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Mike Pompeo Belittles Khashoggi Murder. Will Never Be President. Will Always Be Garbage.

  
Via:  John Russell  •  last year  •  15 comments

By:   Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed (Wonkette)

Mike Pompeo Belittles Khashoggi Murder. Will Never Be President. Will Always Be Garbage.
Bone saw apologist says what now?

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Mike Pompeo cannot possibly believe that he's going to be president. That guy couldn't even be bothered to run for the Senate when a seat in his "home" state of Kansas was up. He's polling at a whopping one percent in the Morning Consult Republican primary tracker. Plus there's the fact that he's utterly devoid of charm and charisma.

And yet he continues to build his brand with speaking engagements and a new memoir. Unfortunately, his brand is ASSHOLE, which we already knew from watching Pompeo as Trump's secretary of state — his gross treatment of NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly stands out. So we're only a little bit shocked to read that Pompeo is pissing on slain Saudi dissident reporter Jamal Khashoggi's grave for book sales.

His publicist appears to have deliberately released an excerpt to NBC and The Guardian in which Pompeo scoffs that Khashoggi's brutal 2018 murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a team of assassins dispatched by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman "made the media madder than a vegan in a slaughterhouse."

Always be trolling!

Khashoggi was suffocated and then dismembered with a bone saw because he criticized the Saudi royal family, so Pompeo's slaughterhouse joke is especially vile. And although he tut-tuts that the killing was "outrageous, unacceptable, horrific and despicable, evil, brutish and, of course, unlawful," Pompeo shrugs it off, noting that he's "seen enough of the Middle East to know that this kind of ruthlessness was all too routine in that part of the world."

To be clear, the murder of dissidents in foreign embassies, particularly legal residents of the United States, is not "routine." Certainly Turkey didn't accept it as business as usual.

But Pompeo isn't really interested in geopolitical reality. He just wants to foment culture war in America, which requires him to minimize this gross assault on international norms by claiming that "Khashoggi was an activist who had supported the losing team in a recent fight for the throne … unhappy with being exiled."

He's also perfectly happy to outright lie.

"To be clear, Khashoggi was a journalist to the extent that I and many other public figures are journalists," he wrote. "We sometimes get our writing published, but we also do other things. The media made Khashoggi out to be a Saudi Arabian Bob Woodward who was martyred for bravely criticizing the Saudi royal family through his opinion articles in the Washington Post."

That's just false. Khashoggi had a long career in journalism, with stints at media outlets such as Middle East Eye, the Saudi Gazette, Saudi newspaper Al Watan, and the Washington Post.

Pompeo's rolls his eyes at the "faux outrage … fueled by the media," saying that Khashoggi was "cozy with the terrorist-supporting Muslim Brotherhood." And indeed, as a younger man, Khashoggi was allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, although he wasn't a member of the movement at the time of his murder.

"Jamal Kashoggi is not part of the Muslim Brotherhood. I confirm it to you," Khashoggi's widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, told NBC News.

Pompeo performs an unsubtle manipulation of his readers, whom he clearly assumes will be pig ignorant about foreign policy. Because the Muslim Brotherhood is a 94-year-old political movement that has gone through many different iterations, and is currently supported by Turkey and Qatar, both of whom are US allies. After using the association to tar Khashoggi and make it seem like he was willing player in a dangerous game, Pompeo congratulates himself on his sophisticated realpolitik for recognizing the strategic value of the US relationship with Saudi Arabia and bin Salman, who leads a wildly repressive regime at home and routinely carries out kidnappings abroad and tortures his critics at home. Plus there's that whole decimation of the civilian population in Yemen.

Nuance for me, but not for thee.

"He didn't deserve to die," Pompeo writes of Khashoggi, "but we need to be clear about who he was - and too many people in the media were not."

Indeed, it is important to be clear about who people are. So when Pompeo's presidential ambitions fizzle and he becomes a highly paid lobbyist for Raytheon and/or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, don't say we didn't see it coming.

[NBC / The Guardian]


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JohnRussell
Professor Principal
1  seeder  JohnRussell    last year

Mike Pompeo would seem to have just committed political suicide. 

Unless he's just running to be the next president of MAGAstan. 

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1.1  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  JohnRussell @1    last year

He believes and repeats conspiracy theories spread by ultra-Christian anti-Communist Adrian Zenz, which should put him in good standing among the conservative ignoramuses. 

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
1.1.1  Sean Treacy  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @1.1    last year
Adrian Zenz, w

What a weird connection, Pompeo to Zenz. 

