When Will We Ever Learn This Lesson?

The Saudis are not our friends, at least, when our president is not a wanabee autocrat with delusions of competency.

Besides doing what they can to make inflation worse and to boost revenue for the Russians, never forget that the Saudis have been one of the sponsors of jihadist terrorism worldwide, including the 9-11 attacks.

Tyrants Love Each Other

The women’s golf tournament, part of the Aramco Team Series, was approved to be held at the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in the Bronx by the Eric Adams administration, according to a city official who was familiar with the matter but not authorized to publicly discuss it.
...
City officials determined that they could not “unreasonably withhold approval” for the event under the city’s contract with the Trump Organization, according to another city official who was familiar with the matter.

Of course the TOFF's company is in bed with Mr. Bone Saw. Does anyone expect anything else?

Yep.

pic.twitter.com/niFrJusGkP

— mike luckovich (@mluckovichajc) April 12, 2022

This is what is going on:

Six months after leaving the White House, Jared Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince, a close ally during the Trump administration, despite objections from the fund’s advisers about the merits of the deal.

A panel that screens investments for the main Saudi sovereign wealth fund cited concerns about the proposed deal with Mr. Kushner’s newly formed private equity firm, Affinity Partners, previously undisclosed documents show.

Those objections included: “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management”; the possibility that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk”; due diligence on the fledgling firm’s operations that found them “unsatisfactory in all aspects”; a proposed asset management fee that “seems excessive”; and “public relations risks” from Mr. Kushner’s prior role as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, former President Donald J. Trump, according to minutes of the panel’s meeting last June 30.

But days later the full board of the $620 billion Public Investment Fund — led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler and a beneficiary of Mr. Kushner’s support when he worked as a White House adviser — overruled the panel.

Slenderman Jared had Mr. Bone Saw's back, doing what he could to ensure that no action was taken after MBS's hit team whacked and dismembered Jamal Kashoggi. $2 billion seems like a hell of a payback/bribe, but nobody in the country's government is going to oppose what he wants to do.

This smells as though the Saudis are betting that the TOFF is going run again.

TFG Is No Longer Around to Cover Up Prince Bone Saw's Crimes

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince likely approved the killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, according to a newly declassified U.S. intelligence report released Friday.
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A Turkish bug planted at the consulate reportedly captured the sound of a forensic saw, operated by a Saudi colonel who was also a forensics expert, dismembering Khashoggi’s body within an hour of his entering the building. The whereabouts of his remains remain unknown.

You can read the report here. It doesn't discloe any of the sources of information leading up to the conclusion.

White-Washing With the Blood of Underlings

A court in Saudi Arabia sentenced five people to death Monday for the killing of Washington Post columnist and royal family critic Jamal Khashoggi, whose grisly slaying in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul drew international condemnation and cast a cloud of suspicion over Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
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The trial concluded the killing was not premeditated, according to Shaalan al-Shaalan, a spokesperson from the attorney general’s office. That finding is in line with the Saudi government’s official explanation, which has been called into question by evidence that a hit team of Saudi agents with tools was sent to dispatch Khashoggi.

Yes, because people just carry around their bone saws and dismemberment tools in the event of what, finding a dead deer alongside the road in Istanbul?

The intelligence services of Western nations have maintained that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka Mr. Bone Saw, ordered Kashoggi's slaying. Bone Saw undoubtedly denied that in a conversation with Trump, which led Trump to say something along the lines of :he told me he didn't do it, I don;t know why he would have done it." That's essentially what Trump says whenever some dictator or autocrat denies ordering the performance of evil deeds.

They Are Not Our Friends

The suspect in the deadly shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida held a dinner party before the attack to watch mass shooting videos, a US official briefed on the situation by federal authorities told the Associated Press.

The suspect, a member of the Saudi Air Force who was in the US for training, shot and killed three people and wounded another seven Friday in a horrific act of violence. During the attack, another Saudi student, one of three who reportedly attended the dinner party, filmed the shooting at the US naval base.

Two other Saudi students are said to have watched from a car.

