The Washington Post is not a disinterested on looker in Kashoggi case

Freddy Gray:

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Khashoggi, Bradley shows, was not a journalist so much as a dissident operator with lots of intriguing connections. His association with al-Qaeda pre-9/11 is interesting. His near life-long role in the Muslim Brotherhood is also interesting. His links to American intelligence are very interesting.

The Post disagrees. It cites ‘experts on the Middle East who have tracked his career’ to say that ‘while Khashoggi had once been ‘sympathetic to Islamist movements, he moved toward a more liberal, secular point of view.’ This is at best Jesuitical; at worst disingenuous. Khashoggi was a political Islamist to the end. He did not believe in secularism. He wanted an alliance of Islamic democratic states. There’s nothing wrong with that, necessarily. But it is relevant and worth saying, as it helps explain the dynamic by which he found himself on the wrong of the Saudi regime.

The reporters, in a move that won’t have harmed their careers, included a quote from Fred Hiatt, the Post’s editorial page director, who ‘sharply criticised the false and distorted claims about Khashoggi.’ (If that doesn’t read like propaganda I don’t know what does).

‘As anyone knows who knew Jamal — or read his columns — he was dedicated to the values of free speech and open debate. He went into exile to promote those values, and now he may even have lost his life for his dogged determination in their defense,’ Hiatt said in a statement. ‘It may not be surprising that some Saudi-inspired trolls are now trying to distract us from the crime by smearing Jamal. It may not even be surprising to see a few Americans joining in. But in both cases it is reprehensible.’

Saudi trolls have been active in casting aspersions on Khashoggi, no doubt. But does that mean Khashoggi was nothing but a cuddly liberal? Clearly not.

Sometimes, at newspapers or magazines, reporters are taken — or take themselves — off stories because they are too close to the story. They can’t see it objectively. At the Washington Post, when it comes to Jamal Khashoggi, the whole paper is too close to the story. It shows.

But there is a more significant irony here. Free speech demands that people be allowed to ask difficult questions, even of the lately dead. By telling their readers that those who circulate truths about Khashoggi’s past are smearing him, the media is betraying free speech in America while vigorously claiming to promote free speech in the Arab world. Yet most polite opinion accepts their view, and now Twitter is banning accounts that ‘smear’ Khashoggi. It stinks, actually.

I have come to distrust the Post when it has multiple op-eds on the same subject as well as "news stories."  I have seen them do that too many times since Trump was elected.  It is a paper that was all in on the Russian collusion hoax. 

It has been all in on other stories critical of the President.  They just seem to have a bug in their ear if they think a story will do political damage to Trump.  In this case they seem to have an end goal that goes well beyond solving a crime. 

It looks like they want to use it as an excuse for scuttling a relationship and a movement to block Iranian aggression in the region.  I don't think I have seen a headline in their paper that suggests we much not throw the baby out with teh bathwater.