prasad1
Active member
The Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, where Jamal Khashoggi once walked in and never walked out, happens to be on a tree-lined residential neighborhood a stone’s throw from my own apartment. Around this time last year, I remember frantically trying to reach out to Turkish government officials to get information about Jamal’s whereabouts. “The details are grim,” one said two days after his disappearance.
A year forward, I cannot help but wonder what Jamal’s brutal murder has changed in the conduct of global affairs. The outrage has died down. Media attention has tapered off. There are no longer camera crews outside the consulate. Thanks to President Trump’s decision to ignore Riyadh’s guilt in return for fat defense contracts, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is off the hook. The Saudi regime is out of its brief stay in the doghouse and preparing to host the Group of 20 meeting in Riyadh next year. The United Nations investigation has concluded what we already know, but is now shelved in the annals of other great crimes of our times.
So what has really changed?
The answer is sobering. We all knew about the brutality of the Saudi regime — with its unique theological foundation and inclination toward severe punishments, such as decapitation and flogging — to dissidents according to its own twisted sense of justice. But the real story is not about Saudi brutality; it is about the mealy-mouthed response from the West. What was truly shocking about the incident was the Western acquiescence to it.
A year forward, I cannot help but wonder what Jamal’s brutal murder has changed in the conduct of global affairs. The outrage has died down. Media attention has tapered off. There are no longer camera crews outside the consulate. Thanks to President Trump’s decision to ignore Riyadh’s guilt in return for fat defense contracts, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is off the hook. The Saudi regime is out of its brief stay in the doghouse and preparing to host the Group of 20 meeting in Riyadh next year. The United Nations investigation has concluded what we already know, but is now shelved in the annals of other great crimes of our times.
So what has really changed?
The answer is sobering. We all knew about the brutality of the Saudi regime — with its unique theological foundation and inclination toward severe punishments, such as decapitation and flogging — to dissidents according to its own twisted sense of justice. But the real story is not about Saudi brutality; it is about the mealy-mouthed response from the West. What was truly shocking about the incident was the Western acquiescence to it.
