I think if there was a cover story, Trump would have a net gain of supporters.
Khashoggi's fiance has a piece in the Washington Post. I found it very heart-rending to read.
AIUI Khashoggi was in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood and an even more backward set of Saudi royals than the ones who apparently blackbagged him. In case anyone wanted to feel righteous or sentimental or anything.
I may be a sentimental fool, but it seems sad that the happiest plausible thing that happened is that he was killed quickly and his corpse disappeared while his fiance waited a few hundred feet away.
That is sad. And it is to your credit that you can still see that.
I didn't actually know about all the stuff in 2, so it was easier.
2 comes from a BBC soundbite I half-listened to while making coffee, so it may not even be true.
Quick googling suggests it's not true. He seems to have been a relative progressive.
He was a supporter of the monarchy and barely qualifies as a dissident. He was critical of some aspects, notably the war in Yemen.
I'm not sure of what to make of 2, Sisi had thousands of MB slaughtered in the streets of Cairo a few years back, that's ok then?
I had thought there was no way MBS could top kidnapping the Lebanese Prime Minister, forcing him to resign, and milking him for a few billion, but here we are. This is Idi Amin level of crazy.
8.2: I'm just saying the Muslim Brotherhood aren't progressive. That doesn't change if their enemies are sometimes worse.
They're also fairly moderate. KSA has been the primary source for instability in the region for years now and under MBS they're getting more extreme.
It also looks like the US intel community knew the Saudis wanted to kidnap him but did nothing.
Never touch the orb.
It looks like they brought a bone saw with them so I doubt the plan was to kidnap the guy and something went wrong. I'm picturing the last thing that he saw must have been something that looked like one of the kill rooms in Decter.
I'm thinking of one particular episode of Archer.
He was a supporter of the monarchy and barely qualifies as a dissident.
That makes it even more remarkable that they seem to have just straight-up murdered him.
Narcissism of small differences, etc.
I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of legitimate uses for a bone saw at a consulate.
Instant googling suggests us that it's not true. He seems to have been a relative progressive.
If that googling was instant one dreads to think how long deliveries take.
On the cover story point, I have thought for quite some time that we are mistaken when we discuss what people believe. Especially Republicans. They act, and then they believe, or more importantly perform belief, in whatever is required by that action. This is what the "reality-based community" quote is about. ("We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.")
Also, here's a link to his collected WaPo columns:
22: But what are the grounds for action, if not some belief? I think they have just one true belief (something like "One must be loyal to the tribe") and all other actions follow from it, as you describe.
I wonder if the Saudis paid Trump to not notice very much?
Think Trump will not notice things for free.
I think it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
What do you need fifteen people for in a murder squad? That's a lot of people! What do they all do?
I met him once. He stuck me as a thoughtful patriot whose loyalty was given to a loathsome country. One of the people revolutions always eat, in hindsight. But not an extremist. Able to consider the idea that Iran is full of human beings.
28: Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction was a composite character.
He seems like a weird target. Killing him is much worse for SA than leaving him to his Post column.
In fairness, human beings are pretty loathsome.
The cover story is not just a fig leaf for a lot of supporters, for many of them the more of a "fuck you" it is to the victim the more attractive it is. The Ford doppelgänger story is so implausible that it probably was more attractive for a lot of Trump fans than just a flat out "she's lying" because it makes a mockery of her story. The Saudis claim that they can't provide tape of him leaving the building because they don't keep recordings, they just live stream their cameras (unlike, say, the complex security apparatus of your local convenience store.) I forget what bullshit excuse Putin have about the UK poisonings but it was basically something so obviously a lie that he was really just telling people Yeah we did it so fuck you.
I forget what bullshit excuse Putin have about the UK poisonings
They were on (multiple) day trips to Salisbury Cathedral. Don't know if they even bothered with one for Litvinenko.
Interesting interview here with one of the 50 or so people who honestly thought MBS was good at some point. By the famous virtuouso interviewer Isaac Chotiner who I had never heard of a month ago.
If the explanation was plausible it would defeat the purpose, since the purpose is to scare people enough so that they won't dare to oppose the regime in any way.
