For the last week I have been largely focused on the pantomime of lies surrounding the assassination of the Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi…and the total ‘missingthepointness’ of the media. It seems that the murder of a journalist is worthy of outrage in a way that the systematic genocide taking place in Yemen, is not. I am not surprised by this, but of course ‘surprised’ and ‘disgusted’ are two very different things.
Here is an update on the story so far, as seen through my eyes, drawing on tweets and the articles that informed them. The first thing that became apparent was that there would be no condemnation from the Prime Minister:
To understand the UK’s current position on Saudi Arabian arms sales however, it is important to understand the history. Later on I will go back to 1930, but for now let’s refer to a Guardian piece from 2008, when it was still a real newspaper:
By Tuesday October 16th, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was on his way to Riyadh to ‘find out what had happened and urge a full investigation’ which was his way of saying ‘help with the cover-up’. Here is an interesting piece from Bill Law at Al-Jazeera:
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/pompeo-khashoggi-problem-mbs-created-181016145309417.html
And here is a typically irreverent take on Pompeo’s visit from ‘The Onion’:
By this point it was impossible for the British Government to maintain complete radio silence so our our new Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt took to Twitter…I’m pretty sure from the responses he got, he wished he hadn’t. Here was mine, first to Hunt, and then to the Prime Minister:
By now it was being reported by the New York Times that Pompeo’s visit coincided with the transfer of $100 million dollars from Riyadh…money that was already agreed you understand:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-money-syria.html
Then finally, a journalist that nailed it. Here’s Patrick Cockburn writing in Counterpunch, reprinted by Public Reading Rooms:
By Friday 19th Pompeo was already trying the old magician’s redirection trick…using of course…Iran
By the early hours of Saturday morning, which happened to be my 63rd birthday…and the dawn of my final chance to serenade my wife with “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?”…I discovered that the story had changed…again…
Speaking of redirection, by Sunday I am sure that the cabinet were relieved to have something they could sound tough about…as it emerged that Trump has decided to scrap another nuclear treaty with Russia. Pretty much everyone in the world thinks this is a crazy idea except Britain, and particularly our ManBoy Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, who beat his shallow chest in a column at the Guardian:
Where are we now? Well, firstly the media has started to talk about ‘collusion’. This is welcome, but as I suggested earlier, when you look at the history of Britain’s involvement with Saudi Arabia, to call it ‘collusion’ does not tell the whole story…not even close:
Secondly, the financial elites and other parasites planning to attend ‘Davos in the Desert’ are dropping like flies. Why now? Why not over Yemen? Simple: Because they cannot afford to be seen with people who get CAUGHT. Conscience has nothing whatsoever to do with it. A million Yemenis is a statistic…a murdered journalist is bad PR. Here are the people who’ve dropped out so far:
You will notice the Financial Times on the list of ‘media partners’. Those of you who have followed me since my days writing in the comments section of the FT will also know that I have taken the FT to task a number of times for their sickening and spineless attitude towards the atrocity of Yemen. This was my last post at the FT:
http://www.markgb.com/blog/2017/11/26/the-fts-sickening-hypocrisy-on-yemen?rq=the%20ft%27s
Finally, for now…the cries of “he’s a reformer, we should give him another chance” have already started, and will doubtless get louder. On a lighter note to finish, therefore, here’s my take on that:
