilty involvement highly placed Saudis like Khashoggi’s former patron the prince boss head of the Saudi secret service had in no-questions-asked facilitation of preparations for 9/11 or just turning a bind eye to them, but once Khashoggi was clearly cutting all ties of loyalty to his former patrons, country and family, they could his trust his absolute discretion no longer. In addition to being a old friend of bin Laden, Khashoggi was former factotum of Turki bin Faisal Al Saud (who worked with bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 80’s) . Prince Turki bin Faisal was Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Directorate chief until ten days before 9/11.

  63. pensword says:
    @Sean

    Aren’t you the same individual who theorized that Mr. Unz’s latest masterworks were the result of sleep deprivation?

    Looking at what you’ve provided thus far, I’d say it’s time for you to hit the hay.

    • Replies: @Sean
  64. Art says:

    The cat is out of the bag – Trumps panties are in a bunch – this murder is gumming up the works. Dreams of an Israel/Saudi love thing are evaporating. Jared Kushner’s shallow ME plan is falling apart. (Poor Daddy – Ivanka is mad.)

    Think Peace — Art

    • Replies: @Sean
    , @Colin Wright
  65. Sean says:
    @pensword

    Maybe so. I am trying to cut down on alcohol and caffeine. Our host himself said his recent months of writing had been a marathon effort. I thought it was showing signs of being progressively less tightly argued by the 9/11 piece, if one compares his writing on Ivy League admissions for instance.

    Here is a little more.
    An anti-American iman called Fahad al-Thumairy at the King Fahad mosque in Los Angeles was an employee of the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Another, San Diego based employee of that organisation was Omar al-Bayoumi*, also a Saudi national who many in the Muslim community of San Diego where he was well known had always assumed was a Saudi Arabian intelligence agent.

    INa post-9/11 interview with the FBI, Bayoumi had said that he was dining in a Middle Eastern restaurant in Los Angeles in early 2000 when he happened to strike up a conversation with two complete strangers with familiar accents. A friendship developed, based off that single encounter. Bayoumi helped the strangers find apartments in San Diego; threw them a large welcome party; co-signed their leases and provided them money for rent; let them borrow his cellphone; even introduced them to people who helped them obtain drivers licenses and contact flight schools. Those two men were hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar* and Nawaf al-Hazmi, the first plotters to enter the United States, whose lives would end when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.

    Shortly after that supposedly coincidental meeting, (which one or two FBI agents think occurred after LA based Fahad al-Thumairy met with Bayoumi) the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs more than doubled Bayoumi’s salary and he made nearly a hundred calls to Saudi officials in the US including 30 to the Saudi Embassy desk of the head of Da’Wah department within the Islamic Affairs ministry, namely Khaleid Sowailem (diplomatic status removed by the US in 2003) who was also in contact with yet another employee of the Saudi government Islamic Affairs Da’Wah department who was also the head of a Somali non profit in San Diego. The Somali (Omar Abdi Mohamed) got $370,000 in donations from an Al Qaeda, supporting charity, Global Relief (this was just after the 1998 East African Embassy bombing when the US had started trying to track terrorist funding) and then used a largely ME money transfer service called Dahabshiil to move it.

    The trail does not go entirely cold because in 1998, a Somali Al Qaeda operative named Mohamed Sulaiman Barre started a Dahabshiil in Karachi, Pakistan with only the capacity to receive money. Barre has said he got money from Somalis in America. Also in Karachi at the same time was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of 9/11, who sent roughly $3- 400,000 to the 19 hijackers for the 9/11 operation.

    The theory is San Diego is but one case of a support network collusion for the 9/11 operation by elements of the Saudi Arabian nomenklatura in the Ministry Of Islamic Affairs, and that Thumairy tasked Bayoumi with looking after the hijackers and his salary from the Saudi government Ministry of Islamic Affairs was raised in accordance with his greater responsibilities. Fortunately, we know that Khaleid Sowailem cannot have been organising the support of the initial two 9/11 hijackers (Khalid al-Mihdhar* and Nawaf al-Hazmi) that entered the US, as part of his work at the Saudi Embassy, Washington DC, because the staff of Saudi embassies don’t engage in activities incompatible with their status or cover them up. Well, not unless it is necessary.