Ten Saudi students have reportedly been detained for questioning. Some of the Saudi nationals at the base are, however, currently unaccounted for, the AP reports.

President Genius; Stable; Very had something to tweet:

President Donald Trump said Friday that he had spoken by phone to Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Al-Saud, following a deadly shooting on a Pensacola, Florida naval base. Authorities have said that the shooter, who killed at least three people and wounded at least eight, was a visiting Saudi national.

“King Salman of Saudi Arabia just called to express his sincere condolences and give his sympathies to the families and friends of the warriors who were killed and wounded in the attack that took place in Pensacola, Florida,” Trump tweeted shortly after 2:00pm on Friday.

“The King said that the Saudi people are greatly angered by the barbaric actions of the shooter, and that this person in no way shape or form represents the feelings of the Saudi people who love the American people,” Trump added.

Horseshit.

I have little doubt that King Salman knows as much as what the average Saudi thinks as does Trump, or, for that matter, a street camel. But it is interesting that Herr Bone Spurs didn't talk to Prince Bone Saw, or maybe he leaves that task to his son-in-law, who is a paid-up member of the Future Felons of America.

And this:

The gunman - Saudi national Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani who was a trainee at the site - killed three people in a classroom before being shot dead.

Authorities have not said the other students were involved.

A Twitter user appearing to match Alshamrani's identity had made a series of anti-US posts, US media say.

But US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said on Saturday that he would not label the incident as "terrorism" at this point.

For you know that if the shooter had been a student from any other Middle Eastern country. Trump would have sent Gruppenfuhrer Miller out to screech about the wisdom of Trump's Muslim bans and how they would have prevented this tragedy. The Trump Propaganda Network would be wall-to-wall screeching about terrorism.

This is not all on Trump, of course. Our national policy has been "suck up to the Saudis" for decades. But this is still on Trump because this is his watch.

If there is a reason for green sources of energy other than to do something about climate change, it is to push the Saudis back into irrelevancy.

No Doubt That the Phone Lines Are Heating Up Between Mister Bone Saw and the First Son-in-Law

The Saudi government recruited two Twitter employees to get personal account information of their critics, prosecutors said Wednesday.

A complaint unsealed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco detailed a coordinated effort by Saudi government officials to recruit employees at the social media giant to look up the private data of thousands of Twitter accounts. ... They were charged with acting as agents of Saudi Arabia without registering with the U.S. government.

Mr. Bone Saw is likely asking Jared if he can fix this. If Jared can't, don't be surprised if Bone Saw calls Trump directly to see if Trump can get Bootlicker Barr to squash the case.

Trump Is Waiting for the Saudis to Tell Him What to Do

Trump wasn't so sold on the Saudis earlier:

Beyond the sheer horror of an American president putting the decision as to whether or not we go to war in the hand of a government that is not really friendly to us, ask yourself this: How much shit did they buy from Trump (condos, his yacht) to get him to roll over like a beaten puppy that Cadet Bone Spurs will go to war if Jared's BFF wants it?

I know of no treaty with the Saudis that commits the United States to go to war on their behalf. You may recall that Robert Gates, who was SecDef under both Bush-II and Obama, once said that the Saudis are willing to fight Iran to the last American. But here is Trump, once again, playing butt-monkey to an autocratic/theocratic regime.

He's going to wait for the Saudis to tell him what to do?

Trump says the Saudis are a good country to help because they pay for things with "cash." pic.twitter.com/yzSBf3LD7w

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) September 16, 2019

Does Saudi money buy our fealty? If they need to hire a mercenary force, why aren't they talking to Betsy DeVos's baby brother? So, for Saudi gold, Trump is going to hire out the U.S. military.

Congrats, all you future Gold Star mothers and father! Your kids died to keep Price Bone Saw safe.

We can't wait another sixteen months. Impeach this fucker!

Yep, Jared's BFF Is a Murderer.

Saudi Arabia is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate last year, and there is “credible evidence” justifying an investigation into the role of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, a United Nations expert said in a report released on Wednesday.

The expert, Agnes Callamard, also said that the United Nations secretary general should establish an international criminal investigation to ensure accountability for the crime.

