Sorry this newsletter is a bit late today, but I’ve been busy picking my jaw up off the floor after seeing the latest US-Saudi news.
Of course, it’s not a complete surprise the US would assist Saudi Arabia. Washington has backed its ally for decades despite the kingdom’s long list of appalling abuses at home and abroad.
But that the Biden Administration has decided to protect Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman personally by shielding him from legal action in the US in a case dealing with the brutal 2018 murder of US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi – that’s shocking.
This is next-level craven.
Remember that, in February 2021, US intelligence revealed that MBS approved Khashoggi’s murder. Khashoggi was lured into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and killed inside, his body then dismembered with a bone saw.
The civil case against Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, and more than 20 other alleged co-conspirators, was filed in a district court in Washington, DC, by both Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancée, and Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN).
The US government is not a party to the case, but last week, the US State Department presented a statement of interest that “recognizes and allows the immunity of Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman as a sitting head of government of a foreign state.”
Conveniently timed, MBS was appointed as prime minister in September.
Even without Biden’s campaign promise to make Saudi authorities “pay the price” for Khashoggi’s heinous murder, it simply seems beyond explanation that the US government can both declare someone is behind a murder and decide he can’t be taken to court for that murder in the US.
Last month in this newsletter, we discussed the word “impunity” and how the under-appreciated term really means, “getting away with murder” or some other crime.
And what do perpetrators learn from getting away with a crime? That there will be no consequences for doing it again.