    *Some former members of the San Diego office of the FBI think they were kept in the dark by the CIA who were working with Saudi intelligence and using their agent Bayoumi in a joint attempt to recruit Khalid al-Mihdhar* and Nawaf al-Hazm as double agents inside Al Qaeda . It is known that a CIA agent forbade a member of an oversees joint intel team from informing FBI headquarters that Khalid al-Mihdhar* was a member of Al Qaeda and had a U.S. visa. I wonder about that though because the landlord who Bayoumi found for the pair in San Diego was an FBI informer and told his handler he had Saudis living with him (but not that they were attending pilot training).

  66. Sean says:
    @Art

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2016/04/20/saudi-threat-to-divest-u-s-assets-meaningless-should-not-deter-search-for-911-truth/

    In 2016 the Saudi finance minister threatened to divest all of his country’s estimated $750 billion in US assets if Saudi Arabia’s sovereign immunity against legal action for involvement in terrorism was revoked by a bill. Obama tried to veto it and Graham and McCain also campaigned for them to keep their immunity. You can imagine how much the Saudis spend on Washington lobbyists.


    Video Link

  67. pensword says:
    @Sean

    I did not say Israel couldn’t have done a false flag with Saudis, I said they wouldn’t have because it would implicate the Saudi government and give them a reason to exculpate themselves by publicly revealing what Israel was up to.

    Once again, flawed reasoning, premised on the assumption the Saudis have greater influence over the official narrative than does Israel. You assume that this entirely hypothetical “exculpation” by the Saudis would have any reasonable effect of “outing” Israel, particularly given Israel’s influence over American government and media. In a PR war between Israel and the House of Sa’ud, the former would certainly prevail.

    You also conjure a scenario wherein American intelligence agencies are capable of acting wholly in the interest of America, as if no political pressure may be brought to bear on them. With all due respect, “daft” doesn’t begin to describe the silliness of this assumption.

    In 2000, some time after Insight Magazine‘s exposé of Israeli telecom espionage throughout the highest branches of American government was published, Paul Rodriguez, one of the article’s authors, asked why the story didn’t have the impact it obviously should have. Yet, within his own investigation, we find the following:

    A senior government official who would go no further than to admit awareness of the FBI probe, says: “It is a politically sensitive matter. I can’t comment on it beyond telling you that anything involving Israel on this particular matter is off-limits. It’s that hot.”

    If this particular story ~ which, upon breaking, should have been headline news in every major American media venue ~ is so casually suppressed and shuttled down the memory hole, such an occasion, of itself, demonstrates that Israel has comprehensive ~ though not absolute ~ power over American media, especially when it is implicated in crimes of this magnitude.

    1) It seems to me that framing Saddam’s Iraq with a mostly Iraqi hijacker team for 9/11 would be one way of getting a swift and sure invasion of Iraq.

    The question of “which Arabs” allegedly perpetrated the attacks isn’t relevant here.

    All Israel had to depend upon was the collective ignorance of the American people as per the Arab muslim world. After all, their media foot soldiers had been promoting exactly that for quite a long time prior to 9/11/2001. (The “angry muslim terrorist” meme has been advanced largely by their design.) As such, the transition from anti-bin Laden bellicosity to anti-Saddam belligerence occurred almost seamlessly as Jewish neocons advanced false intelligence about Iraq. The result? An overwhelming majority of the American public approved of America’s invasion of Iraq:

    Poll: 70% believe Saddam, 9-11 link
    WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly seven in 10 Americans believe it is likely that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, says a poll out almost two years after the terrorists’ strike against this country.

    2) The invasion of Iraq was not on the basis that Saddam had been involved in 9/11 it was because he refused to submit to weapons inspectors.

    Yet this was not the rationale with which most Americans were familiar, having been fed a series of flagrant lies about an inevitable “mushroom cloud over Manhattan” and the like. If you think that 70% of Americans would have been convinced to invade Iraq on the basis of Saddam’s “refusing to submit to weapons inspectors,” you’re peddling sheer nonsense.

    Are you, by chance, the former “BlackJade” from the now-defunct Liberty Forum? Your line of argument is awfully similar to his.

