The only thing about this man’s identity that matters to me is that he: A) wasn’t a U.S. citizen, B) was on Turkish soil (and Erdogan is worse than the Saudis), C) was in an embassy that was not ours. He shouldn’t have been murdered the way he was (nobody should be) but all of our enemies (guilty of far worse) are clamoring for us to condemn the Saudis, and the Saudis have been an important ally.
If Khashoggi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood it wouldn’t surprise me, but it changes nothing. He shouldn’t have been killed the way he was. At the same time, the rules we are all used to living by are absent in much of the world. Journalists are murdered horribly all the time in Latin America, and judges, mayors, etc. Russia, China, and the entirety of the Middle East are not good places for truth tellers to do their thing.
We should be part of the effort to convince mankind that they are good and not evil. That is the only way we move forward. It would be nice if the media would recognize that the world is rough and step off the POTUS. He has been clumsy in explaining himself, or has made to appear so, but nobody who cares about human rights can argue with a straight face that we should side with Iran and Turkey against Saudi Arabia. I’m sure Russia and China wish we would, but the world is worse off if they win.
First Kashoggi then what?