If the explanation was plausible it would defeat the purpose, since the purpose is to scare people enough so that they won't dare to oppose the regime in any way.
Just like the US making halfhearted claims that the "deport adult migrants, keep their children and put them in the foster/adoption system" policy is not a policy, while clearly thinking it is a brilliant new way to scare away migrants.
There is no cover story so stupid that someone won't believe it, or at least claim to.
Does anyone actually claim Ford was assaulted by someone who looked like Kavanaugh? That's pretty wild. I thought they just claimed, "someone else", and anyway all those preppy kids look alike. Maybe the double is the one who drank all that beer, too.
My impression is that now that K is confirmed, they've moved on to "Ford flat-out lied."
Does anyone actually claim Ford was assaulted by someone who looked like Kavanaugh?
The original claim spread by Whelan was about a specific person.
Trump has moved on to "Lied and George Soros/the Jews funded her" but Collins is sticking with "She mistook someone else for him". See, look at how moderate she is, taking the middle ground between antisemitism conspiracy theory and don't appoint a liar to SCOTUS.
Then it turned out in the hearing that she actually dated and liked the guy Ed Whelan was trying to frame. So what Collins is endorsing is a Jeckyll and Hyde scenario I guess.
This was a serious miscalculation on MBS' part. Khashoggi was very well liked by the influential Washington pundit class. I've seen some informed speculation that this move increases the possibility of a coup since MBS is so obviously out of control. Personally I'm not optimistic on that count. But this along with the Hariri incident, the Ritz Carlton torture hotel, and last but hardly least, the war in Yemen* really show that MBS is both a loose cannon and completely incompetent since all of the above (except perhaps the Ritz Carlton thing) have proven monumental and very public failures.
*Funny joke I've seen going around is: why would the Saudis need 15 guys to take down one guy? Same reason they need 15,000 troops to take on 150 Houthis.
44: He may have even lost Thomas Friedman.
45 We'll see what the next six months bodes
I've seen some informed speculation that this move increases the possibility of a coup since MBS is so obviously out of control.
You mean a US sponsored coup? Because it's hard to see why this would prompt an internal coup, rather than confiscating all the princes' money.
||
This has been an exceptionally awful week at work and today takes the cake. Maye a bit of a rant after I've had a lot more bourbon, unless I pass out first.
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47 No, internal. MBS is a significant departure from the usual overly cautious KSA way of doing things. He's still very popular, especially among the young, but these highly visible failures have got to be making a lot of powerful Saudis wondering what's coming next and just how much of a disaster he's capable of bringing down on their heads.
49 would be more reassuring if it didn't sound like things people said about Trump in 2016.
Reuters has an excellent story with a lot of new details.
On the general subject of denial:
If the Mossad wants your data, they're going to use a drone to replace your cellphone with a piece of uranium that's shaped like a cellphone, and when you die of tumors filled with tumors, they're going to hold a press conference and say "It wasn't us" as they wear t-shirts that say "IT WAS DEFINITELY US," and then they're going to buy all of your stuff at your estate sale so that they can directly look at the photos of your vacation instead of reading your insipid emails about them.
Apparently Jared is on the case, so we'll be getting the best excuses possible.
48: Sorry. I don't want to say "it gets better" because that's often not the case, at work, but the previous two or even three weeks were awful for me at my job, and today and yesterday haven't been. No big changes made, but a few little ones, and I'm no longer getting new tasks left and right, which is nice.
55 Thanks. We're getting a new director for our section and this is definitely posturing before she comes here. Unfortunately the institutional culture here is abusive and one of kiss up kick down. I pushed back on some shit that came my way because that was what it was and I hold that in utter contempt and couldn't live with myself unless I did but it will have (and has had) repercussions for me. But I figured better that than living with it eating me alive that I did not push back on the bullshit. If and when I go from here I'm going to burn all the bridges.
This is some genius level trolling.
From the OP:
please come into this room where a team of 15 people is waiting to murder and dismember you
Where is this rumor of dismemberment coming from? (I'm sorry I haven't really kept up, since so far it just seems like a Turkey said/Saudi Arabia said thing.)
