White House Welcomes MBS: Khashoggi's Ghost, Oil Deals Thrive
NPR reports MBS's visit marks his first since the 2018 assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist, by Saudi agents. The public facts, including a CIA assessment, link MBS directly to the brutal dismemberment. Yet, an alleged murderer, whose regime still jails dissenters and bombs Yemen with US-supplied weapons, is now a welcome guest of honor. The framing reduces Khashoggi's
murder to a minor inconvenience, quickly overshadowed by the shimmering allure of 'big deals.' This isn't just selective memory on display; it's a strategic amnesia designed to smooth over inconvenient truths for geopolitical expediency. One might wonder, how many bone saw scandals does it take before we question the moral calculus of our foreign policy? Apparently, fewer than the number of
barrels of oil they're selling.