Since Trump loves murderous autocrats more than he loves his wife, don't expect this report to dent his love for Prince Bone Saw.

Persian Gulf War 3.0

Bleeding John Bolton Stumbles Into Capitol Building Claiming That Iran Shot Him https://t.co/FodHlv7aZN pic.twitter.com/pTscfruFZH

— The Onion (@TheOnion) June 13, 2019

The Coalition of the (Un)Willing is going to be small this time around. For one thing, all of the players arguing that Something Must Be Done are, well, biased as all fuck.

• Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to get America to shed its blood and treasure on Iran for decades. If he were to trip over a curb, he'd blame Iran.
• John Bolton similarly has been trying to cook up a war with Iran for a very long time.  On the other hand, Bolton's been trying to start wars with everyone he can, other than possibly Liechtenstein and Andorra.  And I'm not sure about Andorra.
• Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan, a/k/a Prince Bone Saw, is another of the "let's let the Americans die for us" caucus.  
• Donald Trump, a man who lies only less frequently than he exhales. But only because he breathes in his sleep. Alost every day, you can find a news item that fact-checks Trump, which probably should be titled "Stupid Shit That Trump Said Today." The point being is that Trump lies about everything. You would have to be an idiot to buy anything from Trump, including a #2 pencil

These are the guys who are agitating for PG War 3.0. Only an utter fool would believe anything they say.

Which is something that the Iranians are well aware of and are exploiting.

Meltdown in Old Blighty? &The Fall Guys; Khashoggi Ed.

British PM Theresa May has negotiated a draft Brexit agreement with the EU. At least three of her cabinet ministers have quit today in protest.

One of the intractable issues seems to be the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Setting up a hard border between the EU and Great Britain would require re-establishing the fences, patrols and checkpoints between Ireland and Northern Ireland. But that may violate the Good Friday Agreement, which effectively ended the Troubles.

Whether or not May's government falls is something we may know this week.

------------------------------------------

Saudi Arabia's public prosecutor has concluded a senior intelligence officer ordered Jamal Khashoggi's murder, and not Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
...
The prosecutor has charged 11 people over the murder and is seeking the death penalty for five of them.

Yeah, sure. The Saudis have changed their stories on this faster than Trump shifts his lies. This latest iteration of whodunit seems calculated to both insulate Prince Bone Saw and to give O3 Trump the fig leaf that he needs to push back against congressional sanctions against Mr. Bone Saw and his cronies.

Step One: Prince Bone Saw Should Commit Seppuku

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Wednesday described the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi as a "heinous" crime in his first comments since some of his closest aides were implicated in the Saudi journalist's death.

Speaking at an investors' conference in Riyadh that has been overshadowed by the crisis, bin Salman said those responsible for the killing would be brought to justice.

Our spooks believe that Prince Bone Saw ordered the murder of Khashoggi.

Prince Bone Saw had Khashoggi's son, Salah, brought before him so that the Price Who Ordered the Hit could give his condolences to the son of the man that he had killed.

Note that Prince Bone Saw has forbidden Khashoggi's family from traveling, essentially using them as hostages to persuade Khashoggi to return.

The House of Saud has been a despicable bunch for decades. They have funded the proliferation of an extremist version of Islam. The Saudis have been funding terrorism for a very long time.

It's high time to cut loose of them.

Murderin' Trump Helps With the Saudi Coverup

Sure as the Sun rises, Trump is buying into the Saudi fiction that Khashoggi was accidentally killed in a fistfight:

After two weeks of shifting stories, Saudi Arabia said Saturday that its agents strangled Jamal Khashoggi, a dissident journalist, during a fistfight inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and that 18 men had been arrested in the case. ... President Trump on Friday night said that Saudi Arabia’s statements were credible...

Except that the statements are in no wise credible. They are almost certainly utter lies. Trump has been told as much.

But Trump doesn't care. He is as utterly amoral a man who has occupied the Oval Office since Nixon and is possibly the most corrupt since Harding. Nixon did a lot of things, but as far as I know, he didn't help cover up the murder of a journalist.

Trump his doing just that. He is an accessory to the murder of a legal American resident after the fact. It is becoming abundantly clear that there is nothing too low or evil for Trump to stoop to.

