Free Republic

FULL TITLE: Trump slanders (Muslim Brotherhood member and terror apologist) Khashoggi and betrays American values PRESIDENT TRUMP on Tuesday confirmed what his administration has been signaling all along: It will stand behind Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman even if he ordered the brutal murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In a crude statement punctuated with exclamation points, Mr. Trump sidestepped a CIA finding that the crown prince was behind the killing; casually slandered Mr. Khashoggi, who was one of the Arab world’s most distinguished journalists; and repeated gross falsehoods and exaggerations about the benefits of the U.S. alliance...

America First! The world is a very dangerous place! The country of Iran, as an example, is responsible for a bloody proxy war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, trying to destabilize Iraq’s fragile attempt at democracy, supporting the terror group Hezbollah in Lebanon, propping up dictator Bashar Assad in Syria (who has killed millions of his own citizens), and much more. Likewise, the Iranians have killed many Americans and other innocent people throughout the Middle East. Iran states openly, and with great force, “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” Iran is considered “the world’s leading sponsor of terror.” On...

Germany’s foreign minister said Berlin has banned 18 Saudi nationals from entering Europe’s border-free Schengen zone because they are believed connected to Khashoggi’s killing. The German government says it has halted previously approved arms exports to Saudi Arabia amid the fallout from the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Germany said a month ago it wouldn’t approve any new weapons exports to Saudi Arabia, but left open what would happen with already approved contracts. Germany’s economy ministry oversees the authorization of arms exports. Ministry spokesman Philipp Jornitz said Monday that “the German government is working with those who have valid...

Jamal Khashoggi, serviced Muslim Brotherhood. Mulla / IG reps that now lamment J Cas absence. A Persian, Salman is the man.

So back to the tragic murder of Jamal Khashoggi. My intelligence sources tell me he had worked as an intelligence agent for the Saudi intelligence service, GID, for around 20 years. At one point he was sent by GID to Sudan to meet Osama bin Laden and to try to lure him away from terrorism. He failed. Khashoggi had always been close to the Muslim Brotherhood, the people who took over Egypt under Morsi following the so-called Arab Spring. The Muslim Brotherhood is a hard-line Islamist organisation dedicated to the introduction of Sharia and the creation of an Islamic caliphate....

The US Central Intelligence Agency has concluded Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was behind the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, US media reported Friday, citing people close to the matter. The US assessment directly contradicts the conclusions of a Saudi prosecutor one day prior, which exonerated the prince of involvement in the brutal murder. But The Washington Post, which broke the story, said the CIA found that 15 Saudi agents flew on government aircraft to Istanbul and assassinated Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate.

Saudis have always run a brutal dictatorship. We needed the oil. They owned the Bushes. We looked the other way. Obama bowed before them literally. We look the other way with China, which is an even more brutal dictatorship (in terms of murdering their own citizens). Why is the CIA leaking stories to CNN about Jamal Khashoggi's murder? Why is the MSM running story after story about this to shape American popular opinion? I'm confused why they want me to care. Please fill me in on the real explanation. Thanks.

It’s an old joke: How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips are moving. It seems that may be the case for the first two Muslim women elected to the U.S. Congress. An analyst at the Gatestone Institute presented evidence that Ilhan Abdullahi Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Harbi Tlaib of Michigan lied to voters. The charge comes from Soeren Kern, a senior fellow at the institute, who who wrote that most of the media coverage since their election Nov. 6 “has been effusive in praise of their Muslim identity and personal history.” “Less known is that both...

A special European Union initiative to protect trade with Iran against newly reimposed U.S. sanctions faces possible collapse with no EU country willing to host the operation for fear of provoking U.S. punishment.

Progressive pundit Cenk Uygur argued recently the Bible is pro-abortion. The founder of The Young Turks — a far-left outlet — employed a passage from the Old Testament to make his case. Uygur, taking Numbers 5 out of context, claimed it’s “a fact” Scripture endorses abortion. “You’re wrong about your Bible,” he said, speaking to Christians. “You’ve been misled; you’ve been lied to. Your religious and political leaders have kept you in ignorance. The Bible is actually pro-abortion — that’s a fact.” Uygur went on to suggest abortion has never been a religious issue. “It was never about the Bible,”...

It turns out that crackpot Ron Paul’s son Rand can understand why poor, innocent Iran might want nuclear weapons—they feel “threatened” by big, bad America (hat tip to Rand Paul: Too Kooky for Kentucky for the video): Watch it at NRB - sorry, can't embed videos here at FR.

