Category Archives: murder
Trump Made his Move
“Mr. Trump has often seemed a president playing checkers while America’s adversaries play chess. He is not given to nuanced strategic concepts or long-range plans.” That’s how WSJ’s Holman Jenkins sees it.
But this time maybe he was a little nuanced, not responding while the Iranians made their moves. Or maybe he was napping, since he only sleeps four hour a night. Anyway, Iran’s proxies moved on oil tankers, bombed oil fields and shot down a U.S. drone. And Trump did nothing. Until they fired rockets at an American base, killing a contractor, and set fire to the American Embassy. Then Trump made his move, executing the evil genius General Soleimani Rocket Man style with a missile.
Long Range Plans
And now it’s not just all Death to America anymore. “His demise will not stop his mission,” said Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei, “But the criminals who have the blood of General Soleimani and other martyrs of the attack on their hands must await a tough revenge.”
Hugs Not Stopping Bullets
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador won election on a campaign of retreat from the war on drug cartels. HIs campaign pitch was “hugs, not bullets:”
Stable Genius Meets Austere Religious Scholar
The Washington Post described Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as an “Austere Religious Scholar” in one much mocked headline. So they changed it. Several times.
Anyway it looks like the Very Stable Genius got the best of the Austere Religious Scholar.
Operation Kayla Mueller
Kayla Mueller grew up in Prescott, Arizona as a Christian committed to helping others. So she traveled the world doing just that. She landed in southern Turkey working with the Danish Refugee Council helping Syrian refugees. But in 2013 she made an unexpected visit to a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo, Syria.
Aleppo
Aleppo was ground zero in a war involving the Syrian government, Syrian rebels, Kurds, Russians, ISIS and Iraq. And it was no place for an idealistic 26 year old American woman. So the doctors sent Kayla back over the border. But, on the way, ISIS kidnapped her.
Eventually the self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “married” Kayla. Then the religious scholar proceeded to rape and torture her.
Her parents learned of Kayla’s death in 2015.
U.S. Special Forces hunted down Baghdadi and he paid for his brutality with his life. The U.S. Joint Chief of Staff named the operation in honor of Kayla.
Cold Blooded Politics
Click the bloody hand to enlarge the image.
It looks like Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman knew about the Kashoggi murder. The CIA says he ordered it. But President Trump says, “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t.”
Trump has MBS’s back because the Saudis buy a lot of stuff from us. He bragged that he did “$450 billion in commercial deals” on his trip to Saudi Arabia.
Cold Blooded Politics
WSJ editors think Trump is crass. But they also thinks the Saudis are important allies in a “dangerous war against Middle Eastern terror supported by the mullahs in Iran.” The editorial page calls it “Trump’s Crude Realpolitik.”
And the barbaric murder of a journalist is crude. But not as crude as 3,000 murders on 9/11. Columnist Holman Jenkins claims the 15 Saudi hijackers may have had the support of members of the royal family:
If Saudi royals crave an airing of this dirty laundry, they know what to do: Keep MBS in power. Undoubtably among the interested would be the 9/11 families who managed to win, over President Obama’s veto, sweeping bipartisan support for their lawsuit to hold the Saudi government accountable for the murder of their loved ones on 9/11.
If the Saudis think President Trump can (or wants to ) protect MBS against all that would follow, they should think again.
Update 11/28: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius says there’s a power struggle going on within the royal family. And he has an interesting story about captive family member Turki bin Abdullah and “his closest adviser, Saudi businessman Tarek Obaid.” Obaid is hiding out in Switzerland and may have barely escaped the same fate as Kashoggi. Obaid says, “There was clear abuse of power by incompetent thugs, but I don’t believe that the crown prince’s instructions were for these events to play out as they did.”