The detail that they brought along a bone saw. Because you never know when you'll need a bone saw.
52 is interesting in two ways. First, it's not just security researchers, any developer writing software for not-developers tends to make those assumptions about the competence of their users and forgets that when someone clicks delete- yes I am sure- really I'm sure, there's a 25% chance the user will then ask if you can recover the thing they accidentally deleted. Even basic assumptions like people know what right-clicking is are dicey.
On security in general, he seems to be describing the bear problem- I don't need to be smarter than every hacker in the world, I just need to be smarter than idiots who click on ads for "New rule in Duluth, don't pay your drunk speeding tickets ever again!" As long as they're pulling in enough results from suckers, they probably won't have to make something complicated enough that it will fool me.
This is interesting too, though I'd take it with a grain of salt, especially the bit about how Turkish forensic analysts looked at the sewage from the consulate for evidence https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-1433170798
Too much bourbon, I meant the interesting bit was about the sewage analysis. The grain of salt was a general comment about the site.
52: fun and funny but I felt like it was missing the end. Or maybe some relevant context. I was expecting an "and therefore we need to do [X or maybe Y or maybe something that shouldn't be expressed by such a simple various at all, but something." But it just ended with another punchline and a page begging us to join their group.
Humor aside I assume it's a valuable corrective to some pernicious conventional wisdom I wasn't already exposed to? Or maybe I can't see the forest for the trees? I'm not a particularly technical person myself, but work in an IT department. The theory of IT security is way over my head, even as I'm surrounded by the minutiae of how to test a certain app on a certain server.
24: But what are the grounds for action, if not some belief?
The belief system is as Alex describes: Better to create truth than to attempt to discern it. You can know everything without expending any effort. Better still, you can justify any kind of behavior you want to.
People who reason this way tend to develop opinions of a particular type. Trump's conduct, theoretically, violates some core Christian principles, but an awful lot of Christians don't care, because a lot of Christianity derives not from Jesus Christ or the Bible or whatever, but from an understanding that it is wholly holy to make up stories about the way the world works.
33: Right. You kill someone with polonium or a specifically Russian nerve agent because you want everyone to know you did it. If you don't want people to know, you arrange something like the death of Peter Smith.
Oops, I meant Gareth Williams. Killed himself after padlocking himself inside a duffel bag. Or so they say.
Unfortunately the institutional culture here is abusive and one of kiss up kick down.
Is there another kind?
Factional culture is the other I've experienced. Better know the right people!
So, we went to a thing at the U tonight: Maureen Dowd and Carl Hulse visit the sticks and explain everything. Intro'd by Max Baucus. Having recently had a visit from a grandchild, and then a birthday, I might be oversensitive to the passage of time. But it really felt like a world we know is passing out of sight.
They were flummoxed by the Saudis hold on Trump.
I bet you could build a pretty solid model of Trump's preferred world order based solely on decor preferences.
52: To the extent that IT at MPOW even has leadership, its approach to web security seems to be to create a custom-coded website so unappealing to read and so nearly impossible to manage that no one wants to have anything to do with it. The threat model may be an adversary who wants competent IT leadership, the defense being "only I[T} know[s] how this shitsite works."
71.2: They're keeping Kushner solvent?
I'm going to go out on a limb a bit and venture that this will not end will for MBS and KSA. Khashoggi was a columnist for the Washington Post. The WP has 5 stories and 2 op-eds on this yesterday and more of the same today. They'll keep this in the news. There will be Congressional investigations and Magnitsky sanctions are a real possibility. There goes all of the tens of millions in PR that KSA spent to selling MBS as a progressive reformer right down the toilet.
Turkey is also aligned with Qatar against KSA in the regional GCC dispute and gets a lot of financial support from Qatar. I can see Qatar quietly encouraging Turkey to keep this going. I take the link I posted in 57 as a subtle signaling of this of just how much they are finding this to their advantage.
-to
This isn't going away anytime soon.
I don't know if it will end well or not, but I'm not sure that MBS and the average Trump supporter are very far about on Washington Post writers. If the Republicans keep both Houses this fill, I don't see any reason to expect any problems from the United States.
78: If the Republicans keep both Houses this fall, I'm moving to Saudi Arabia.
Turkish newspaper Sabah has just published a story listing the identities of the 15 member kill squad. Six of them work directly for MBS in his office.
78 A lot of the heat is coming from Congressional Republicans.
See, the Saudis need to learn from the Russians: it's not enough to bribe our 'king" and the princeling, you need to bribe the Republican leadership as well.
You bribe the king and the Republican leadership will folder after making some inconsequential noise.
Rand Paul could, any time he wants to, be the deciding vote that forced an actual investigation of any of this (like how much the Saudis are spending on Trump's hotels).
They were flummoxed by the Saudis hold on Trump.
This isn't exactly a drastic change in U.S. policy, is it?
The 80s were all about backing dictators who "disappeared" opponents, so I suppose there is some consistency.
|| Holy shit! x. trapnel, did you hear about this?
NBC News: Paul Rosenfeld of NY has been arrested by the FBI and charged with building a 200 pound bomb which he would set off on election day to kill himself and draw attention to "sortition".
That's a belief that government officials should be chosen at random, not by vote.
https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/1050127491715817474 ||
Surely the bomb should have been placed at random?
71. Surely the "Saudis hold on Trump" is because of (a) oil, (b) Iran, isn't it? No different than it's been for decades.
What is interesting is that the collapse of the post-WW2 order is causing authoritarians to say, "Ya know, nobody cares if we off this guy, let's just do it." Another one of Putin's enemies just "jumped out of a window" the other day, and still another was found strangled by a dog leash, to give a couple of examples. They used to try to maintain some level of plausible deniability, now they practically take out an ad on Facebook bragging about it.
No doubt some of this is because Trump, but it was happening before Trump.
89.3 is true. As I've probably said before, Obama will be remembered harshly.
I halfway like Obama's SA policy, a large part of which was "make nice with Iran". The other part, well, that was less good.
Seen. Sasse is tweeting about 89.2, like somebody fucking else is supposed to do something because there's nothing a United States senator can do to constrain Putin.
91 The other half was giving the Saudi's their Yemen war to assuage them. And not just green-lighting it but providing logistics and intel support. Mossy ain't wrong here.
Yeah, I know it. We were making noises about walking away when it started to get bad (worse), who knows if it was bullshit. But Iran is a) the smart move from the US perspective and b) less evil.
92. Gosh! Who could possibly have the power to do that?
I hope this is off topic: Twitter currently recommends that I follow county Civil Defense and the Dalai Lama.
90: His Arab World policy was almost uniformly bad.
I know this is wildly off-topic, but thinking about a journalist getting murdered is so depressing that I need a mental break. If you do too, enjoy this story about a man fishing in storm drains using soft pretzels as bait. I love my city. (Even if he is just trying to promote his TV show.)
So the latest has it that the Turks have the Saudi consulate bugged and they've got tapes of Khashoggi being interrogated, tortured, and murdered.
Some big K street firms have started dropping KSA as a client (though I'm sure they'll be back in a Friedman unit or two).
Kind of off-topic, but the author of 52 had an amazing abstract for a talk recently. I haven't watched the talk.
Or rather, the author of the piece linked in 52.
101: That is so great. That's the best computer science writing since the Scheme shell acknowledgements: "Oh, yes, the acknowledgements. I think not. I did it. I did it all, by myself. "
101-103. There's a lot more where that came from, especially if you like bitter but funny sarcasm. The Wisdom of James Mickens
Apparently, the Saudis are going to try the old "We were trying to torture and kidnap him but accidentally killed him" thing.
Good thing they brought along that bone saw
105: So kind of a Fargo situation.
This is the Fargo century, isn't it. All of modern events are determined by a combination of petty, greedy, inept men (played by William Macy or Martin Freeman), the good-hearted but tragically ineffectual (played by Ted Danson or Frances McDormand) and embodiments of senseless evil (Billy Bob Thornton and Peter Stormare).
AND ALL OF IT DIRECTED THE WHOLE TIME BY A FAMILY OF JEWS!