    • Replies: @Sean
  68. Sean says:
    @pensword

    No I am just me and as far as I know I am the first person to draw attention to the geopolitical background to what 70% believe in–a Saddam, 9-11 link. An invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam being necessary for the withdrawal of America forces in Saudi Arabia required to deterring Saddam from any more adventures the withdrawal by the US was needed to keep the Saud family regieme in power and also happened to be Osama bin Laden’s primary objective judging by Bin Laden’s 1996 fatwā entitled ‘Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places’.

    If Israel did 9/11 the Saudis would know. This was before fracking and I suppose you are too young to remember the oil embargo on countries supporting Israel that Saudis devastated western ecomonies with.

    I suppose you think the Israel Lobby are so powerful and Saudi princes so fearful that no influential element in Saudi society would dare squeak a protest if Israel framed them for 9/11, well you are wrong. A week after the 9/11 attacks the future patron of Jamal Khashoggi, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, (the same fellow who was arrested and deprived of his several billions in 2017 only days after having a phone conversation with Khashoggi) publicly said the United States of America should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause, and when Giuliani gave back bin Talal’s a $10 million donation to NYC because of his mention of Israel, bin Tala said it was because Americans were scared of Jewish pressure.

    Now do you think the Saudis would stay silent and be implicated in mass murder if the Israel were framing Saudis for committing the mass murder that was actually an Israeli false flag operation? Saudis may well have far less influence over the official narrative than does Israel, but Israel’s Lobby could not keep it out the news that Saudi Arabia was accusing Israel of having false flagged 9/11. It is absolutely predictable that in self defense the Saudis would have to accuse Israel and take economic actions similar to the one I mentioned above. In my opinion the official narrative of the hijackers being Saudis working for bin Laden is a powerful piece of evidence that Israel did not false flag 9/11. If Israel did it they would have used Iraqi hijacker-patsies.

    Saudi Arabians knew all about bin Laden ability to mount military operations, starting from the 1987 Battle of Jaji “Although relatively unimportant in military terms, the battle had been chronicled daily by Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist, and his reporting left an impression of bin Laden as a victorious military leader and attracted a number of followers to his cause” Bin Ladens 1996 declaration of jihad from Afghanistan entitled, “Message from Osama bin Laden to his Muslim Brothers in the Whole World and Especially in the Arabian Peninsula: Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Mosques; Expel the Heretics from the Arabian Peninsula.” TheBin Laden Issue Station unit of the CIA was created. The CIA’s bin Laden Station (which was dubbed the Mason family because it was heavy female and other CIA departments thought they were over enthusiastic) got a complete picture of bin Laden’s organisation (including an interest in a suicide plane attacks on CIA headquarters) from turncoat Jamal al-Fadl . Bin Laden activated the East African Al Qaeda and the CIA unit asked if he could be assassinated. In 1998 East African cell of Al Qaeda bombed two American Embassies, the US try to kill him with cruse missiles in Operation Infinite Reach and Bin Laden and al Zawahiri of Egyptian Islamic Jihad merge their organisations and announce a policy of killing Americans. At the London Mosque a Saudi preacher later jailed for helping with the 1998 bombings was reported by the BBC to have advocated crashing hijacked jets into skyscrapers. By 1999 bin Laden is in hiding and although the CIA locate the house he is in, Clinton repeatedly declines to kill him with a another attack because he is scared of civilian casualties (there is a tape of Clinton admitting this), bin Laden charts on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and is linked to a bomb attack on a US navy ship in Yemen. An armed drone attack attack was called off because because of the winter weather; the CIA Bin Laden Station communications intercepts on Al Qaeda pick up increasing indications of a massive ‘Armageddon-like’ operation underway. On Monday, August 6, 2001 the President’s Daily Brief by the Central Intelligence Agency is Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US, 36 days later came 9/11. The US forces in the invasion of Afghanistan up until the Battle of Tora Bora had not lost a single soldier in combat and they did not lose any in the so called “Battle of Tora Bora” either. The army then was directed by Bush to concentrated on the invasion of Iraq, and the CIA bin Laden unit was disbanded and the members reassigned.

