How many Trump tweets have labeled the press and/or media “the enemy of the people”? Republican Senator Jeff Flake noted this rhetoric “inspired dictators and authoritarians” around the world. Fact checkers have notedTrump’s incendiary rhetoric has legitimized despots around the world in their suppression of the press, some of that violent.
Trump’s false tweets have damaged relations with NATO, hurt our relations with Great Britain, and not once, but twice, encouraged Syria’s President Asaad to use chemical weapons against his own people, with the President then obligated to use military force to undo his own tweeting folly. Americans should ask themselves whether Trump’s tweets convinced Saudi Arabia’s leaders that the American President would be fine with the Saudis murdering an American resident journalist working for the Washington Post.
Jamal Khashoggi was a journalist and long time critic of the Saudi government. He fled the nation, fearing for his life, in 2017 and began writing for the Washington Post. Trump has repeatedly declared the American Press, including the Washington Post, as “unpatriotic” “fake news” that is “the enemy of the people.”
Having defined the Washington Post as “fake news,” Trump further defined “fake news” as “the enemy of the people.”
New York Times columnist Bret Stevens predicted Trump’s words “won’t fall on deaf ears,” that in time some would act on them, and that when that time comes there will “blood on the president’s hands.” We have come to that time.
The President’s words have the power to not only incite violence, but also to fail to discourage it. It is in this Trump created toxic environment against the press in general, and The Washington Post in particular, that the Saudi Arabian government would weigh the risks of a plot to lure, and then murder, a Washington Post journalist.
They would lure Jamal Khashoggi off American soil, and into the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Turkey, with the promise of paperwork necessary to marry his fiancee. Video evidence shows Khashoggi walked in, and the videos also conclusively prove he never walked out. As his fiancee waited hours upon hours outside for him, a 15 man “murder team” flown in private Saudi Government aircraft assassinated Khashoggi.
Trump’s hateful words about the media, and The Washington Post, undoubtedly factored as Saudi Arabia weighed the political risks of this skullduggery. Trump gave the Saudis every reason to believe that risk would be minimal. Now an American resident is dead for it. Jamal Khashoggi’s blood is on the hands of the United States President.
So far, Trump has given little indication that the Saudi’s miscalculated. His tweets suggest he believes the absurd denials of his “friend,” the Saudi King.
Trump has made clear that whether the Saudi government committed this murder or not, that he will not cancel the $100 million arms deal with that nation.
A corrupt American foreign policy, complicit in murder, continues.
EDIT & UPDATE FOR BREAKING NEWS.
In breaking news CNN is reporting that Saudi Arabia is preparing to admit that Khashoggi was killed in an “interrogation gone bad.” The whole thing was part of an effort to abduct him back to Saudi Arabia, or “rendition” as it is caused. The Saudis will claim this was not sanctioned by the highest levels of the government, placing the blame away from high levels of the Saudi royal family.
No word yet on where Khashoggi’s body is or how they will explain that.
No word yet on how the Saudis will explain over a week’s worth of adamant denials and claims that Khashoggi walked out of the embassy.
No word yet on how the Saudis will explain the killers arriving and leaving on special Saudi government chartered planes.
Trump this morning told the American people that he called the Saudi King and the King strongly denied all of this. Trump again emphasized the strength of the denial.
Some poor sap in Saudi intel will be identified as the rogue officer who did this without the royal family’s knowledge. It will be crap.
This is as much damage control by Trump as it is Saudis. This cover story has been cooked up with the Trump Administration’s help. The President is making the United States of America complicit in a conspiracy to cover up the murder of a Washington Post journalist. The disgusting cover up is that they weren’t trying to kill him, they were just merely torturing him.