PRESSURE TO SHOOT OURSELVES IN THE FOOT

The call is out to punish Saudi Arabia for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi

By Howie Katz

Big Jolly Times
October 21, 2018

OK, let me start off by acknowledging that Jamal Khashoggi has been murdered and that the Saudi government was behind his killing. But no one in this country would give a shit were it not that he began writing columns for the Washington Post last year. Now there is a clamor to punish Saudi Arabia. How are we going to do that?

We could freeze the bank accounts members of the royal family have in this country. But that’s hardly a drop in the bucket for those billionaires. We could freeze any Saudi government funds held in American banks. Another drop in the bucket.

Our Navy could block the Saudi shipments of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, but that would piss off the Europeans who depend on that oil.

We could bar Saudis from entering the US, but that would only hurt our hotels, nightclubs and any real estate investments they might want to consider. They’ll just spend their money elsewhere.

Although we won’t go so far as to sever diplomatic relations with the Saudi kingdom, we could send some Saudi diplomats packing. But that would be only expressing our displeasure, not really punishing the Saudis.

That just about leaves us with cancelling the contract for $110 billion in U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia. But we would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we cancelled that contract. That would only hurt American jobs and arms manufacturers. Meanwhile the Saudis could turn to the Russians who would be most eager to sell them weapons.

As I said, if it were not that Khashoggi was a Washington Post columnist, no one would give a rat’s ass about his murder. That sort of shit goes on in the Middle East all the time.

Let’s not forget that Saudi Arabia is one of our allies and an enemy of our enemy Iran. The Saudis bankrolled 9/11 and al Oueda, and we did not punish them for that. So why punish them now?

By the way, Khashoggi has voiced his strong opposition to the Israeli settlements. Even though the Saudis now say that he was killed in a fist fight inside their Istanbul consulate and have arrested a number of their intelligence officials, why don’t we just say Mossad operatives sneaked into the consulate and killed Khashoggi. As for those audio recordings the Turks claim to have, we can always say they are recordings of Khashoggi being tortured by Israeli secret agents. That will give all those who hate Israel something else to bellow about.

President Trump and Congress are not likely to punish the Jewish state. The Europeans would be happy to put the blame on Israel, thereby taking the pressure off to punish the Saudis who supply them with the oil they need. That will also take the pressure off of Trump to shoot Uncle Sam in the foot.