One hope for Yemenis is that the international fallout from the death of the Saudi dissident, Jamal Khashoggi, which has damaged Prince Mohammed’s international standing, might force him to relent in his unyielding prosecution of the war. Peter Salisbury, a Yemen specialist at Chatham House, said that was unlikely. “I think the Saudis have learned what they can get away with in Yemen — that western tolerance for pretty bad behavior is quite high,” he said. “If the Khashoggi murder tells us anything, it’s just how reluctant people are to rein the Saudis in.”

A reader asked me the other day why I was writing about marijuana legalization in Canada instead of President Trump's tangled relationship with Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman.Simple.  Because it's more fun to go to Canada to write about pot than to write about the Mideast. But now that I'm back in the U.S.A., let me address the Saudi issue. I told you so.For as long as I've been writing about Saudi Arabia, I have had nothing but bad things to say about the place. A month after the 9/11 attacks, I wrote, "If Saudi Arabia had only sand, we...

Don't look now, but Donald Trump is on the verge of accomplishing one of the biggest goals he endorsed during the 2016 presidential campaign.  He promised he would debunk the notion that the Beltway crowd was capable of micromanaging the Mideast.Thanks to Saudi Arabia's recent conduct, we now have irrefutable proof of that thesis.  The way Trump did so was brilliant. He named as his envoy to the Mideast a Jersey guy whose prior experience in diplomacy consisted of  getting the Eatontown Township Committee to cooperate on his plan for remaking an aging mall his family owns there.Jared Kushner then went...

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Turkish authorities to guarantee the safety of journalists during their military operations after shots fired by Turkish soldiers injured two Syrian Kurdish journalists in the border town of Tal Abyad, in northeastern Syria, on 2 November. Ibrahim Ahmad and Gulistan Mohammed, who work for the Syrian Kurdish news agency ANHA/Hawa, sustained gunshot injuries while covering the clashes between Turkish and Kurdish forces and the Turkish army’s cross-border bombardment of the town.  The condition of Ahmad, who was hit in the leg, is stable, but Mohammed’s condition is much more worrying because the bullet struck her in the face....

The International Coalition spokesman said contacts are aimed at reducing tension.   International Coalition Against ISIS Spokesman, Sean Ryan, said in a statement posted on Twitter: "We are in contact with Turkey and Syria Democratic forces in an effort to reduce tension". On Wednesday, the US State Department had announced that they were in contact with the YPG and the Turkish state in an effort to ease tension. The US also stated that they were worried after receiving news of the attacks carried out by the Turkish state. Turkish state attacks against Kobanê and Girê Spî were launched after a...

"In accordance with plans made in advance, the victim. Jamal Khashoggi, was choked to death immediately after entering the Consulate General of Saudi Arabia." Official Turkish Statement On Jamal Khahoggi Murder 10/31/2018 After saying that meetings with a Saudi prosecutor produced "no concrete results", a Turkish prosecutor has gone public with his version of what happened to journalist Jamal Khashoggi when he went to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2nd. The version of events released by Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Irfan Fidan is that Khashoggi was murdered by strangulation right after he went into the consulate with his...

You've heard the "stuff" dished out about foreign influence on our elections....Russia, Russia, Russia. But Vice-President Mike Pence had a much broader list than that when he spoke recently citing Russia, China and Iran, along with "other nations". And he's dead on right. There's been a lot of griping from people who do business and make bucks dealing with China over the tariffs President Trump imposed to force fairer trade. I heard this kind of *itching from a trade association of adult beverage manufacturers in Kentucky when I listened to the radio down there during my summer vacation. But there...

A Kuwaiti paper reveals another monstrous Obama betrayal. We thought the Obama administration could stoop no lower when it was revealed that the administration transferred $1.7 billion in untraceable cash to the Islamic Republic as ransom for the release of four Americans hostages they were holding. We were wrong. In its twilight weeks, the administration gave its consent to allow the Iranians to receive 116 metric tons of natural uranium from Russia as compensation for its export of tons of reactor coolant. According to experts familiar with the transaction, the uranium could be enriched to weapons-grade sufficient for the production...

A group of prominent U.S. evangelical figures, including several of President Donald Trump's evangelical advisers, met Thursday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose role in the killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi remains unclear. In a statement that included smiling photos, the group said "it is our desire to lift up the name of Jesus whenever we are asked and wherever we go." The meeting at the royal palace in Riyadh comes amid widespread questions about the role the prince played in the operation that left Khashoggi dead after he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul...