"Enemy Of The People" Killed By Saudis?

A week ago, a journalist for the Washington Post, Saudi-born Jamal Khashoggi, entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul to get paperwork in order to be able to marry his Turkish fiance, who waited for him outside. He never emerged from the consulate, and Turkish media is reporting that Saudi assassins killed Khashoggi in the consulate, dismembered his body and took his remains back to Saudi Arabia, all at the orders of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is shaping up to be a world-class tyrant despite his carefully cultivated image as a modern monarch.

Turkish media have done stellar work in investigating the disappearance and probable murder, while Turkish authorities are doing their own investigation, mindful of the economic influence oil-rich Saudi Arabia has over them. Earlier today, Turkish media published photos and video showing the alleged assassination team entering Turkey and checking in at two Istanbul hotels. Closed circuit TV showed Khashoggi entering the consulate but never leaving; multiple security camera surround the compound, none of which have shown him leaving.

Bin Salman, or as he is known "MBS," was reported to be angered at Khashoggi's reporting on the roundup of political opponents and others in Saudi Arabia, undermining his image of "modernizing" the feudal monarchy. Whether he absorbed demagogue and neo-fascist con man Donald "Rump" Trump's constant theme of the media being the "enemy of the people" and took it as a "wink" from Rump isn't certain. The Saudis lavished attention on Rump in 2017, who made Saudi Arabia his first international stop after his inauguration, projecting his image on buildings and treating him like a visiting monarch with medals and a sword dance. It's not hard to see where they see him as a kindred spirit in autocracy, and are targeting critical journalists in a way that Rump can only fantasize about.