Critics lambaste President Trump for failing to blame influential Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman for Jamal Khashoggi’s killing and react more aggressively, even though…
Critics lambaste President Trump for failing to blame influential Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman for Jamal Khashoggi’s killing and react more aggressively, even though Khashoggi was not an American citizen and the crime was not committed in a U. S. jurisdiction.
While Trump has already criticized the Saudis harshly in public and private, sent Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to confront the Saudis, and sanctioned seventeen Saudi officials, some in Congress want him to go father and stop arms sales to Riyadh or demand it stop fighting Iranian-backed forces attempting to take over neighboring Yemen.
What Congress could do instead is put the murder of Khashoggi in perspective and shed light on why he was killed. Better information would help the American public understand why Trump, whose first constitutional priority is defending America from foreign threats, has chosen to react firmly but not impetuously.
Ignorance abounds. The Washington Post, for which Khashoggi wrote opinion pieces since 2017, has been in a state of hysteria since his killing, running several articles about the matter each day, most of which blame Trump in one way or another.
It’s important to understand who Khashoggi really was and the motive for his murder, especially if we are being asked to turn our back on an important ally as a result. While the Washington Post and progressive media have tried to paint him as an earnest journalist who merely criticized Saudi policy, and Wikipedia describes him as “a liberal progressive,” that is not the full story.
Khashoggi started his career as a journalist, eventually working for a series of Saudi-backed media outlets. Khashoggi was seen favorably by the Saudi government and rewarded, becoming a player in their media and political ecosystem.