    I don’t think the Saudi’s would stay quite about and Israeli false flag implicating them. I would note that bin Laden was not a coward he was patriotic by his own lights and as Robert Fist recalled gave the impression of having conquered all fear of death; the Saudis who fought with him against the Soviets were brave too. Osama’s father was killed in a plane crash and in the 80’s his oldest brother died when he flew a tiny plane into a power line in America. There was a streak of foolhardiness in the bin Ladens, but it must also be borne in mind that Osama’s father Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden had started as an uneducated one eyed (put out in a Sudan street football game) labourer from Yemen and yet became a constriction mogul and good friend of the Saudi king

    During the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure by insurgents calling for the overthrow of the House of Saud the Saudi army found it extremely difficult to blast holes in the building Osama bin Laden’s father had been the contractor for, due to it being of extraordinary strength. On the other hand, Jamal Khashoggi recalled a young Osama in his Macarona Street, Jeddah home talking about taking down a wall to make two rooms into one. “He just knocked a huge hole in the wall with a sledgehammer”.

  69. https://www.cfr.org/blog/where-jamal-khashoggi

    I think Mr. Khashoggi’s ties to the CFR are the unexamined piece here. KSA is practically untouchable in American politics for their friendly relationship with Israel, animosity against Iran, and purchase of US weapons. Had Khashoggi not been a friend, if not member, of the CFR no one would care about his death.

  70. buckwheat says:

    This terrorist sympathizer got just what he deserved. The United States has no business putting sanctions on the Saudi’s for this “taking out the trash affair”, we have plenty of blood on our hands too.

  71. Murdered and mutilated by his own demons,The Media martyrs/canonise WMD champion Khashoggi in preference to the souls of Falujah…. Thank God he Khashoggi wasn’t successful in Lebanon.

  72. @Monty Ahwazi

    ‘Al-Qauida members were pissed at the US and primed for Mossad to hire and train them to carry out its mission! A very smart method of pulling the dumb Bush into the ME as we have witnessed it for the past 17 years! This well planned atrocity has given Israel a total freedom to do anything it wanted to accomplish with no consequences!’

    I’d say that you exaggerate Israel’s agency. My own guess is that Israel became aware of al Qaeda’s intentions and realized how well this would serve their own ends. They then benevolently watched the plot unfold, helping it along to an unknown extent.

    As to the effects of the attack, I agree with you completely.

  73. @Art

    ‘The cat is out of the bag – Trumps panties are in a bunch – this murder is gumming up the works. Dreams of an Israel/Saudi love thing are evaporating. Jared Kushner’s shallow ME plan is falling apart. (Poor Daddy – Ivanka is mad.)

    Think Peace — Art’

    On the contrary. I think Trump is like the guy who has been forced into agreeing to take the family to Disney World but would really rather skip it. He sees a chance to wreck the plan and takes it.

    Trump took Adelson’s money and agreed to foment a war with Iran, but he has no actual desire to fulfill his commitment. Now here comes this Saudi scandal — and a splendid opportunity to wreck the whole anti-Iran coalition. Trump’s taking full advantage.

    • Replies: @Art
  74. @forgottenpseudonym

    ‘9/11 was the same as if 19 terrorists, 18 of them American, had attacked the Kaaba during ramadan, in order to bring “democracy” to Saudi Arabia, financed by a number of prominent US citizens, with names such as Rockefeller, Gates, Bezos, Trump even, but the US, though possessing an all invasive domestic security apparatus, claimed no knowledge or involvement.’

    I think the ideology in Saudi Arabia is such that all sorts of Wahhabi fundamentalist fun and games are permitted and even seen as a worthy use of all that wealth the country is awash in. 9/11 was kind of like the accident you have because you always drive at 95 mph in crowded parking lots. Of course you didn’t mean to run over the toddler. Nevertheless, your behavior made such an event very likely.

    • Replies: @Sean
  75. Word on the street is that he was a CIA asset betrayed by Jared to his bff MbS. The CIA has been unhappy with Jared and his interaction with MbS.

  76. Sean says:
    @Colin Wright

    Bush disbanded the CIA’s original Bin Laden station, but when the Mason Family (as the male led largely female team were known) were brought back by Obama they went over all the old interrogations and noticed the Al-Qaeda members had a pattern of downplaying the significance of one individual; he was bin Laden’s courier and that is how the CIA got began to track Osama down. Even under torture no one in Al-Qaeda would give up the big secret and I doubt we will ever be able to get the truth about whether some people in the Saudi Arabian Embassy Islamic Affairs department knew, half knew, they were assisting bin Laden’s organisation in an action against America.