The Saudi Lie du Jour

Journalista Jamal Khashoggi died after a fight in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the country's state TV reported quoting an initial probe.

Riight. A sixty-year old man who appeared to be somewhat obese got into a fight with a bunch of goons half his age. And the Saudis brought an autopsy expert with a bone saw to serve coffee. The boxes that they used to bring out his dismembered body were brought to pack presents for Eid Al-Fitr.

Besides Trump helping the Saudis cover this up, the chances are fair that all fifteen of the men involved will be (if not already are) in desert graves out past the Saudi equivalent of Terlingua. Or something similar.

The Saudis really do need to hire Sarah Huckabee Sanders to instruct them in the fine points of lying.

Meanwhile, Trump still thinks that it's fantastic that a Rethuglican congressman physically attacked a reporter. So it may be understandable that the Saudis thought that he would be fine with them killing one. Trump is an enemy of freedom, a foe of the Constitution.

Saudis Start Revving Up the Bus

As pressure mounted on Saudi Arabia to disclose what it knows about Khashoggi’s fate, U.S. officials began predicting over the weekend that the Saudis would inevitably admit complicity in the death of Khashoggi and claim a “botched operation,” said one person familiar with the discussions.

Over the past few days, Saudi officials have discussed issuing a statement that, in part, would mention a botched operation and call for the punishment of culpable officials, according to another person with knowledge of the discussions.

Riight. "Botched interrogation," my ass. The Turks have claimed that one of the fifteen Saudi "tourists" who flew into Istanbul for several hours was a forensic specialist who had a bone saw.

Who brings a guy whose expertise is autopsying and dismembering bodies to an interrogation?

Meanwhile, lobbying firms are dumping Saudi Arabia and attendees to "Davos in the Desert" are canceling, at least those from countries that pretend to care about human rights.

However Trump ultimately reacts, keep in mind that for him, it's all about the grift.

Trump to Saudi Arabia: "Kill Whomever You Wish, as Long as You Buy Our Jets."

The Turkish government has told U.S. officials that it has audio and video recordings that prove Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul this month, according to U.S. and Turkish officials.

The recordings show that a Saudi security team detained Khashoggi in the consulate after he walked in Oct. 2 to obtain an official document before his upcoming wedding, then killed him and dismembered his body, the officials said.

Trump as much said that he'll give the Saudis a pass on this.

“I don’t like stopping massive amounts of money that’s been pouring into our country. They are spending 110 billion on military equipment,” Trump said, referring to proposed sales announced in May 2017 when he went to Saudi Arabia in the first overseas trip of his presidency.

One could argue, I guess, that only proves that Trump is a very expensive whore, which is no surprise. It wouldn't have taken the arms deal; the Saudis know that all they have to do is engage in some oleaginous flattery to fluff up Trump's ego and he's their man.

The Khashoggi murder is a further sign that the Saudis are a little bit whacko. Earlier this year, they virtually broke diplomatic relations with Canada over a single tweet. Now, businesses and even lobbyists are starting to question if taking Saudi gelt is worth the stench.

But as long as there is both money and flattery being offered, Trump has no sense of smell.

It Now Seems That the Saudis Whacked a Troublesome Journalist

Top Turkish security officials have concluded that the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on orders from the highest levels of the royal court, a senior official said Tuesday.

The official described a quick and complex operation in which Mr. Khashoggi was killed within two hours of his arrival at the consulate by a team of Saudi agents, who dismembered his body with a bone saw they brought for the purpose.
...
Fifteen Saudi agents had arrived on two charter flights last Tuesday, the day Mr. Khashoggi disappeared, the official said.

All 15 left just a few hours later, and Turkey has now identified the roles that most or all of them held in the Saudi government or security services, the official said. One was an autopsy expert, presumably there to help dismember the body, the official said.

What is known for certain is that Khashoggi was last seen entering the consulate. The Saudis say that he's not there, but that's pretty easy to say if they dismembered Khashoggi and took his remains with them.

