US should wait for the evidence on the missing Saudi reporter and not believe those who want to rush to judgment

Clarice Feldman:

It seems to me the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, last seen in Istanbul, is Erdogan-brand Turkish taffy, a confection of sugary lies made to inflame Americans against the Saudis and aid the far more dangerous to our well-being mullahs of Iran.

I confess to prejudice in this matter. I think Iran is a grave threat to the world, and the Saudis are aiding us in constraining the mullahs. Like Matthew Continetti, I believe the Saudis are now an important counterterrorism ally and roiling the waters there would disrupt “energy markets, create pockets of instability in which jihadists and Iranian-backed militias thrive, and cause headaches for Israel.”

If we disrupt our present relationship, why wouldn’t the Saudis turn elsewhere -- China and Russia -- and any influence we have in the Middle East would be lost.

In fact, if those in Congress who believe this nonsense get their way and cut arms sales to the Saudis, the beneficiaries will be arms producers in China and Russia and, of course, Iran.
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So why the fuss -- stirred by the Washington Post, for whom Khashoggi was the Saudi correspondent, and peddled by Iran’s supporters and Trump’s opponents, who falsely assert that he was a liberal, progressive voice for democracy?

He was anything but, as Daniel Greenfield and others remind us.

In the 1970s he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, which exists to rid the Islamic world of western influence. He was a political Islamist until the end, recently praising the Muslim Brotherhood in the Washington Post. He championed the ‘moderate’ Islamist opposition in Syria, whose crimes against humanity are a matter of record. Khashoggi frequently sugarcoated his Islamist beliefs with constant references to freedom and democracy. But he never hid that he was in favour of a Muslim Brotherhood arc throughout the Middle East. His recurring plea to bin Salman in his columns was to embrace not western-style democracy, but the rise of political Islam which the Arab Spring had inadvertently given rise to. For Khashoggi, secularism was the enemy.

The Washington Post was happy to provide a forum for a member of a terror network that is responsible for murdering countless Christians and Jews.

But it’s not just my prejudice that informs my view that this -- like Turkey’s case against the just released American hostage Pastor Andrew Brunson -- is an Erdogan confection of adulterated ingredients. The purported eyewitnesses seem to be liars who, like Khashoggi himself, have ties to the anti-U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and Iran, according to Daniel Greenfield.
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There is more.

The Muslim Brotherhood is made up of Muslim religious bigots who want to impose radical Islam on the world.  They are not and have never been our friends.  Sometimes they appear in sheep's clothing, but that is just to fool people about their real intent.  I also do not trust Erdogan who is also a paranoid Islamist.

The US should wait for the facts to surface before taking any action and when they do it should be up to the local authorities to prosecute any criminal conduct.  BTW, I also am losing respect for the Washington Post in recent years.  It has an agenda that is sometimes at odds with American interests.