Hacker News Reader

Comment by purephase | Hacker News Reader

It's sadly not the first time that Netflix has avoided controversy with MBS:

https://realmoney.thestreet.com/investing/stocks/netflix-cou...

It's sad, but in a way, this type of censorship tends to increase interest in the content, so hopefully this happens here. The Khashoggi murder is one of the most blatently horrible incidents in the last few years that should be discussed at length and those responsible actually held responsible.

I'd never heard of the film, but now I am definitely going to check it out.

View on HN

>> one of the most blatently horrible incidents

For all the horror, this was still only one person, one victim, killed. There are a great many other incidents in which large numbers of people have been deliberately killed yet we seem to just take such things as normal. The specifics of Khashoggi's murder were shocking, but the murder or disappearance of such persons is far from unusual on the world stage.

Fyi, a similar Saudi kill team was recently intercepted at a Canadian airport. Such attempts at murder barely make news, only coming to light via lawsuits months later.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-55232926

"The court filing says the group - which included a man from the same department as the man accused of dismembering Khashoggi - were carrying two bags of forensic tools. However, Canadian border agents "quickly became suspicious" of the group and refused them entry after interviewing them, it says."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/saudi-hit-squad-aljab...

"Public Safety Minister Bill Blair would not comment on the specific allegations in the lawsuit but said the government was aware of incidents in which foreign actors have tried to monitor, intimidate or threaten Canadians and people in Canada."

I'm not saying that there aren't other good examples. But, to target a US journalist like this, at a foreign embassy where there are recordings, logs of people entering and leaving (with visitor logs) where you could conceivably find those responsible and run it up the chain for accountabiliity is the rare element here that could and should be used.

If we actually start to make an example here, that this is not acceptable in our society, then perhaps others will feel less emboldened to do the same.

>> this is not acceptable in our society

World society? American society? Turkish society? Or Saudi society? All apply, some more so than others, depending on which aspects of the incident one feels more relevant. The suppression, exile or even disappearance of dissidents is not universally condemned.

In any of those societies. There's no country in the world except maybe North Korea where this kind of behavior is generally seen as acceptable; even in Saudi Arabia, the government officially disapproved and tried the people who did it for murder.

> even in Saudi Arabia, the government officially disapproved and tried the people who did it for murder.

So that it could save MBS's ass when his people questioned why the rest of the world was hating on him. A lot of people in Saudi Arabia were shocked by the gruesome nature of the murder (which American media deftly used to sling shit on them, since Khashoggi was one of their own). If Khashoggi was some ordinary low profile Saudi citizen, and not distantly related to the Royal family and being from a wealthy family himself, his death would have been pretty routine in Saudi Arabia. It's an open secret that Prince Bonesaw ordered the killing, and that the later execution was a farce. Even then, I suspect the execution was disposal for a sloppy job.

Here's a good example, but from America. I find it especially abhorrent when an American President orders the killing of American citizens (at least 1 directly ordered with several other "unintended" murders) on foreign soil without their guaranteed 5th Amendment trial, which states, in part, "that no one shall be "deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

> Since 2009, the United States, in the conduct of U.S. counterterrorism operations against al-Qa’ida and its associated forces outside of areas of active hostilities, has specifically targeted and killed one U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi. The United States is further aware of three other U.S. citizens who have been killed in such U.S. counterterrorism operations over that same time period: Samir Khan, ‘Abd al-Rahman Anwar al-Aulaqi, and Jude Kenan Mohammed. These individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States. -Attorney General Eric Holder, May 22, 2013

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/mar/19/kesha-roge...

I'm in agreement for sure, extra judicial killing of any kind is questionable. I think we should review all of them and hold those responsible for their actions.

However, drone strikes have "collatoral damage" and unintended side effects like this (not saying this makes them good and they should continue) especially when they're deployed in areas openly holding people who are in active conflict against people in their own countries and there is military deployed. Again, this doesn't make it right.

There's a big difference between that and a lone citizen applying for a marriage VISA, in another country entirely, being kidnapped and murdered due to his writing against the regime. And, due to the nature of the relationship between the US and SA it has been nearly covered up.

I agree. The details of the killing itself while shocking aren't the most shocking aspect of this.

The most shocking aspects were the context(US resident, WAPO journalist, how blatant it was) and how we witnessed our government wipe MBSs ass with our values. In slow motion. We knew EXACTLY what was going on, how disgusting it was, and it unfolded anyway; nobody could stop it.

> For all the horror, this was still only one person, one victim, killed. There are a great many other incidents in which large numbers of people have been deliberately killed yet we seem to just take such things as normal. The specifics of Khashoggi's murder were shocking, but the murder or disappearance of such persons is far from unusual on the world stage.

This is hugely important context to always keep in mind. The fact that MBS had managed to bamboozle the western media into fawning over his token "reforms" prior to the Saudis brazenly murdering Kashoggi was a disgrace.

It's telling that the media only really started caring about Saudi governmental corruption and criminality after one of their own - a fellow pundit who traveled in elite western circles - was grotesquely killed. MBS presumably had good reason to believe he could get away with murder, with Kashoggi being the exception that proves the rule.

Also, people seem to care more if there is a single victim as opposed to a bigger group. The story becomes more relatable.

So little of this comment makes any sense at all.

> The fact that MBS had managed to bamboozle the western media into fawning over his token "reforms" prior to the Saudis brazenly murdering Kashoggi was a disgrace.

If Khashoggi and the Washington Post had stuck to fawning rather than sharp criticism of the Saudi government, he'd be alive.

> It's telling that the media only really started caring about Saudi governmental corruption and criminality after one of their own - a fellow pundit who traveled in elite western circles - was grotesquely killed.

The media "caring" about Saudi governmental corruption is why Khashoggi was assassinated.

Kill a hundred thousand Yemenis and nobody bats an eye, but you bone-saw one little washington post reporter and now it's a crisis.

The shocking part isn't so much the murder as it is the brazenness, i.e., ineptitude of the whole thing. The Saudis seemed to act like it was their right to kill Khashoggi, else they would have planned better to avoid getting caught.

This is even more evident in reactions to the Russian governments assassinations, attempted and successful. It's not that we don't think they'd try to kill people, but the way they don't really even bother to cover it up is what is really shocking. It's a slap in the face of the idea of law and order - murderers are at least supposed to do their best to hide their actions.

Actually they miscalculated and didn’t realize Turkish intelligence had thoroughly infiltrated their embassy. Like so well that the Saudis had actually done a counter surveillance sweep and not discovered it.

They then further miscalculated the politics of the situation and didn’t think the Turks would weigh in once it became clear the murder was captured on tape.

>It's a slap in the face of the idea of law and order - murderers are at least supposed to do their best to hide their actions.

False flag operations on the other hand are supposed to let many things unhidden...

Have you reviewed e.g. Bellingcat's reportage on Russian involvement in the Navalniy poisoning?

If you have information to share, then share it. Making vague implications with nothing to back them up about state-sponsored killings is the height of crass.

I don't understand how the crisis in Yemen, greatly exacerbated by MBS and supported by the US government, a crisis in which 200k+ Yemenis have been killed (including 80k+ children dead who starved to death), 3 million+ displaced, with the deadliest cholera outbreak in modern history - isn't on the front page news every day. Every little tidbit of court minutae at the venal Trump White House was covered (which press secretary was leaving, who was getting pardons), but not this enormous crisis that the US has direct control over.

It was disgusting how easily MBS was fawned over (see this absurd feature on MBS by Thomas Friedman [1]), how the Western media only cared about one of their own (Khashoggi was a WaPo journalist), and how quickly companies are coming back to back MBS's fantastical investment schemes like the Jetsons city-from-scratch NEOM, after stepping back for just a year.

The US doesn't even import all that much oil from Saudi Arabia! It's only use is as a lever to press other countries that rely on Saudi oil to come under the US fold.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/saudi-prince-mbs-...

> The US doesn't even import all that much oil from Saudi Arabia! It's only use is as a lever to press other countries that rely on Saudi oil to come under the US fold.

True, but they are the U.S.'s #1 purchaser of military weapons.

> The U.S. sold a total of $55.6 billion of weapons worldwide in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 — up 33 percent from the previous fiscal year, and a near record. In 2017, the U.S. cleared some $18 billion in new Saudi arms deals.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/saudi-arabia-is-the-top-buyer-o...

That is a good point.

That last sentence of yours is key. The US now is the top oil producer, but it's still useful to have KSA there to do our bidding- basically we can crush Russia's and Iran's oil industry instantly, any time we feel like it. And our newer gas discoveries in the US will also let us control that market.

Now, I think we shouldn't be supporting MBS, but I understand the logic behind it. I am sympathetic to the idea that if the House of Saud goes down, a bunch of our other friends in the region are going to be in real trouble- ie all the little emirates, Jordan, Israel, Egypt.

That piece of reporting by Friedman is simply grotesque.. How a journalist for a major paper like the Times could not only let himself be so visibly bamboozled by a murderous, corrupt autocrat like this particular prince but openly describe how he's being greased up for good PR and then call it straight reporting is laughable. Looks like some NY Times reporters keep the old Walter Duranty tradition safely alive. despicable.

He's an opinion columnist, which means you can say pretty much anything, without regard to journalistic standards. Opinion columnists only lose their jobs to bad scandals - you can advocate for awful wars or policies that kill millions no problemo.

I wouldn't call it censorship, as Netflix does not have any obligation to distribute a film, especially when such film may conflict with the company's financial interest (I assume what the article says is true).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com