    However, and as he intimated while campaigning (“It could be Saudi Arabia”), Trump could very easily turn on them and use 9/11 against the Saud regieme if they got out of line, (ie not pay their bill). Arabs have a different attitude to contracts that other cultures, Trump understand them, he was notorious for changing his deals Darth Vader style.

    Jamal Khashoggi was probably killed for his last piece which criticised the Saudi war in Yemen. His offence was lèse-majesté agin the nation state of Saudi Arabia. Any conceivable leader of Saudi Arabia would have to fight to maintain the friendly south in control of Yemen. It is not really religious because as Osama nin Laden noted with outrage, the Saudi family regieme were and still are to a great extent backing former communists of south Yemen against the north. Osama’s father Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was from Yemen, and it is perhaps not coincidental that Osama criticised the Saud regieme for aiding the south against the north.

    https://www.ecfr.eu/mena/yemen
    While the concept of Yemen as a distinct territory predates Islam, it has rarely been under the rule of a single government. For much of the past century, the country was split into the northern Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the southern People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). These were unified in 1990. The line separating north and south reflected the country’s division under British and Ottoman rule. But the cultural differences between the two regions are real – and accentuated by their divergent histories. Culture and politics in the north are coloured by over 1,000 years of Zaidi theocratic rule – a branch of Shi’ism found almost exclusively in Yemen. By contrast, the south was transformed by a century of British influence,

    Video Link

    Although the mecenaries failed to restore the royalists in Yemen, they did help defeat Nasser and destroy his anti-colonial project. But more than that, their secret war also helped re-establish western influence in the Arab world in a new way.

    The influence of Iran is Lebanonising the Arab world, they are doing in Yemen what they already in succeeded in doing to Syria. The Declaration Of Independence was a declaration of war and aggressive expansion. Every country that establishes control over a neighbour finds a new effective border and enemy on it. That is how empires are created and why Iran neither will or can stop. So it has to be destroyed. It has nothing to do with the particular values or personality of the countries’ leaderships how they behave. Countries are like living things, like the collective super-organism of a termite nest that builds huge cathedral like structures and defends them. Competence without comprehension. An attempt to subordinate policy to values ect makes it less competent. ‘Against all enemies, foreign and domestic’, even if this is tragic it is the only way to survive.

    • Replies: @AnonFromTN
    , @Colin Wright
  77. Here is what’s really appalling: this single murder committed by ruling Saudi criminals got more attention of “democratic” governments and Western media than massive war crimes, including thousands of murders, committed by the same criminals in Yemen for many years. Is the life of this WP journalist so much more precious that the lives of Yemeni men, women, and children brutally murdered by Saudi regime and allied Gulf satrapies?

  78. @Sean

    I wonder what makes you think that Iran is the enemy? If you have the interests of the US in mind, considering what we know about 9/11, Al Qaida, and ISIS, the mortal enemies of our country are Saudis, whereas Iran is a potential ally in anti-Saudi struggle. Of course, if you don’t give a hoot about the US and only have Israel’s interests in mind, it’s the other way around.

  79. @Colin Wright

    You are strangely well informed on who was well involved in 9/11. Perhaps you were also involved?

  80. @Sean

    ‘…The influence of Iran is Lebanonising the Arab world, they are doing in Yemen what they already in succeeded in doing to Syria…’

    You don’t think our fostering civil war at Israel’s behest had any effect on Syria?

    I think it’s been just the opposite. We were nicely reducing Syria to a state of permanent blood-soaked chaos — and then Russia and Iran came along and ruined everything.

    Sigh. No eternal war?

    • Replies: @Sean
  81. @Colin Wright

    Weren’t you the swarthy little Middle Eastern guy telling the people “a plane hit the building” on 9/11?

  82. Sean says:

    Iran was said to be responsible for the 1995 Khobar Towers bomb, which killed 19 US Air Force personnel in Saidi Arabia. Iran was certainly responsible for attacks on the American Army in Iraq and Afghanistan that killed hundreds of troops; the specialst said the armour piercing bombs were not IEDs at all they were-the product of a ME government factory. Michael Flynn, was VERY anti-Iran, and as head of the DIA he saw the evidence. Mc Master also said Iran was weaponising internal problms across Middle East non state forces

    https://www.rferl.org/a/mcmaster-warns-growing-network-iranian-proxies/29045526.html
    Iran is creating and arming a powerful network of proxies in countries like Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster said on February 17. “What’s particularly concerning is that this network of proxies is becoming more and more capable, as Iran seeds more and more…destructive weapons into these networks,” McMaster told the annual Munich Security Conference.

