Comment by Jugurtha | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Jugurtha | Hacker News Reader

>I suppose I never thought deeply enough to conclude the torture and murder of Jamal Khashoggi is a manifestation of a systematic problem.

Even for something that has received such a wide coverage as that, what do we actually know for a fact about it? You hear pundits and journalists claiming things for fact, but what are the sources, and what is the actual evidence. The only evidence is "everybody knows", or the U.S. intelligence community being "certain" of his fate. They were "certain" of a lot of things. If something that has received as wide a coverage as that event has had, imagine all the things we'll never hear about.

>If nation states (even democratic in some instances) are willing to kill those who share the truth, is this something we should accept?

It's amusing that I'm writing these lines near a street named "Richelieu" in Algiers. We'll have to go back to Cardinal de Richelieu for whom the "raison d'État"[0] was a cornerstone.

I'd recommend the book "Diplomacy" by Henry Kissinger.

- [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_interest

> You hear pundits and journalists claiming things for fact, but what are the sources, and what is the actual evidence. The only evidence is "everybody knows", or the U.S. intelligence community being "certain" of his fate. They were "certain" of a lot of things. If something that has received as wide a coverage as that event has had, imagine all the things we'll never hear about.

Is this a serious comment? The Saudi Arabian government has already admitted to murdering Khashoggi (but denied that MBS had anything to do with it)[0]. There was plenty of reviewed evidence, including CCTV footage, audio recordings, etc, not just "everybody knows".

[0] "After repeatedly shifting its account of what happened to Khashoggi in the days following the killing, the Saudi government admitted that Khashoggi had been killed in a premeditated murder"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashog...

>Is this a serious comment? The Saudi Arabian government has already admitted to murdering Khashoggi (but denied that MBS had anything to do with it)[0]. There was plenty of reviewed evidence, including CCTV footage, audio recordings, etc, not just "everybody knows".

Have you seen the footage and listened to the audio recordings? I've followed the events, and read the articles as they came out. One after the other talked about details, bone saws, audio recordings of phone calls, of the deed itself, video footage. The ones I may have watched were not of that event.

The link points to the Wikipedia page of the "Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi". Do you have a link to the Saudi Arabian government admitting to murdering Khashoggi?

> The link points to the Wikipedia page of the "Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi". Do you have a link to the Saudi Arabian government admitting to murdering Khashoggi?

"Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told Fox News "the murder" had been a "tremendous mistake" and denied the powerful crown prince had ordered it.

Khashoggi was last seen entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Saudis, under intense pressure to explain Khashoggi's whereabouts, have offered conflicting accounts.

They initially said he had left the consulate on 2 October - but on Friday admitted for the first time he was dead, saying he had been killed in a fight. This claim met widespread scepticism."[0]

[0]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45935823

In the video[0], the title is "Crown prince on Khashoggi killing: 'A heinous crime that cannot be justified'".

He does not say that in the video. The translation is wrong, and the title is wrong. He literally says "It is a horrible incident" ("هو حادث بشع"). There is no 'heinous crime' in there.

That is the problem. In article after article, and video after video I have seen about this, people stretched things, did not call things by their name, talked about evidence, translated wrongly.

I am not saying that they did not do it. I am saying that this was a mess, and my initial point was that if something like this, with news organizations involvement world wide, a scandal that involved multiple governments, people still make a mess and a version that is absolutely fact based is still not there, then there is little hope for the things we don't hear about.

You may be mistaken thinking I'm defending a government and you seem to think you're producing evidence. I'm just telling you that what you think evidence is may not be. If you or I were ever accused of something, I bet we'd want the concept of evidence to be much more than the Times mentioning phone calls and video footage and people saying "but bonesaws.. footage.. dismembered.. operative". The same way we'd like wars not to be waged because someone dangles "evidence" in a vial addressing the United Nations.

What I stated earlier is correct. "Everybody knows" because "everybody knows"[1].

- [0]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/saudi-arabia-now-admits-k...

- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

> people still make a mess and a version that is absolutely fact based is still not there, then there is little hope for the things we don't hear about

This is sometimes called an "isolated demand for rigour"[0]. There is worldwide governmental consensus that Khashoggi was murdered. The Saudi Arabian government admits to it using purposely euphemistic language. They even had a (closed) trial and sentenced five people to death in relation to this "horrible incident."

But then, you respond, have you actually seen video footage of the murder taking place? Well, then it's settled. We truly cannot know if Khashoggi was "murdered," and since no body was recovered, for all we know he's vacationing in the Seychelles, or deep in a Turkish prison. How is this different than the "weapons of mass destruction" that got us into the Iraq War?

> You may be mistaken thinking I'm defending a government and you seem to think you're producing evidence.

This passive-aggressive nonsense is ridiculous. You seem to clinging to some fiction that SA has not literally and materially admitted to wrongdoing. You operate in a worldview where everything that doesn't meet your arbitrary standard of truth is not "evidence-based," and therefore wrong. What you present as some sort of epistemic skepticism is just garden variety solipsism.

[0]https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand...

Have you noticed the shift between your first comment where you cite evidence in the form of footage, and audio recordings to your latest comment of worldwide governmental consensus.

>Is this a serious comment? The Saudi Arabian government has already admitted to murdering Khashoggi (but denied that MBS had anything to do with it)[0]. There was plenty of reviewed evidence, including CCTV footage, audio recordings, etc, not just "everybody knows".

If there were evidence, that shift would never have happened. We wouldn't be talking about worldwide governmental consensus.

This is not an isolated demand of rigor. You cited the evidence. I asked if you had examined the evidence you cited. Now we're about worldwide governmental concensus and demand of rigor.

>This passive-aggressive nonsense is ridiculous. You seem to clinging to some fiction that the SA has not literally and materially admitted to wrongdoing.

One of my points was that news outlets have mentioned evidence in the form of audio recordings and video footage, detail that the body was dismembered, mentioning the tools, quoting phone conversations of alleged operatives, and leading the public to talk about audio recordings and video footage mentioning details of how the body was dismembered with neither the former producing/publishing them, nor the latter having examined them.

There is no shift. Here's BBC article[0] with CCTV screenshots you can look at yourself. You seem to be under the belief that I was going to produce evidence that would satisfy you, which I never claimed to do. I wanted to disprove your assertion:

"The only evidence is "everybody knows", or the U.S. intelligence community being "certain" of his fate."

This is obviously a silly statement. There is a ton of evidence, some more damning (CCTV screenshots, audio transcripts) than others (claims from Turkish officials that aren't backed up in the reviewed audio). Never did I state that I had access to non-public evidence, just that it was reviewed (by multiple independent agencies, I might add). But it is very much a fact that there is also public evidence that you yourself can review.

But I understand you conspiracy-types. What if it's a false flag op? We never saw footage of Khashoggi getting sawed in half. We all know that intelligence agencies are run by the "DEEP STATE," taking orders from a cabal of lizardmen. If your burden of evidence was actually met, obviously the evidence was forged.

But this is the dumbest form of conspiracy. "Admission of Guilt" is a form of evidence in US law, and Saudi Arabia has very much admitted to the fact that Khashoggi died while in the consulate, as well as to the premeditated nature of his death.

[0]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49826905

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