  And then when you google the two together , guess which government's propaganda arm attacks Pompeo and Zenz for supporting Uighers?

Some people just can't stand opponents of genocide. 

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
1.1.2  Sean Treacy  replied to  Sean Treacy @1.1.1    last year

Here's Pompeo and Zenz's big crime:

CCP Media Outlet 'Xinjiang Daily': Pompeo, Zenz – 'Big Demons Who Interfere In The Affairs Of China's Xinjiang

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1.1.3  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Sean Treacy @1.1.1    last year

When I see proof, I'll believe, but I don't believe those who have no real proof of the shit that comes through their mouths instead of their assholes.  Unfortunately Paul Harvey is no longer around to tell the rest of the story, and since I don't know for sure I don't know which side of the story to believe, so don't try to label me one way or the other. 

Grayzone: U.S. 'genocide' accusation relies on data by right extremist

.

You can believe whatever you want, Sean, but as far as I'm concerned, I'll rely on the fact that your comments indicatate a reliance on a religious extremist anti-Communist.  Not my idea of a reliable source.

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
1.1.4  Sean Treacy  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @1.1.3    last year

You just cited the ccps propaganda arm as your source while complaining that I’m not using reliable sources. Not to even mention you criticize someone for being anti communist.  Imagine thinking opposing an ideology that murdered tens of millions of people in a century is a bad thing.

Irony is surely dead.  Nothing else need to be said, it’s simply too absurd.

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1.1.5  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Sean Treacy @1.1.4    last year

You have your views of what's good and bad, and I have mine, and obviously the twain will never meet.  Personally, I'm proud to be a Canadian, no matter where I live, and I assume you're proud of your country, notwithstanding.....

At least I don't feel any need to deflect from Canada's issues.  Do you feel good about what's happening in the USA?

As for China, I'm a mere guest.  Have you ever travelled to a country where you were not a citizen?  I've travelled to about 17, which is really not that many.  There are members here who have been to many more than that.  But it was enough to know that to stay out of trouble, one does not do what the Romans forbid. 

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1.1.6  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Sean Treacy @1.1.4    last year
"You just cited the ccps propaganda arm as your source..."

That's an outright lie.  Grayzone is neither located in China nor are its staff Chinese.  It is an independant investigative journalist source and is located in Fairfax, Virginia, USA.

The Grayzone  is an independent news website dedicated to original investigative journalism and analysis on politics and empire.

It was founded and is edited by award-winning journalist and author  Max Blumenthal .

From  January 2016  to January 2018,  AlterNet.org  sponsored the Grayzone Project. Since then, The Grayzone has been fully independent.

.......

The Grayzone is an independent journalistic initiative that does not receive funding from any government or government-backed group or individual.

Just because a news source happens to support the CPC view on an issue does not make it a propaganda arm.  Believe it or not, Sean, there can actually be two sides to a story. 

 
 
 
Sean Treacy
Professor Principal
1.1.7  Sean Treacy  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @1.1.6    last year

You linked to CGTN (pay attention to your own links) the CCP's propaganda arm. Because its foreign propaganda in service of a government, the US requires it to register as a foreign agent, which it does. 

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1.1.8  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Sean Treacy @1.1.7    last year

So according to you, if the China Daily or another Chinese source quotes an article from a western source, it makes that source a CPC propaganda arm.  Oh, well that really is news to me.  Your comments are indicating to me that it's really not worth wasting my time reading anything you post. 

 
 
 
Ed-NavDoc
Professor Quiet
2  Ed-NavDoc    last year

Prior to 2016 a lot of people said Donald Trump would never be elected president either. Politics are such a fickle thing.

 
 
 
bbl-1
Professor Quiet
3  bbl-1    last year

Pompeo's biography states that he is a 'devout christian'.

A christian dominionist is more likely with a heavy bent for autocracy and authoritarianism.

I would like to ask him (Pompeo) if he knew what Trump meant when he said, "I saved bin Salman's ass."  Was Pompeo privvy to any of that?   Whether he was or not, how did that weigh on his christian values?

 
 
 
Sparty On
Professor Principal
4  Sparty On    last year

Oh the temerity of this veteran and conservative.    

Pompeo would destroy Biden in a Presidential race at nearly every level.    Except with the triggered that is.

 
 
 
Gsquared
Professor Principal
5  Gsquared    last year

Having watched Pompeo in action as a member of the House and then Secretary of State, the best way to describe him is:  Pompous Ass.

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
5.1  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Gsquared @5    last year

In previous comments I called him Pompous Pompeo. 

 
 

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