    I don’t know that Israel is really concerned about Iran, it might be an excuse to nullify US pressure for negations for the final settlement. Destroying Iran would confront Israel with a dilemma because they have no intention of giving the Palestinians a state, meaning there is apartheid which cannot last in Israel any more than South Africa, nor can they incorporate the West bank Palestinians into Israel as it would cease to be a Jewish state. With Iran taken out Israel would be faced with an existential decision.
    Saudi Arabia is less dangerous than Iran whatever way you look at it, when you factor in their investments and contracts Saudi Arabia is a friend now whatever happened in 2001.

  83. Sean says:
    @Colin Wright

    The US needs allies and Saudi Arabia has been fighting to control Yemen, first the south now the north, for several decades. As a near neighbour they are a natural enemy (Jordan hates Syria, so does Turkey). Security is scarcer than gold in this world that is why there are nation states. Groups come together in countries to fight other countries. If Iran wants to be left alone they could try behaving like they say the US should and just live at peace withing their borders disturbing no one–and wait for the inevitable interference, increasing military pressure and devastation by a foreign country fomenting a civil war. The know as everyone does that would be foolish behaviour with unpleasant consequences. They are going try a zig zag of compromise and confrontation but with Israel, Saudi Arabia and America all hating them it isn’t looking good. Israel is probably using Iran as an excuse to not negotiate over a Palestinian state. Saudi Arabia is the real enemy of Syria and Iran

    We interfere all over the globe and innocent people die. How sad, too bad, never mind. Unless you are Steven Pinker blaming Nietzsche and Neocon, there is no reason to think the terms of international relations are any different to when the founding fathers objected to the UK’s attempt to protect Indians from the land speculators such as Ben Franklin and :-

    George Washington had provoked the conflict that became the Seven Years’ War by an incompetently conducted encounter with a small party of Frenchmen while attempting to assert British claims—that is, both Virginia’s and those of the “Ohio Company,” a land-speculation venture in which Washington was heavily invested—in the Ohio River valley. Washington was unable to control his own forces, standing amazed as an allied Iroquois leader tomahawked a wounded 35-year-old French lieutenant, Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville, and washed his hands in the dead man’s brains.

    America needs allies and cannot always control them, and the way Assad and dad ran the country for several decades might be reasonably assumed to have played as big a part in the civil war as anything the US did. This is not to justify violence against innocents, but it is easy to not kill people if that is your objective. Unfortunately those who do have that objective seem to be scarce, because their objective was not securing ultimate survival. It is always available to say the just sitting at home and waiting till attacked or till foreign interference causes a civil war is “better” than going berserk with fanatical nationalism or religion. However, Steven Pinker does not run a country and no country is run as if he is running it. One could speculate that with him in charge he would start using nationalism and religion to fight wars.

  84. Art says:
    @Colin Wright

    Trump took Adelson’s money and agreed to foment a war with Iran, but he has no actual desire to fulfill his commitment. Now here comes this Saudi scandal — and a splendid opportunity to wreck the whole anti-Iran coalition. Trump’s taking full advantage.

    Don’t know about all that, but you can bet that the 110 billion arms sale to Saudi will happen.

    You can also bet that Trump will claim the largest arms sale in human history.

    Think Peace — Art

  85. Sean says:

    On the Turks’ audio, he can be heard screaming for seven minutes while he was sawn into pieces by Saudi Arabia’s top pathologist on the desk of the consul, who was told to shut up if he did not want to end up the same way.

    Qualitative easing meant low interest rates an massive investment in the oil industry, hence fracking.
    At the very moment when Saudi Arabia was being slowly but surely destablised they appointed a teenager to absolute power. I am sure everyone feels like shaking the Prince and asking him how he could be so stupid. Its good in a way though, because the “Saudi America” alliance was becoming too obvious for Trump to order an attack on Iran.

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