Forget Khashoggi, Where Were Our Elites When Obama Assassinated American Citizens?
Chris Reeves
TownHall.com
Nov 25, 2018
In the wake of Trump’s announcement this week that his administration would continue to “stand with Saudi Arabia” despite the recent murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, America’s mainstream media elites erupted in their usual paroxysms of despair and condemnation of the president. Although this time the typical “orange man bad” stories tended to omit calls for Trump to be immediately overthrown by the military or his own cabinet, almost every other major trope was preponderant.
This was especially true of Khashoggi’s former place of employment at the Post, where journalists almost universally portrayed Trump as having blood on his hands for his refusal to directly take action against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, now widely believed to have ordered Khashoggi’s murder.
Among the most vituperative critics of Trump in this regard was Post global opinions editor Karen Attiah, Khashoggi’s editor and self-described friend. In a column published on Tuesday entitled “Trump’s Defense of Khashoggi’s Saudi Murderers Will Stain Him (and America) Forever,” Attiah told her readers that [emphasis mine]:
In effect, Trump is doing his best to help the Saudi regime get away with the murder of a U.S. resident and one of the Arab world’s most prominent writers. If the administration continues down this path, it will further destroy whatever is left of America’s moral credibility on global human rights and freedom of expression. It puts truth-seekers and journalists who dare challenge the Saudi regime and other intolerant governments in grave danger, no matter where they live.
In the same piece, Attiah insisted that Khashoggi was simply a “peaceful Post op-ed writer who lived in Virginia” and that the president “turning a blind eye to the butchering of a U.S.-based journalist” is possibly one of the lowest moments of his presidency, just ahead of “Trump’s failure to condemn white supremacist violence in Charlotesville [sic]” and “mocking a sexual assault victim” (presumably Christine Blasey Ford).
Later on Tuesday night, Attiah appeared on MSNBCto reiterate many of the same points while more explicitly claiming that Trump’s decision would put her and other Saudi critics’ lives at risk [emphasis mine]:
“It made us, Trump look like we’re servants to this regime that would butcher Washington Post journalists,” [Attiah] continued. “Chris, it puts all of us, journalists, Saudi critics, anybody who dares to have an opinion against an authoritarian government around the world, it puts us in more danger. It gives people like Mohammad bin Salman a green light to erase and silence anybody that they want, wherever they might be, for whatever reason.
“I’m just really disgusted, to be honest,” she added.
It’s difficult to know where to begin when dissecting this sort of blatant dishonesty, but perhaps the best place to start is simply to note that neither Attiah nor any of her better-known colleagues are actually opposed to governments assassinating their own citizens on principle.
The Rest…HERE
