Khashoggi, Kushner, Trump

[jj22]

As more and more Americans look on in disgust at Trump attacking America and our Allies Intel (again) this time on behalf of the Saudi Arabia King in the face of recorded facts, I must ask; have they not been paying attention? Who still thinks this guy cares about America? How many dictators and enemy's of ours did he have to side with before you got to this point? How many Gold Star families, and Navy Seals did he have to attack, or Fallen Military memorials did he have to skip to get to this point? He cares about himself and only himself.

He is finally getting criticized by even his supporters, but too little too late. They've already put this Anti American in office and the damage (as he acts like America is dependent on countries like Russia, and Saudi Arabia) when in reality we are the Super Power with the best economy and they are our clients. He's got it all backwards and the damage he's done to America on the World Stage as he empowers our enemy's and attack our Allies will take generations to undo.

Great Job Trump Supporters. You did the country you supposedly "love" a great disservice.

[Dill]

(11-21-2018, 11:39 AM)jj22 Wrote: As more and more Americans look on in disgust at Trump attacking America and our Allies Intel (again) this time on behalf of the Saudi Arabia King in the face of recorded facts, I must ask; have they not been paying attention? Who still thinks this guy cares about America? How many dictators and enemy's of ours did he have to side with before you got to this point? How many Gold Star families, and Navy Seals did he have to attack, or Fallen Military memorials did he have to skip to get to this point? He cares about himself and only himself.

He is finally getting criticized by even his supporters, but too little too late. They've already put this Anti American in office and the damage (as he acts like America is dependent on countries like Russia, and Saudi Arabia) when in reality we are the Super Power with the best economy and they are our clients. He's got it all backwards and the damage he's done to America on the World Stage as he empowers our enemy's and attack our Allies will take generations to undo.

Great Job Trump Supporters. You did the country you supposedly "love" a great disservice.

He is criticized by some, not all. He has some supporters partially flummoxed though. I was listening to Tom Shillue today on Fox Radio. He had a moment where he thought the U.S. should take a public stand against Saudi Murder, as well as working behind the scenes.

But then he spent the next 20 minutes explaining why Trump's recent spat with the SCOTUS over his executive order on asylum is really no different from Obama calling out the Supreme court for Citizens United.  The only difference was that Trump's language was more "blunt" (e.g. calling the Supreme Court "Obama judges"). But the NYT framed it so that Trump's behavior was "authoritarian."  (Perhaps because it was, while Obama was defending the rule of law.) This will work as explanation for Trump's base, and further the narrative that Trump's tremendous negatives are a result of "bias," not Trump's behavior. That turns all these Trump missteps back into the mire of identity politics. Criticizing Trump is criticizing the judgment of his supporters. They respond by doubling down on their support.

On the positive side, Trump voters, not necessarily the base, are peeling away. My internist, who is Indian, surprised me when I went into my check up two years ago by proclaiming support for Trump. His complaint was rising insurance costs, which he though Trump would manage better than the Democrats . I went in for my check up today and he was ranting about Trump's accommodation to Saudi Arabia, and how that is not "America." He finally gets that Trump, in addition to not understanding rule of law and checks and balances, has no ethical core, and no conception of the kind of international blowback his actions will have, not to mention domestically. 

He is in a downward spiral, and hopefully won't last another year; but the problem of Fox and the Trump base will remain; they will continue to support authoritarian candidates and the undermining of the press, the intel services, and now the Supreme court.

[jj22]

More Anti America talk from Trump in defense of the Saudi King.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/22/trump-salman-khashoggi-murder-1012552

[BmorePat87]

(11-26-2018, 11:19 AM)jj22 Wrote: More Anti America talk from Trump in defense of the Saudi King.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/22/trump-salman-khashoggi-murder-1012552

What was the best thing he did while calling the troops to wish them a happy Thanksgiving? Defending a murderous autocratic because he wants to keep gas prices low or complaining about judges ruling against him?

[jj22]

To those who mocked Obama for spending Thanksgiving feeding Vets, are we shocked?

[GMDino]

(11-26-2018, 11:30 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: What was the best thing he did while calling the troops to wish them a happy Thanksgiving? Defending a murderous autocratic because he wants to keep gas prices low or complaining about judges ruling against him?

I thought it was asking for their location, how many people were there and telling them that he knows they have faulty equipment. 

[Dill]

(11-26-2018, 11:19 AM)jj22 Wrote: More Anti America talk from Trump in defense of the Saudi King.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/22/trump-salman-khashoggi-murder-1012552

Well, I have to say that I agree with Trump on this. It is VERY likely that MbS now regrets the murder he ordered more than Trump does.

It has created a great deal of international stress for SA, and increased the likelihood of internecine political war there.

[GMDino]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/28/mike-pompeo-blasts-lawmakers-over-jamal-khashoggis-murder-saudi-arabia-yemen/2136140002/

Quote:Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasts lawmakers for ‘caterwauling’ over Khashoggi’s murder

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasted lawmakers Wednesday ahead of an all-Senate briefing on the war in Yemen and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. 

In a surprisingly antagonistic op-ed, published in the Wall Street Journal, Pompeo accused lawmakers of "caterwauling" about Saudi Arabia's human-rights record and ignoring the kingdom's pivotal role in sidelining Iran. 

"The Trump administration’s effort to rebuild the U.S.-Saudi Arabia Arabia partnership isn’t popular in the salons of Washington, where politicians of both parties have long used the kingdom’s human-rights record to call for the alliance’s downgrading," Pompeo wrote.

"The October murder of Saudi national Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey has heightened the Capitol Hill caterwauling and media pile-on," he said. "But degrading U.S.-Saudi ties would be a grave mistake for the national security of the U.S. and its allies." 

Pompeo's attack on lawmakers landed just hours before he was set deliver a classified briefing to senators on the war in Yemen, where the U.S. is supporting a Saudi-led coalition against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. 

Pompeo accused the Trump administration's critics in Congress of being soft on Iran – an assertion that's likely to spark a backlash among Democrats and Republicans alike who have pushed the administration to mete out stronger punishment against Saudi Arabia for its role in Khashoggi's murder. 

“Is it any coincidence that the people using the Khashoggi murder as a cudgel against President Trump’s Saudi Arabia policy are the same people who supported Barack Obama’s rapprochement with Iran — a regime that has killed thousands worldwide, including hundreds of Americans, and brutalizes its own people?" Pompeo wrote.

"Where was this echo chamber, where were these avatars of human rights, when Mr. Obama gave the mullahs pallets of cash to carry out their work as the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism?"

Pompeo's preemptive criticism of lawmakers could make Wednesday's closed-door briefing all the more contentious.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he had a “little chat” with Pompeo Wednesday morning about the op-ed. “It may have missed the mark,” Corker said, declining to elaborate.

Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the foreign relations panel, seemed similarly displeased. He said Pompeo should have listened to the audio tape of Khashoggi’s murder, evidence the Turkish government shared with America officials to prove the Saudis’ complicity in the Washington Post columnist’s death. “That’s caterwauling,” Menendez quipped as he went into the closed-door briefing.

Corker said on Tuesday that unless the two Cabinet secretaries spell out a more forceful response to Khashoggi’s death, he may vote in favor of ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen – a step he has opposed in the past.

“There’s got to be a price to pay for what has happened,” he said. "This injustice has occurred,” the Tennessee Republican added, “and so far, the administration doesn’t appear to” be prepared to respond adequately.

Pompeo warned lawmakers against ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

"Abandoning Yemen would do immense damage to U.S. national security interests and those of our Middle Eastern allies and partners," the secretary of state planned to tell lawmakers, according to excerpts released by the State Department Wednesday morning.

Pompeo argued that efforts to end the conflict are "gaining steam." He noted that the Houthis and the Republic of Yemen's government have committed to attending talks in Sweden in December, led by UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths. But the Saudis have yet to agree to those negotiations.

Pompeo also argued that if the United States was not involved in Yemen, the conflict "would be a hell of a lot worse." 

"... The Saudi-led coalition would not have the benefit of our advice and training on targeting, so more civilians would die,"
Pompeo says in his prepared remarks. "All we would achieve from an American drawdown is a stronger Iran and a reinvigorated ISIS and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Try defending that outcome back home."

Critics have blasted the argument that the U.S. role is mitigating the horrible toll on civilians.

"That sounds like the military industrial complex is putting out some spin," Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., told USA TODAY in a recent interview. "We have not heard that from any humanitarian group that we work with." 

They are disgusting people....

[Dill]

(11-28-2018, 02:35 PM)GMDino Wrote: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/11/28/mike-pompeo-blasts-lawmakers-over-jamal-khashoggis-murder-saudi-arabia-yemen/2136140002/

They are disgusting people....

