Trump vindicated, media is silent

Two months ago, Jamal Khashoggi was a thing. He died in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul apparently painfully and slowly. The Washington Establishment went whacko and demanded President Trump break relations with Saudi Arabia for the death of Khashoggi, whom the elitists described as a journalist for the Washington Post. He wrote 20 columns for the paper.

The media portrayed him as a journalist and portrayed Our President as a murderer of journalists by proxy.

Now we know the rest of the story. Khashoggi was a propagandist for Qatar, the one gulf state that sides with Syria and Iran.

A Saudi paper, Arab News, reported, "Washington Post subtly admits Khashoggi columns were ‘shaped’ by Qatar."

The Post wrote, "Text messages between Khashoggi and an executive at Qatar Foundation International show that the executive, Maggie Mitchell Salem, at times shaped the columns he submitted to the Washington Post, proposing topics, drafting material and prodding him to take a harder line against the Saudi government. Khashoggi also appears to have relied on a researcher and translator affiliated with the organization, which promotes Arabic-language education in the United States."

Submitted?

Published. The word is published.

This admission vindicated President Trump's reluctance to break relations with an 80-year ally.

The Post should never have run the columns.

Arab News cited the Post's ethics rules, which apparently signal virtue but carry none in practice:

“We do not accept payment — either honoraria or expenses — from governments, government-funded organizations, groups of government officials, political groups or organizations that take positions on controversial issues.”

“A reporter or editor also cannot accept payment from any person, company or organization that he or she covers. And we should avoid accepting money from individuals, companies, trade associations or organizations that lobby government or otherwise try to influence issues the newspaper covers…”

“…We avoid active involvement in any partisan causes — politics, community affairs, social action, demonstrations — that could compromise or seem to compromise our ability to report and edit fairly.”

Now then, if you are going to present the man as a journalist, by golly he had better follow the ethics of a journalist.

But journalism ethics allow the New York Times to keep in its employ a reporter who slept with a source older than her father to get classified information.

Khashoggi's death has been illuminating. The press blindly took up his cause, elevating him to the status of Time Magazine Thing Of The Year.

David Reaboi, a security expert, wrote five days ago, "Once President Trump released a robust statement supporting the US-Saudi alliance, intense political pressure was felt from anti-Trump forces in the American media, which pushed Democrats toward Qatar and Iran, and away from Saudi Arabia. Suddenly, the alliance had become a partisan issue; prominent Democrats in Congress began calling for a reevaluation of American policy toward the country. The intensity with which the Kingdom’s critics have attacked the US-Saudi relationship specifically points to more than just a target of opportunity. These critics could be placed into (at least) one of the following categories: (a) a pro-Iran position; (b) a pro-Islamist/Muslim Brotherhood position; and (c) anti-Trump. Often — as with the case of the Washington Post — it is a combination of all three.

"Led by Sen. Chris Murphy and Elizabeth Warren, voices from the political left seemed to outdo each other in berating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with whom President Trump and members of his administration have warm relations. They are trying to use outrage over Khashoggi’s death to force a Saudi surrender in the war in Yemen; and end to arms sales, a break in US-Saudi relations, or even to depose Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman from his position in the Kingdom’s order of succession. This, of course, was the Qatari policy aim and the conclusion of a successful information operation."

The richest man in the world owns the Post. He wants chaos. It keeps wages down until his robots can replace humans in his sweatshops.

He also uses the Post to lobby Washington to protect him. People do not become billionaires by luck.