It is not "smearing" Jamal Khashoggi or excusing his murder to read the man's own copious writings and understand he was a devoted Islamist - a tireless advocate for what he constantly called "political Islam."
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Conversely, it is outrageous to insist that one must accept Khashoggi as a Jeffersonian champion of liberty in order to condemn his alleged murder. It's not a binary choice between mythologizing the victim or accepting political executions at diplomatic facilities.
But of course, our media is now frantically trying to pound a typically complex and ugly Middle Eastern story into the round hole of partisan U.S. politics, so it needs a bright shining hero opposed by the darkest villains.
Anything that would complicate that Manichean narrative is reflexively attacked as unnecessarily confusing to the public. But his disappearance is a momentous event, no matter how it shakes out. People need to know the full story, neither sanitized nor demonized.
A good deal of the debate over Khashoggi boils down to how much credit you're willing to give him for changing his opinions over time, whether you think contact with certain Islamic radical organizations is a lifetime stain, and how sincere you think his later writings were.
Having read those writings, I think he was profoundly naive about insulating "political Islam" from extremism, and he made the classic Arab Spring mistake of thinking "democracy" is a prerequisite for liberalization rather than the other way around.
He wasn't just a "journalist," although quibbling about the proper term for someone who writes for newspapers misses the point. He was also a political activist, and his agenda was not all sweetness and light. He explicitly said he didn't care if his agenda harmed U.S. interests.
It is profoundly dishonest to argue that nothing Khashoggi wrote before he started working for the Washington Post, and nothing he wrote for other outlets over the last couple of years, counts at all. It all matters. It all tells his story.
No part of Khashoggi's full, complicated, and often very dark story in any way justifies luring the man into a diplomatic facility and murdering him, if that is indeed what happened.
Healthy skepticism does not require willful blindness or foolishness. Media coverage has been sloppy, manipulated by dodgy Turkish sources, and increasingly politicized - but let's not pretend it isn't ominous that Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate and was never seen again.
And let's not waste any time on "why should we care about this?" nonsense. Yes, it matters to YOU, my fellow Americans. This is a major event with massive international repercussions. Among other things, if the worst is true, it violates the most basic diplomatic conventions.
I can't believe anyone could watch the refugee crisis reshape Europe over the past few years and think, "Eh, it's the Middle East, who cares about them killing each other over there?" It WILL affect YOU. It will affect the entire world economy. It could change the entire region.
Back to what this thread is about: Khashoggi's death is already affecting U.S. domestic politics, and that effect will intensify. Don't sit back and let this get turned into propaganda. Seek out the full story before half the story is weaponized to change your life. /end