I'll bet that the Saudis think that they'll get a pass from the United States for killing someone who is a dissident journalist, based, in part, from Trump's often-stated views that reporters are enemies of the people.

I'll also wager that their assessment was correct.

Imagine the Screams From the Right If the Clintons Had Done This

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will reportedly pledge $100 million toward a fund for women entrepreneurs that was built by Ivanka Trump.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the World Bank’s Women Entrepreneurs Fund, an idea that the president's elder daughter proposed, will work to help women in the Middle East who want to start their own businesses.

The donation from Saudi Arabia and the UAE was set to be announced at a Sunday event with President Trump’s daughter, according to the report.

If the Clintons had done this, the Right would be frothing so much that they'd be hospitalized for possible hydrophobia.

Saying "but, but Clinton" is hypocrisy. Or it is a childish excuse on the level of screaming "but Maaaaa, Billy did it, too!"

If it was wrong for Clinton, then you can't normalize it by saying that makes it OK for Trump.

And anyone who believes that the Saudis really give a shit about women as entrepreneurs, and that this isn't a form of "pay to play" graft shouldn't be allowed out of the house without wearing a helmet.

Harvesting What They Planted; Saudi Ed.

A suicide bomber has killed four security officers and injured five others near one of Islam's holiest sites in the Saudi city of Medina, according to the interior ministry.

The bomber detonated his explosives after being stopped outside the Prophet's Mosque, a statement said.

The Saudi monarchy has been fostering and spreading a fundamentalist sect of Islam for decades. They are, in no small part, responsible for the spread of terrorism around the globe, whether they have funded it (as they have with al Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS) or morally encouraged it.

Some of it is not surprising, They're not the first kleptocratic monarchy to use religion as a justification for their actions. But it's been an unspoken deal that the Sauids would pay the terror groups and the terrorists would, in turn, not hit targets inside of the kingdom.

Now that deal seems to have fallen apart. About fucking time.

"Islamic Terrorism" is the Wrong Term for It

It is better called "Saudi Terrorism".

While the Saudis never officially supported Islamic terrorism they were, at the same time, very much responsible for the increase in Islamic terrorist activity since the 1970s. That’s because in Arabia (where Islam first appeared in the 7th century) the locals believe they are more Islamic than other Moslems. After all, the Koran was written in Arabic and all the founders of Islam were Arabs. Yet for over a thousand years there has been a tradition of different factions in Arabia trying outdo each other to prove who is “more Islamic” than the other. This led to constant fighting and suppression of new ideas. One of those fanatic factions is the Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam in what is now Saudi Arabia. Wahhabis, who first appeared in the 18th century, are very conservative and very hostile to non-Moslems and Moslems who are not Sunni. This meant little to the non-Moslem world until lots of oil wealth appeared in Arabia after World War II. Suddenly it became possible for Saudis to show how pious they were by funding Wahhabi missionaries who went to other Moslem (and many non-Moslem) nations to preach, establish Wahhabi religious schools and mosques (all paid for and sustained by Saudi Arabia) and create the current Islamic terrorism problem. Billions were (and still are) spent on this and the policy of getting the young boys into these free religious schools and turning many of them into hateful (towards anyone not like them) Islamic religious fanatics. This led to a major outbreak of Islamic terrorism in the late 20th century. At first this was not seen as a problem in Moslem countries. It was seen as a lot of pious and generous Saudis sharing the wealth. Soon (by the 1980s) a growing number of Moslem nations noted what was actually going on and resisted this destructive Saudi charity. Initially Moslem nations like Turkey, Iraq, Libya and Syria resisted the Wahhabi missionaries and money for political reasons as these nations did not accept the Wahhabi concept Islam dominating politics.

The Wahhabi problem is most obvious in Saudi Arabia, which practiced what it preached. Thus no other religions can be openly practiced and other forms of Islam are barely tolerated, sort of, and often persecuted. All Saudis are educated in schools that insist the Wahhabi way is the only way. As a result Saudis have always provided the largest number of ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and al Qaeda recruits.

We have been in bed with those fuckers for a very long time, most prominently during the administrations of Bush I and II.

Maybe it's time that we start rethinking whom we consider to be our friends.