Yeah, this bothers me a lot.  Fewer adults in the room now. More arsonists than firefighters.

SA was now supposed to step in as a "hard power" bulwark against Iranian expansion ("We don't need no stinkin' Iran Deal"), led by the assumption MbS would "modernize" SA and be all pro-American and in the region and tolerate Israel.

Now in the midst of a flagrant human rights violation involving a U.S. resident on foreign soil, the administration would foist an either/or on the U.S./international community, which can imagine a range of possible alternatives which preserve the SA-US relation without ignoring a horrific international crime.

Hard to tell if the limitation is internal to Bolton et al. (have they ALWAYS only been able to view Gulf conflict in simple either/or terms?), or a sign of more direct Trump control over policy.

“Is it any coincidence that the people using the Khashoggi murder as a cudgel against President Trump’s Saudi Arabia policy are the same people who supported Barack Obama’s rapprochement with Iran — a regime that has killed thousands worldwide, including hundreds of Americans, and brutalizes its own people?" Pompeo wrote.

"Where was this echo chamber, where were these avatars of human rights, when Mr. Obama gave the mullahs pallets of cash to carry out their work as the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism?"

Lol, They were thinking about some 15,000 of the mullahs' centrifuges and 98% of their enriched plutonium taken out by Obama, and how lifting sanctions would strengthen the Iranian middle class, moving it towards real democracy.

[GMDino]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/10/jared-did-what/?utm_term=.6bac2c125699

Quote:

Quote:Senior American officials were worried. Since the early months of the Trump administration, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and Middle East adviser, had been having private, informal conversations with Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the favorite son of Saudi Arabia’s king. . . . The exchanges continued even after the Oct. 2 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was ambushed and dismembered by Saudi agents, according to two former senior American officials and the two people briefed by the Saudis. . . .
According to the Saudi, Mr. Kushner has offered the crown prince advice about how to weather the storm, urging him to resolve his conflicts around the region and avoid further embarrassments.

As a preliminary matter, we should recognize this as yet another example of why a president should not put a relative in a position of power — especially if the relative possesses questionable judgment and is utterly unqualified for the job. “In one way it makes sense, I suppose — irrationally self-confident princeling confabulating with irrationally self-confident princeling,” Eliot Cohen, a frequent critic of President Trump and veteran of the George W. Bush State Department, said in an interview. “But in every other way, it is profoundly inappropriate and typical of the administration’s failure to use the organizations and processes that were, after all, created for a reason.”


The Times article should be deeply troubling on multiple levels. First, it’s obvious Kushner was as gullible and unsophisticated on foreign policy matters as his father-in-law, making him a sitting duck for manipulation by the Saudis (“The prince and his advisers, eager to enlist American support for his hawkish policies in the region and for his own consolidation of power, cultivated the relationship with Mr. Kushner for more than two years”). If you want to know how an administration could so naively and completely base its foreign policy on the Saudis and come to believe the kingdom was actually going to sponsor the peace process and get away with denying culpability in the gruesome murder of Khashoggi, one should start with the easily snowed Kushner.

Second, what in the world is a U.S. official doing advising a foreign leader on how to escape blame for the murder of a U.S. national, a crime so repulsive that a bipartisan push is underway in Congress to enact sanctions and end arms sales to the Saudis? Giving advice to Mohammed bin Salman under these circumstances demonstrates the sort of moral blindness we rarely witness (aside from Trump). “Success” — letting MBS get away with murder — would be a moral abomination quite apart from the foreign policy implications.

Third, Kushner — whether because he has financial interests or because he’s easily bamboozled — has lost track of where his loyalties should lie. He owes the United States his undivided loyalty and should never be in a position in which he assumes defense of any foreign leader. He has created a classic conflict of interest in which we cannot determine if he is motivated solely by concern for U.S. foreign policy (which he foolishly and excessively tilted in the Saudis' direction) or because of personal loyalties or business interests.


Tim Mulvey, communications director for the Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, tells me, “The Foreign Affairs Committee will conduct a top-to-bottom review of American policy toward Saudi Arabia, including what drove the administration’s response to the Khashoggi murder.” He adds, "No specific hearings have been scheduled yet, but nothing is off the table.”

In the course of the investigation, the committee may want to call public hearings and subpoena all relevant documents regarding Trump’s financial interests and benefits relating to the House of Saud, Kushner’s business interests relating to Saudi Arabia and why, despite public evidence that he was being manipulated by foreign governments, he continued to play such a critical role in foreign policy. (“Officials in at least four countries have privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter,” The Post reported in February. “Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the current and former officials said.”)


