A Year After Khashoggi’s Murder, Where is Freedom Now?
Freedom. Its a mantra in the United States and the American people desperately want to believe that the U.S. is its Champion domestically and around the world. Of course, American politicians all the way up to the President sing its praises from the rooftops. Sadly, internationally at least, it is a fiction, a convenient lie that the U.S. tells itself so that it can sleep at night. This was the case in 2018 when it decided to turn a blind lie to a murder.
One year ago, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman won. He won when he personally ordered the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He has acknowledged publicly that he takes complete responsibility because the hit team were Saudi officials. While he denies ordering the hit itself, the Central Intelligence Agency, my former employer, and many other intelligence officials around the world scoff at his words. This simply wouldn’t and could not have happened without his involvement, consent and even direction. The conclusion, the Crown Prince murdered and cut this man to pieces just as surely as if he did it with his own hands.
The murder itself was brutal but the purpose of the murder makes it far more horrific and disconcerting. The Saudis murdered Khashoggi specifically because he was telling the truth, because he was highlighting what the Saudis were actually doing. And yes, for his freedom to speak. As a journalist, Khashoggi bravely stood up and told the truth despite risking his life in the process and lost it as a result.
This brings me back to the United States and the first word of this piece, freedom. The CIA came to the proper conclusions regarding the Crown Prince and the Saudis. He did it. You would imagine the U.S. would follow up with their time worn mantra of freedom and stand up against what the Saudi did in broad daylight. Instead, the President did what the U.S. has done again and again, stand behind the murderers. He gave him a pass.
The justification the U.S. frequently uses for its behavior around the world and in the Middle East in particular is that it is about stability. This has been the argument for half a century. Sadly, totalitarian dictators have frequently provided the short term stability that the Americans wanted and so the hypocrisy continued. The problem of course is that many of these governments are completely discredited by their own people and they are tearing themselves apart as a result. In the end, the U.S. supporting those dictators and their human rights violations in return for stability is exactly what creates the chaos itself.
I teach Human Rights, Rule of Law and Trial Advocacy skills to lawyers throughout the world. One concept that I teach called Rule of Law flies directly in the face of this American approach. Its pretty simply: let everybody have a voice, apply laws to all including the leadership and all should be confident that that laws will actually be applied. If this were to happen, it may very well turn the very structure in the Middle East on its head. In the end, the U.S., the Champion of Freedom, would and absolutely has fought against this.
Its been a year and the Saudis’ work succeeded. Not only did they shut Khashoggi up permanently, they made their point loud and clear to any others in their grasp whether inside Saudi Arabia or throughout the world, that they could face the same fate. Worse, the U.S. helped them do it saying almost nothing.
U.S. citizens love waving the flag and singing about freedom but ignore what their own government does and totalitarian dictators run with it. Now, tell that to every other journalist in the world sitting before a computer or piece of paper trying to decide whether its really worth writing the words they know to be true.
Where is freedom now?