The heartbreak and horror of the Middle East is captured by the Khashoggi saga: "human rights" and "democracy" are just political cudgels wielded by various oppressive groups in their power struggles. None of them sincerely hold classical liberal ideals, including Khashoggi.
"Human rights" complaints are selectively wielded against regimes despised by opposition groups nearly as awful in some cases, and more awful in others. Precious few of them have any real interest in recognizing religious freedom, freedom of the press, or individual rights.
They all just want their turn as tyrant, fully intending to oppress their opponents at least as much as they were oppressed when out of power. They know which buttons to push to get favorable attention from Western media. They don't even have to try very hard.
Thus Jamal Khashoggi is falsely presented as a champion of democracy and dissent when he was nothing of the kind. He had Erdogan's view of democracy as a train you ride until you reach the desired destination. He strongly and RECENTLY supported the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.
His ideal regime would have allowed SOME dissent and permitted SOME votes, but religious authorities would set the bounds of speech and votes. The Muslim Brotherhood most certainly is NOT keen on unrestricted free speech and vibrant opposition journalism against itself.
None of which even slightly excuses Khashoggi's murder or the absurd Saudi attempts to first conceal and then excuse it. But the entire REGION is mired in heartless cynicism. There are no shining good guys, only brutal repressive regimes with varying levels of antagonism for us.
The efforts to deify Khashoggi as a crusader for liberty are every bit as clumsy and transparent as Saudi Arabia's deceptions, for the obvious political purpose of getting American voters worked up against Trump foreign policy and retroactively justifying Obama policies.
American media organizations that refuse to honestly discuss what Khashoggi said and did, from the 80s to last month, are acting with the same dishonest cynicism as the Saudi monarchy, although they obviously get points for better craftsmanship and not murdering anyone.
The point of insisting on a full accounting of Khashoggi's writings is to head off a dishonest U.S. political narrative that hypes this particular horrible murder when so many other horrible murders and acts of oppression receive a fraction of the attention.
And also to make the point that it doesn't matter if Khashoggi was less than the white knight of liberty he's being presented as. It should not be necessary to whitewash his Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas sympathies to be utterly outraged at what the Saudis did to him.
The miserable depth of brutal cynicism in the Middle East can be measured by the desperate need to recast Khashoggi as Thomas Jefferson to put the desired political spin on his murder. His death deserves the strongest condemnation no matter what he wrote. No blinders are needed.
As for the Saudis, their actions are inexcusable and barbaric, not least because of the entirely predictable damage to both their own future and the interests of the United States. All this to silence one activist with a Washington Post byline? It's utterly barbaric.
At BEST, if you believe the current denials of royal involvement, the Saudis have "rogue operatives" who think nothing of using diplomatic facilities for kidnapping and murder. They can apparently organize and execute such operations in a matter of days.
That is completely unacceptable for any nation that claims to be civilized at any level. You don't HAVE a civilization if your "rogues" can wantonly perpetrate such crimes on foreign soil and deceive the central government for weeks, even though they appear to be clumsy morons.
And at worst, you have not only bloodthirsty tyranny but the insane arrogance of thinking such a killing can be perpetrated without consequence, dragging every allied nation into the crime as co-conspirators. What reforms can anyone who thinks this way be trusted to implement?
The important thing to remember is that virtually every party to this atrocity is only telling us the part of the story that suits their agenda. Your antenna should go up when anyone demands you ignore pertinent details, from what the Saudis did to what Khashoggi wrote. /end
