Don Jr. Spreads Bogus Claims Implicating Khashoggi In Terrorism

@FAWFULFAN
Don Jr. Spreads Bogus Claims Implicating Khashoggi In Terrorism

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

 

The disappearance of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, and subsequent claims by the Turkish government that he was murdered by government officials in the Saudi consulate, has sickened the world, and prompted business leaders to suspend ties with Saudi Arabia.

But President Donald Trump has been disturbingly distant from the incident, which has horrified journalists who fear the president is sending a message to rogue regimes that the United States does not care about the killing of overseas reporters. Only today did he agree to even talk to King Salman about the issue.

Trump’s right-wing defenders, on the other hand, have the most reprehensible response imaginable to justify the president’s inaction: demonize Khashoggi as a terrorist sympathizer who didn’t really deserve to live anyway. They are seizing on the fact that Khashoggi conducted interviews with al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden in the 80s and 90s as proof that he is friendly to al-Qaeda’s goals.

And one person who appears to completely agree with this is the president’s eldest son.

On Friday, Patrick Poole, terrorism correspondent for the far-right PJ Media, shared images of Khashoggi from the 80s with the Afghanistan freedom fighters who would ultimately become the Taliban, writing that he was “just a democrat reformer journalist holding a RPG with jihadists.”

Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, another extreme right-wing publication, replied, saying “It’s almost like reality is quite different than the evidence-free narratives peddled by media with a long history of cooperating with or getting duped by Iran echo chamber architects.”

Donald Trump Jr. then proceeded to retweet this smear of Khashoggi.

The prospect a journalist working for a major U.S. newspaper might have been murdered for criticisms of the Saudi royal family is appalling. The fact that the president seems uninterested in the incident makes it ten times worse. But the absolute crown jewel has to be Trump supporters attacking his memory to retroactively excuse the president’s refusal to defend the free press — and the president’s own son endorsing it.

Matthew Chapman is a video game designer, science fiction author, and political reporter from Austin, TX. Follow him on Twitter @fawfulfan.

 

 

Advertising

Start your day with National Memo Newsletter

Know first.

The opinions that matter. Delivered to your inbox every morning

Guess Who Will Get Paid During The Coming Government Shutdown?

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Speaker Kevin McCarthy

As the looming shutdown goes, it’s a minor thing, especially when you factor in how many members of today’s Congress are millionaires, but of course their paychecks are protected. The Constitution does it for both the Congress and the President. Article I, Section 6 states, “The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States.” Article II, Section 1, similarly guarantees that the President will be paid: “The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected.”

Keep reading...Show less
Kyrsten Sinema

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema

Kyrsten Sinema

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who left the Democratic Party last December, has yet to announce if she’ll run for re-election next year. But, according to a document obtained by NBC News, if she does run, she sees her “path to victory” through “a third of the state’s Republican voters” and “anywhere from 15 to 20 percent of the state’s Democrats.”

NBC News published the “two-page prospectus” on Monday, which purports to explain how “Kyrsten Will Win Arizona” in 2024.

“She receives significant crossover support from Republicans and current polling shows her favorability as high as 34 percent with Republican voters,” the document declares, noting Sinema — if she runs — will focus on courting “a significant number of the state’s independent voters and soft Republicans turned off by their party’s rightward swing.”

Keep reading...Show less
{{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}