TONY KEVIN. What Aust Govt should do about the Khashoggi murder and other great Saudi crimes of state.

I believe Khashoggi was coldly and brutally murdered in a symbolic and deliberate medieval deterrent state punishment in a Saudi consulate on foreign soil. Australia should declare the Saudi Arabian Ambassador here persona non grata, and should withdraw our Ambassador in Saudi Arabia. 

First, they cut off his writer’s fingers. Then, they dismembered his still living body. A forensic Saudi pathologist who did postgraduate study in Australia medically supervised this grisly 7-minute torture-murder, and advised his co-murderers on how to cope, by playing soothing music to dull their senses.

This is the criminal theocratic state which has been using  American-supplied weapons to bomb and starve innocent Yemeni children for years  We have all seen those terrible photos of starving Yemeni babies and children on the point of death.

It is the Saudi state which has provided the lion’s share of funding and US weapons to ISIS which has beheaded hundreds of opponents in Syria and devastated the country, and still fights on at Idlib and in the east.

When the Turkish President formally produces the audio tapes of the murder, expected within 48 hours, which Turkish top police officials have been selectively leaking to media for many days,  Australia should be ready at once to withdraw its ambassador and declare the Saudi Ambassador in Canberra unwelcome (persona non grata). We do not need to ingratiate ourselves with this awful Saudi regime. We can afford to see them off.

And can our MSM please stop inserting hostile references to alleged human rights violations in Russia and China when they write about this? There is absolutely no comparison or proportionality between these Saudi horrors, and contested narratives about what Russian and Chinese Govts allegedly have or have not done. You devalue your own unassailable human rights case against Saudi Arabia with these unconvincing comparisons.

By the way, President Erdogan – who will have the final call on whether Turkey officially at state level denounces these Saudi Govt crimes, as I hope he  will – is working constructively with Russia and Iran to complete the peace process in Syria – a peace process which US and Saudi Arabia  continue to try to derail, even now as Syria returns to normality.

We should not join Trump in equivocating and sitting on the fence on Khashoggi murder.  For once show some guts, Mr Morrison. Australia needs to take a stand for decency in international diplomatic practice. What would we do if this cruel murder had been committed in the Saudi Embassy in Canberra?

Comments

3 responses to “TONY KEVIN. What Aust Govt should do about the Khashoggi murder and other great Saudi crimes of state.”

  1. Hal Duell Avatar
    Hal Duell

    Australia will make some appropriate noise about the sanctity of human life and then get out of it. A man was killed a long way from here by another man to whom we are selling weapons. If we really want to do something, get out of the international arms trade.
    Meanwhile, Erdogan is making hay while the sun shines, and MbS is hosing the whole affair down with lots and lots of money. But the significance of the damning evidence in the audio and visual recordings of the murder will fade in time. We get used to dismemberment.
    Hopefully we will see an improvement in the behaviour of Saudi Arabia, but MbS is young and will learn from this. If he ever gets a chance to poke a stick into Turkey’s eye, expect him to take it.

  2. R. N. England Avatar
    R. N. England

    MBS may be an SOB, but he’s our SOB.

    1. Tony Kevin Avatar
      Tony Kevin

      Irony Alert?

      The three most important facts that we DO already know , according to Craig Murray’s convincing account in
      ‘Khashoggi, Erdogan and the truth’, an article today in http://www.craigmurray.org.au, are:

      1. The Turkish account of the murder is true in every detail, and Erdogan continues to stand by it , despite American CIA pressure

      2. An audiovisual record was made from a moving source (probably Khashoggi’s own smartwatch: memo to torture-murders – remove victims’ wristwatches before you start work) which the Turkish authorities have

      3 . MBS ordered the murder, so it is a Saudi state crime, since he de facto leads the Saudi state.

      Tony Kevin