If The Saudis Held A Meeting, Who'd Come?

Soulless demagogue and con artist Donald "Rump" Trump clearly wants to excuse the Saudi crime family from their thuggish assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in their consulate in Istanbul ten days ago. Rump's rationale is venal, of course: it would cost U.S. arms manufacturers if the Saudi regime cancelled their weapons contracts (more importantly for him, it would also jeopardize Saudi money propping up his real estate holdings). There's little doubt, too, that Rump's corrupt son-in-law Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner, who is neck-deep in business dealings with Saudi despot Mohammed bin Salman, would like the Khashoggi incident to be swept under the (non-Persian) rug.

One immediate way to signal that the Saudi regime has gone rogue, short of deserved severe sanctions against bin Salman and his cronies, would be the international community's rejection of the "Future Investment Initiatives" meeting later this month in Riyadh which is seeking to bring together government officials and investors under Saudi auspices. Treasury Secretary and let-them-eat-cake plutocrat Steve Mnuchin said today that he's planning on attending the Saudi-sponsored meeting, despite the audio and visual evidence presented by Turkish authorities that Khashoggi was tortured, murdered and dismembered inside the Istanbul consulate. Many U.S. and international media outlets are already pulling out of the event, in addition to the World Bank and a growing list of multinational companies. Mnuchin, of course, would only do what Rump ordered him to do.

It may turn out that Mnuchin and his entourage may be the only ones attending the meeting at the end of the day. If so, it would be a fitting symbol of how the U.S., under Rump, has aligned itself with the world's tyrants and traded its role in promoting human rights for a few billion dirty dollars.