US Deflects on Saudi Atrocities, Again: See How That Works?
The Hill dutifully reports Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman deflected questions on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and 9/11 culpability. This 'journalism' frames selective amnesia as a new phenomenon. Yet, successive U.S. administrations have offered a diplomatic full-body-block for the Saudis, conveniently forgetting inconvenient facts as soon as Riyadh signs another arms deal. For
instance, in 2019, despite CIA intelligence (Washington Post, Oct 26, 2018) directly implicating MBS in Khashoggi's assassination, the Trump administration explicitly shielded him from congressional sanctions. This isn't a glitch; it's a feature. The U.S. State Department consistently prioritizes geopolitical 'stability' (read: oil supply and arms sales) over human rights and accountability,
whether it's MbS's bone saws or the over 100,000 Yemeni civilians killed by Saudi-led coalition bombs (UN Human Rights Office, 2020), often dropped from U.S.-supplied F-15s. One might wonder, how many journalists need to be dismembered and how many wars do we arm before 'deflection' becomes 'complicity?'