by As`ad AbuKhalil from Consortium News
... Khashoggi
was an ambitious young reporter who knew that to rise in Saudi
journalism you don’t need professionalism, courage, or ethics. In Saudi
Arabia, you need to attach yourself to the right prince. Early on,
Khashoggi became close to two of them: Prince Turki Al-Faysal (who
headed Saudi intelligence) and his brother, Prince Khalid Al-Faysal, who
owned Al-Watan (The Motherland) where Khashoggi had his first (Arabic) editing job.
Khashoggi
distinguished himself with an eagerness to please and an uncanny ability
to adjust his views to those of the prevailing government. In the era
of anti-Communism and the promotion of fanatical jihad in
Afghanistan and elsewhere, Khashoggi was a true believer. He fought with
Osama bin Laden and promoted the cause of the Mujahideen.
... Khashoggi
was a reactionary: he supported all monarchies and sultanates in the
region and contended they were “reformable.” To him, only the secular
republics, in tense relations with the Saudis, such as Iraq, Syria and
Libya, defied reform and needed to be overthrown. He favored
Islamization of Arab politics along Muslim Brotherhood lines.
Khashoggi’s vision was an “Arab uprising” led by the Saudi regime.
In his Arabic writings he backed MbS’s “reforms” and even his “war on
corruption,” derided in the region and beyond. He thought that MbS’s
arrests of the princes in the Ritz were legitimate (though he mildly criticized them in a Post
column) even as his last sponsoring prince, Al-Walid bin Talal, was
locked up in the luxury hotel. Khashoggi even wanted to be an advisor to
MbS, who did not trust him and turned him down...
... A writer in Okaz, a daily in Jeddah, accused
him of meeting with the Emir of Qatar at the Four Seasons Hotel in New
York and of having ties to “regional and international intelligence
services.” If true it may have sealed his fate. Qatar is now the number
one enemy of the Saudi regime—arguably worse than Iran...
[read more here]
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