SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: October 2018

Khashoggi Case Triggered Geopolitical Tectonic Shifts

The recent murder of the prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi that has become universally recognized across the world for the pieces he would pen for Washington Post has revealed a number of facts that remained unapparent for the Western public for a long while.

As it’s been pointed out by the Foreign Policy, the bloody murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul has unmasked the ugly despotism behind the reformist image of Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Hardly anyone at this point has any doubts about the oppressive personality that has been hiding behind the image of a great reformist.

However, Khashoggi’s murder says as much about America as it does about Saudi Arabia.

While exploring this topic, the Washington Post would reveal that Trump’s outlook of the world is utterly rooted in his personal likes and dislikes of other leaders, and Mohammed bin Salman is no exception. In the Middle East, this has led to the blind subcontracting of US foreign policy to Saudi Arabia. That is precisely why Washington chose to step back and observe unsympathetically Riyadh’s aggression against Yemen, Qatari blockaded Qatar, its quarrels with Turkey and the kidnapping of the prime minister of Lebanon.

After all, the United States has done nothing to challenge any of the prince’s earlier stunts: arresting over 200 Saudi princes and business leaders and extorting much of their private fortunes; and freezing trade relations with Canada over a mild human rights complaint.

However, from the point of view of Newsweek, it’s Mohammed bin Salman’s rampant aggression against Yemen that has brought the most misery and suffering to this world out of all his previous sins. On top of almost eight million people finding themselves on the brick of starvation, there’s more than 16,000 civilians killed and the tens of thousands civilians injured in the Arab world’s poorest country as the result of Saudi devastating one-sided war on Yemen.

It’s been pointed out that in one of Jamal Khashoggi’s last pieces, he called on the Saudi crown prince to end the violence in Yemen. He didn’t call out Donald Trump’s and Jared Kushner’s complicity in those crimes, but somebody has to.

As Donald Trump seems to be more concerned with the preservation of 110 billion dollars worth of military deals, he has a hard time changing his rhetorics on Riyadh even in the light of the Khashoggi case, notes Le Temps.

However, this case is where Washington’s undisguised double-standard policies are as apparent as they will ever get, notes a former Czech military intelligence officer, Andor Shandor in one of his interviews. This hypocrisy gets even more striking against the background of the rushed hasty accusations that the West made in the so-called Salisbury incident against Moscow. In this connection, the bias based on sheer greed gets simply unavoidable even for a casual observer.

Less noticed, however, is the way this scandal revealed a deep rotted rivalry between the two countries that would pretend to enjoy amicable relations for a long while: Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It’s been pointed out that those states are professing two different interpretations of Sunni Islam—versions that have evolved within very different historical trajectories and that have produced contrasting visions about the contemporary Middle East.

In the bitter face-off between the two regional heavyweights even those countries that would stick to more a neutral stance are now feeling compelled to take sides. However, it must be pointed out that this rivalry dates back to the 18th century. Back then, much of what we call “the Middle East” today, including the more habitable part of the Arabian Peninsula, was part of the Ottoman Empire.

However, upon detailed examination, one can’t miss the fact that the currents of discord run much deeper than that. For a long time, Riyadh would call for a united front against Shia Islam to be created across the Middle East, while Turkey even if it had a number of disputes with Tehran over the fate of Syria and the military conflict that is raging in this country, has never gone as far as to describe Iran as its enemy.

Further still, there’s a dispute between the two states over the Muslim Brotherhood movement that Riyadh describes as a terrorist organization, in spite of Ankara’s determination to provide lip support to this group.

That is why Tayyip Erdogan sees the Jamal Khashoggi case as a chance to hobble Saudi Arabia, a regional and religious rival. He almost certainly views this case as a chance to kneecap Riyadh and advance his goal of making Turkey the dominant Sunni Muslim power and he is extremely likely to emerge from this confrontation even stronger than before.

In contrast, the situation is only going to get worse for Mohammed bin Salman as new evidence implicating Saudi authorities in the despicable murder of Jamal Khashoggi are going to emerge. This will expose Riyadh to an ever increasing international pressure together with Donald Trump, that is going to be cornered by the Congress into taking a step back from the military deals he seems unable to part with.

Martin Berger is a freelance journalist and geopolitical analyst, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

https://journal-neo.org/2018/10/31/khashoggi-case-triggered-geopolitical-tectonic-shifts/
https://journal-neo.org/2018/10/31/khashoggi-case-triggered-geopolitical-tectonic-shifts/

Jamal Khashoggi: The Arab despots' existential enemy

#Khashoggi

It was Khashoggi's moderation, credibility and legitimacy that so alarmed illegitimate

rulers

David Hearst

Wednesday 31 October 2018 09:13 UTC

Topics:

Khashoggi

Tags:

Saudi Arabia; Jamal Khashoggi; Donald Trump; human rights; Erdogan; Iran

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For the last month, we have all been living in a film. Something that could have been scripted by Quentin Tarantino. It's a drama that straddles two eras.

The first is the 21st century, when a fast-talking 33-old year Saudi Prince strides onto the world stage as a reformer - confident, corner cutting, the scourge of the old, the bearer, we are told, of "moderate" Islam. Jamal Khashoggi once told me that this "moderate" prince was building himself his fourth yacht.

Medieval savagery

But this story has only one foot in the 21st century. The other foot is in the 10th century. This was when lords of the manor descended into their dungeons to hear the screams of their captives. Jamal Khashoggi was killed with medieval savagery. His screams were recorded by his killers. He took seven minutes to die.

This is the point at which the actions of a Saudi prince are indistinguishable from that of the Islamic State (IS). The moderate becomes the monster.

Until Khashoggi's murder on 2 October at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, the border between 21st century and 10th century was frictionless. Imagine if Khashoggi had not stepped into the consulate. The great and the good would have descended on Davos in the Desert, Saudi Arabia's investments conference held in Riyadh last week.

Uber, Richard Branson, and Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) managing director, would have fawned at the feet of the boy king, while the population of Hodeidah starves. They genuflect to tyranny with a lip gloss of liberalism.

Jamal Khashoggi was killed with medieval savagery. His screams were recorded by his killers. He took seven minutes to die. This is the point at which the actions of a Saudi prince are indistinguishable from that of the Islamic State

After four weeks of lies and bribes, an avalanche of evidence points to the Tiger Squad, a covert unit whose commanders were handpicked by the Saudi crown prince, but of whose deeds in Istanbul he professes to be totally ignorant. The crown prince is unaware, too, of the four phone calls the head of the death squad, Maher Mutreb, made to his own chief staff on 2 October, the day of the killing.

So, the crown prince has silenced a voice. But in the process he has turned himself into a toxic brand. He is now the last person you would want to be seen with. Unless of course you are John Flint, the CEO of HSBC. Flint admitted on Monday that it had been a "difficult few weeks for the kingdom". He understood "the emotion" behind the story, but "it's hard to disengage with Saudi Arabia".

Despots' enemy

How interesting that a proven crime, conducted by state officials on state property, has managed to become a subject of emotion rather than international law. You would imagine an international banker, like Flint, to be rather keen on international law.

The millions of dollars spent plastering the prince’s face over the billboards of London, buying think tanks, academics, and journalists, have been consumed in the wildfire of Khashoggi's murder.

A protestor wears a mask of depicting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman with red painted hands next to people holding posters of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a protest in Istanbul, on 25 October,2018 (AFP)

Why has the murder of one man unleashed such a reaction? Why has it taken this murder tostop German arms sales - (but not British, American or French ones) - when the Saudi bombing of a school bus in Yemen last August didn’t? It would take a psychiatrist, not a journalist, to explain this.

Jamal Khashoggi has touched a guilty nerve in all of us. It was not what he said so much what he refused to say that made him the existential enemy of despots. It was his moderation, his credibility, his legitimacy that so alarmed illegitimate rulers. He refused to toe the line, to shut up, to take the king's shilling. Had he done so, he would be rich and very much alive today.

Jamal Khashoggi has touched a guilty nerve in all of us. It was not what he said so much what he refused to say that made him the existential enemy of despots

But Khashoggi would not play the game. He once told me how humiliated he felt after a year of silence. "What's the point of being a journalist if you cannot write what you see in front of you? It's not my job. It's my duty." I sat there nodding. But I don’t think any of us appreciated the danger he was in.

Has anything changed four weeks on?

A turning point

Khashoggi's murder has shown us that the West's closest allies are not just unstable, but a source of regional instability. That arch disciple of realpolitik, the US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, must really be asking himself, who damages American interests more: its enemies or its allies?

Despots never tire of telling us that Arabs are not mature enough for democracy. It's the other way round. Despots never know when their time is up. The Arab state is dying in their hands. Everyone knows this, from the nationalist to the Islamist, from the secular to the religious and from the liberal to the conservative.

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Jamal Khashoggi: A different sort of Saudi

Jamal Khashoggi knew this truth and paid for it with his life. His death may yet prove to be a turning point.

The tragedy is that it took Khashoggi's death for the mask to slip, for the two worlds to collide. For, if ever the page of history turns, it can only be with people like Khashoggi that the region will build a more stable future.

I will miss him, the Arab Peninsula will miss him. The Arab world will miss him. He is a true hero of our times.

This article is based on a speech made at a memorial event for Jamal Khashoggi in London on 29 October.

- David Hearst is editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He was chief foreign leader writer of The Guardian, former Associate Foreign Editor, European Editor, Moscow Bureau Chief, European Correspondent, and Ireland Correspondent. He joined The Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Photo: A demonstrator holds a poster picturing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and a lighted candle during a gathering outside the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul, on 25 October, 2018 (AFP)

https://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/jamal-khashoggi-arab-despots-existential-enemy-869905624

Khashoggi strangled in planned attack, body dismembered – Turkish prosecutor

Published time: 31 Oct, 2018 14:10Edited time: 31 Oct, 2018 15:20

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Khashoggi strangled in planned attack, body dismembered – Turkish prosecutor

Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by “strangulation” immediately after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a Turkish prosecutor has confirmed, adding that his body was “cut into pieces’ after the murder.

The dissident reporter disappeared after going to the diplomatic mission on October 2. After denying his death and the knowledge of his whereabouts for days, Riyadh admitted that Khashoggi died as a result of a 'fist fight.' Later, the Saudi prosecutors also said that some evidence suggested that Khashoggi’s killing was premeditated.

Now, the office of Istanbul’s chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan says Khashoggi was strangled as soon as he entered the diplomatic compound as part of a premeditated killing. This is the first official confirmation of the murder made by the Turkish officials.

The statement stopped short of accusing the Saudis of non-cooperation in regards to the meeting of Saudi chief prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb and his entourage with Turkish law enforcement authorities earlier this week.

“Despite all our well-intentioned efforts to uncover the truth, we have not achieved any concrete results,” the statement said, referring to the talks, as cited by the local media. Turkey has been pressing the Saudis for information about the journalist’s remains as well as about the person who might have ordered the hit.

Ankara also demanded extradition of all suspects in this case, arguing that the journalist was killed on Turkish territory and the investigation of this case thus falls within the jurisdiction of the Turkish authorities.

Cuban crisis 2.0? Moscow eyes military bases in Cuba after US INF pullout

Published time: 31 Oct, 2018 11:42Edited time: 31 Oct, 2018 14:35

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Cuban crisis 2.0? Moscow eyes military bases in Cuba after US INF pullout

Moscow’s response to Trump’s plans to quit the INF treaty could be to reinstall military bases in Cuba, the State Duma defense committee head said. He also predicted “a new Cuban crisis” if the US and Russia fail to come to terms.

The US is planning to walk away from the crucial Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, and Russia’s response may well be in the spirit of those times – namely, reactivating military facilities in Cuba. That is according to Vladimir Shamanov, the head of the State Duma defense committee and a former Airborne Troops commander.

Big Oil Is Sloshing a Crude Tsunami Across the Country

Published on

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

by

Washington Post

The sums the oil companies are investing are so large that they may well overwhelm science and common sense

by

Bill McKibben

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$At a rally at the University of Colorado in Boulder last week, Chris Hoffman wears a sign to promote a proposition to limit fracking. (David Zalubowski/AP)$

At a rally at the University of Colorado in Boulder last week, Chris Hoffman wears a sign to promote a proposition to limit fracking. (David Zalubowski/AP)

In the wake of the devastating new climate report — and of devastating hurricanes, droughts and floods — the oil industry has been making a few small noises about how it might want to change its course. BP’s chief executive, for instance, recently called fora “different, more innovative, collaborative path”; Exxon won widespread coverage for setting aside $500,000 each of the next two years to support some kind of carbon tax.

In case you were wondering, these apparent concessions turn out to be green wash and hooey — all the proof you need can be found in the spending reports on some of the most important ballot measures around the country. Forget the blue wave: Big Oil is sloshing a crude tsunami across the country instead, and in the process trying to bury some of the most innovative ideas for energy progress.

In Washington state, for instance, Measure 1631 offers one of the first serious plans for a price on carbon. Drawn up by a wide coalition of groups from across the state, it calls for a modest tax to be used for renewable energy development. It’s drawn support even from the local business community. A Seattle entrepreneur named, um, Bill Gates, for instance, backed the proposed law, calling climate change “the toughest problem humanity has ever faced.”

But the oil industry isn’t interested. BP alone has spent close to $13 million to beat the measure; the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers association, of which Exxon is a member, is kicking in $1 million. That is, an Exxon-affiliated group is spending as much to beat a carbon tax in one state as Exxon is theoretically spending to back one for the whole country. The fossil fuel industry has raised enough to break every Washington record for election spending — oh, and there are also exactly $275 in “small contributions” listed in the campaign finance reports for the no-on-1631 campaign.

All that money means total superiority in advertising. It also means that, slowly but surely, the widespread lead 1631 enjoyed when the campaign began is being whittled away — not by argument but by constant fearmongering.

Much the same has happened in Colorado. In fact, that those backing Proposition 112still hold a narrow lead is almost a miracle, because they’re being outspent roughly 40 to 1 by the oil industry. The Colorado initiative is modest to a fault: It wouldn’t ban fracking, like New York, but instead merely restrict it to more than 2,500 feet from people’s homes and schools. And yet the oil industry has pumped in $38 million so far — the same amount of money that drew gasps when Beto O’Rourke announced he’d raised it in the last stage of his Senate bid. In this case, though, it’s being spent in a state with a fifth of the population.

In San Luis Obispo, Calif., a countywide anti-fracking referendum is drawing the same kind of lopsided cash. Chevron has put up $4 million to beat the measure, meaning it’s spending about $20 a voter. But even that may not be enough: The local paper’s editorial board just ran its endorsement with the headline “You’d do anything for your kids, right? Then vote yes on Measure G.”

There are other groundbreaking energy ballot measures that just might survive the stacks of money being thrown at them. In Portland, Ore., for instance, voters could well pass a clean-energy ballot initiative that calls for a tiny surtax on the largest national chains operating in the city to be used for clean-energy projects in the city’s poorest neighborhoods. The measure has run into the usual wall of money, however, in this case coming more from retailers than oil companies. (Amazon, whose chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The Post, is one of the big donors, apparently unsatisfied with the $723 million it won from the federal tax cut last year.)

And there’s other good news: More than 1,200 candidates across the country have signed the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge, refusing to take a penny from coal, oil and gas companies. It’s perhaps the clearest way for politicians to show they aren’t puppets for the industry, and a commitment that every presidential candidate will have to make before the climate movement takes them seriously.

In a sense, the fight for a workable climate is also the fight for a workable democracy.

The sums the oil companies are investing are so large that they may well overwhelm science and common sense. We’re rightly paying close attention to voter suppression this election cycle, but it’s also possible simply to smother campaigns in a blanket of cash. That’s why we need to oppose the oil companies at every turn — sell their shares, stop their pipelines and use less of their product. And by turning out to vote for the public interest, not private gain.

Bill McKibben is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College and co-founder of 350.org. His most recent book is Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/10/31/big-oil-sloshing-crude-tsunami-across-country

SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.

Wednesday 31 October 2018

Khashoggi Case Triggered Geopolitical Tectonic Shifts

Jamal Khashoggi: The Arab despots' existential enemy

Medieval savagery

Despots' enemy

A turning point

Khashoggi strangled in planned attack, body dismembered – Turkish prosecutor

Cuban crisis 2.0? Moscow eyes military bases in Cuba after US INF pullout

‘Disastrous decision’: Berlin warns Trump against dismantling INF deal with Russia — RT World News

Big Oil Is Sloshing a Crude Tsunami Across the Country

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