Aha! Khashoggi was a Qatari asset

It has now floated to the surface, like something you never want to see in your child's kiddy pool, that Jamal Khashoggi (who was murdered at the hands of the Saudis in their consulate in Turkey) was a Qatari asset, most likely being paid and handled by Maggie Mitchell Salem, an executive at the Qatar Foundation International.

Following the disappearance of Khashoggi, the Saudi-born reporter was billed as an unflinching proponent of democracy, a Washington Post journalist who was exposing the myriad and horrible human rights abuses by the government of his native Saudi Arabia.

While this balderdash of a narrative was being spun by Turkey and Qatar (which are both fierce rivals of the Saudis and now know was working behind the scenes in the days after the murder), the Obama-era “echo chamber” was being used by them to undermine the stability of the Saudi government itself.

That “echo chamber,” named as such by Obama’s National Security Council Communications Director and former failed novelist Ben Rhodes, was famously exploited by Rhodes to support both Obama’s engagement with the Iranians (culminating in the crappy Iran nuclear deal) as well as Obama’s shift towards the Sunni Islamists (including Egypt’s former Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi) and away from America’s former Sunni allies (most prominently, Saudi Arabia).

Which makes one wonder about Obama's thoughts on Islamic global domination.

“When complete, the successful information operation would depict Khashoggi a heroic martyr to independent journalism and freedom, while Saudi Arabia would be the embodiment of evil and callousness,” writes the Security Studies Group (SSG), an Australian think tank, which added, “It is clear now that, not only was Khashoggi transmogrified in death into a major front in Qatar’s war on its Gulf neighbors; in life, he was Qatar’s asset in that war, as well.”

As SSG noted, “American elites and policymakers have been soft targets for Qatari influence and information operations. Information operations use media and traditional tools of public relations to advance policy interests through narratives.”

This was abundantly apparent in the narrative put forth by the mainstream media shortly after Khashoggi’s death. As details began to emerge about the Khashoggi’s connection to the Muslim Brotherhood and Osama bin Laden (which we now know were important in his work on behalf of Qatar, one of the world’s largest sponsors of the Brotherhood), the media downplayed these facts as conservative conspiracy theories.

“No outlet did more in the service of cementing that symbolism than the Washington Post and its news and editorial staff,” wrote SSG. “Since October, that outlet has functioned unofficially as the most relentless and influential anti-Saudi lobbying shop in the nation’s capital. Indeed, the successful campaign of hagiography spearheaded by The Post prompted Time Magazine to name Khashoggi and other members of the oft fake news media ‘Person of the Year.’”

Propaganda camouflage

They were attempting to make Khashoggi into some kind of Muslim saint; no pun intended.

As details are still surfacing about Khashoggi being a Qatari “agent of influence,” even The Washington Post realized they were vulnerable, and agenda-driven fools.

In a piece obviously written for damage control, The Washington Post revealed, “Text messages between Khashoggi and an executive at Qatar Foundation International show that the executive, Maggie Mitchell Salem, at times shaped the columns he submitted to The Washington Post, proposing topics, drafting material and prodding him to take a harder line against the Saudi government.”

The newspaper also wrote about Khashoggi’s Brotherhood friends in the U.S., including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror-funding case. They also mentioned his ties with senior officials in the Turkish government, as well as the rumors that documents from wire transfers from Qatar were found at his homes in Turkey and in Virginia.

Yet, in spite of the Washington Post article downplaying these “details,” the article “is crucial because the campaign to lionize Khashoggi and to destroy the US-Saudi relationship was built on the fiction that the Saudis had killed a mere journalist,” notes SSG.

Wow. Talk about fake news and secrecy.

While the brutality of Khashoggi's execution at the hands of the Saudis is horrifying, it should be clearly understood that the Saudi’s viewed Khashoggi essentially as a foreign agent who threatened the very existence of the current regime, and he had to be eliminated.

Indeed, as seen by the chorus of screeching voices and finger-pointing from the political Left who attempted to use the murder to sever U.S.-Saudi relations, end U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, depose Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman as successor to the kingdom’s throne and force the Saudis to surrender to Iran in Yemen, that assessment was quite on the mark.

“This, of course, was the Qatari policy aim and the conclusion of a successful information operation,” write SSG.

Turkey, of course, skillfully used the events to further position itself as the natural heir to the Sunni Islamic world, and kick Saudi Arabia to the side of the road.

There was a lot more to the story than we initially saw, and whether by accident or baffling brilliance, Trump apparently made the right move not to turn our back on the Saudis.


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