It’s not hard to figure out how the United States became effectively the junior partner in the U.S.-Saudi relationship. “Donald Trump runs his White House like a Middle East dictator,” says Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress. “His move to empower his son-in-law on many fronts including Middle East policy is just one example of it — and this nepotism helps explain the bad results America has gotten under Trump.” He adds, “Kushner and his team squandered the leverage the United States has with countries like Saudi Arabia, which depend heavily on the U.S. security umbrella to survive. Instead of pressing a newly assertive Saudi Arabia to serve as a source of stability and genuine reform, the Trump administration gave MBS a blank check — unconditional support no matter what, including murdering a journalist.”


One would be tempted to say that, in any other administration, Kushner would be fired for rotten judgment and perpetuating, at a minimum, the appearance of a conflict of interest. But, of course, it’s hard to imagine a 37-year-old old real estate scion with no government experience and no foreign policy experience working in such a high-level post in any other administration. Like I said, don’t hire relatives — especially incompetent and foolish ones.

[Dill]

(12-10-2018, 07:33 PM)GMDino Wrote: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/10/jared-did-what/?utm_term=.6bac2c125699

“Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico....”

Once poor judgment from the bottom up puts a grifter in charge of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government, bad judgment then flows from the top down, not only counting Trump's judgment, but those of his incapable appointees.

The big mystery is still why so many still think lack of foundational knowledge of governance and any cognizance of ethical principle in a president doesn't matter all that much. Supreme Court picks can't explain it all.

People can understand why KC had to let Kareem Hunt go. We all saw the video.

But no one in the Trump administration will listen to the tape of Kashoggi's murder, and the U.S. has to keep SA on Team USA no matter what--not even a game suspension. 

The Senate may force consequences on Saudi A, but that doesn't come from our "strong" president, the one who can't actually fire anyone in person.

[jj22]

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/pompeo-meets-saudi-prince-who-lured-jamal-khashoggi-to-his-death

This Admin just loves them some Dictators.

[Dill]

(03-29-2019, 12:32 PM)jj22 Wrote: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/pompeo-meets-saudi-prince-who-lured-jamal-khashoggi-to-his-death

This Admin just loves them some Dictators.

And they has some short memories.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/state-department-deflects-calls-to-expel-saudi-prince-from-us

The State Department is so far ignoring calls from Congress to expel Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States to protest the country's role in the death of dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

“We’re not going to get into hypotheticals,” a State Department spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.

That response came after a senior Senate Democrat called for President Trump to expel Prince Khalid bin Salman, the brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as a response to Khashoggi's death. The execution, which took place in a Saudi diplomatic facility in Turkey, outraged lawmakers of both parties and intensified bipartisan pressure to rebuke the oil-rich monarchy for a range of humanitarian abuses.

“Unless the Saudi kingdom understands that civilized countries around the world reject this conduct and make sure that a price is paid, the Saudis will continue to do it,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said while reiterating his call for Prince Khalid’s expulsion.


The controversy has spurred a bipartisan effort to pass a resolution ending U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, where Iranian-backed rebels overthrew the Saudi-friendly government. But that move is a bridge too far for some Republicans who want to maintain the U.S.-Saudi partnership against Iran.

[GMDino]

...and I just got off the phone with Casey Anthony to discuss the importance of babysitting. https://t.co/2xTqZoaCij

— YS (@NYinLA2121) April 10, 2019

 

[*michaelsean*]

(04-10-2019, 09:11 AM)GMDino Wrote:

...and I just got off the phone with Casey Anthony to discuss the importance of babysitting. https://t.co/2xTqZoaCij

— YS (@NYinLA2121) April 10, 2019

 

Maybe I'm misreading this as I have only the tweet, but isn't that something we would want him to do?

[BmorePat87]

(04-10-2019, 10:23 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Maybe I'm misreading this as I have only the tweet, but isn't that something we would want him to do?

I think that should start with publicly holding him accountable for the sadistic murder of a journalist. 

[jj22]

(04-10-2019, 10:23 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Maybe I'm misreading this as I have only the tweet, but isn't that something we would want him to do?

No. This guy doesn't listen to Trump. Trump listens to him.

Trump shows he cares by holing someone accountable. Not by bringing credibility to this guy by officially meeting with him, and inviting him to our country/WH.