Washington Post

Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated to silence his voice as a prominent critic of Saudi Arabia. Moving to the U.S. in June 2017, after being banned by the Saudis for criticizing President Trump, Khashoggi was eventually hired by the Washington Post in September of the same year. As a journalist in the U.S., Khashoggi became a Virginia resident and a prominent commentator on the Saudi monarchy and their disastrous war in Yemen, which has left over eight million at risk of famine.

Two weeks ago the Virginia-based journalist was lured into the Saudi Arabian diplomatic consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. He was never seen again. According to Turkish intelligence reports, he was dispatched via Saudi operatives, dismembered, and then disavowed. Only after intense public outcry from the international community and media have the Saudis hinted that it was a possible “interrogation gone wrong.” Even by today’s frayed international norms, assassinating a journalist at a diplomatic consulate is dark — so very dark.

While the Saudis continue to obfuscate and misdirect (in the face of U.S. silence), the Turkish government has investigated, and released intelligence reporting that shows Khashoggi was detained within minutes of entering the consulate. Officials have then said the journalist was tortured, and that his fingers and head were eventually severed from his body. The New York Times has also reported that the Saudi operatives included a “doctor of forensics,” who helped with Khashoggi’s dismemberment.

So very dark.

For anyone who has ever been involved in Middle East politics, this move by Saudi Arabia should come as no real surprise. They are a fascist country run by a religious monarchy. What is surprising is that the Saudis, for the first time, are truly experiencing international isolation, pressure, and condemnation. Which is also novel, since the scourge of Sunni-based international terrorism, including al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Taliban, can be linked back to their involvement, funding, and religious ideology.

Remember that time 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers were Saudi? You should.

Yet when you are the world’s leading global exporter of oil, buy copious amounts of weapons from the U.S. for use in a disastrous civil war in Yemen, and pretend to be the bulwark against Iranian regional aggression, then all things can apparently be forgiven. Except this — maybe.

This is why the killing of Khashoggi has caused such a global uproar. Even Senators like Lindsey Graham have broken ranks with Trump and urged him to “sanction the hell out of Saudi Arabia,” going so far as to say that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is at the center of this diplomatic crisis, has “gotta go.”

Global executives and CEOs have also pulled out of an economic confederate scheduled for Saudi Arabia next week. The Saudi attempt to rebrand their country’s image as a moderate desert kingdom, away from the despotic oil state it actually is, has now become impossible — not that Saudi Arabia had any real desire to ever become such a country; they just wanted the international community to think they were.

However, brutally assassinating a journalist at a diplomatic consulate calls into question basic protections which are the foundations of global law and order. Whether they’re saying it aloud or not, political and business leaders understand that allowing this kind of behavior to go unchecked puts their own interests in danger. Especially since Trump has not signaled any willingness to side against Saudi Arabia, claiming that Khashoggi “was not an American citizen.” He’s even gone so far as to connect Saudi suspicion to the outcry over Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, telling the Associate Press, “You’re guilty until proven innocent.”

So very dark.

Instead of speaking against Saudi Arabia, the president is putting U.S. arms deals with the Saudis’ (around $4bn in 2017) ahead of human rights, press freedoms, and the protections afforded by a citizen’s diplomatic consulate. Yet the president’s concern with defense contracts and U.S. economy is little more than smoke and mirrors.

In truth, Trump doesn’t care. His antipathy towards the press is well known; his comment that Khashoggi might have been murdered by “rogue killers” supports this. And more than once on the campaign trail, he boasted about how many personal business deals he has with the Saudis. The Washington Post also found that Crown Prince Salman’s personal delegation boosted rental revenues at Trump’s New York hotel by 13 percent – the same Salman who’s denials Trump is taking at face value.

So very dark.

Unfortunately for the international community, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who met with Trump today and traveled to Saudi Arabia to address the growing crisis, is fully bound by whatever reaction Trump thinks is appropriate in the moment. The Washington Post reported yesterday that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are now looking to “[seek] a mutually agreeable explanation for journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death.” All of which amounts to diplomatic and political doublespeak, allowing the Saudis’ to save face, divest responsibility, and return to business as usual.

In his final column, Khashoggi wrote, “…the prominent Saudi writer Saleh al-Shehi wrote one of his most famous columns ever published in the Saudi press. He unfortunately is now serving an unwarranted five year prison sentence for supposed comments contrary to the Saudi establishment.” He finished this paragraph by saying, “These actions no longer carry the consequence of a backlash from the international community. Instead, these actions may trigger condemnation quickly followed by silence.”

For those of us concerned with anti-fascism, corruption, and how they connect to the creep of authoritarianism at a global level, Khashoggi’s words could not have proven more prescient. The U.S. (for the time being) still remains the indispensable nation that all other nations follow, warts and all. When we undermine our own fundamental values — diplomacy, press freedoms, and human rights — and exchange them in favor of a fascist religious monarchy, liberalism loses and authoritarianism wins, abroad and at home.

Khashoggi might find it ironic that his assassination has led to the kinds of condemnation and outrage he didn’t think was possible — but only just. Early this morning, Pompeo recommended that the U.S. give Saudi a few more days to “investigate” and “let the process play out.” By then, though, there won’t be any more blood to paint over inside the consulate.

So very dark, pitch black.

The violent clashes in Charlottesville on August 12 turned the spotlight on freedom of speech across the nation, with many asking just how much hate speech is covered under the first amendment. And just over a week ago, Richmond experienced a neo-Confederate rally on Monument Avenue, once again helping to push the idea of free speech and its limits to the forefront of the national conversation.

Several hot takes, think pieces, and editorials have thus come out recently on this very topic. One in particular, from the Washington Post, caught my attention here in Richmond. Catherine Rampell laid out her findings from what she called a “disturbing new survey of students” conducted by John Villasenor, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and University of California at Los Angeles lecturer.

As a young person, I had some problems with her analysis, especially when applied to the context of the Commonwealth.

Several of these questions apparently “were designed to gauge students’ understanding of the First Amendment.” Rampell noted one question in particular, pointing out that four in ten students said no when asked whether the First Amendment protects “hate speech.” She continued, explaining that speech based in hatred — or at least, speech perceived as such — is constitutionally protected, despite its ugliness.

Okay… but that’s not the whole story. Not in the age of Charlottesville, and not when white nationalists occupy senior positions in the White House.

First, many of the tactics that critics (like Rampell) complain about are themselves speech. When activists denounce alt-right provocateurs like Milo Yiannopoulos as a racist or Richard Spencer as a white nationalist, they are exercising their own right to free expression. Just the same, when students put on protests or marches, launch social media campaigns, circulate petitions, boycott lectures, apply pressure for the resignation of professors and administrators, or object to the invitation of controversial speakers; all of this is a form of expression, something Rampell would do well to understand.

It should also be noted that this study has now been refuted by some experts in the field of statistical science. Cliff Zukin, a former president of the American Association of Public Opinion Polling, called this particular study “junk science.” And it was also reported by The Guardian that the study did not include a peer review process, and was the first study ever conducted by its author. Still, with influential publications like the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal citing its findings, the sentiment in the article is worth exploring.

Rampell goes full melodrama in the heart of her piece, describing the “chilling findings” that students think repugnant speech should be dealt with, referencing incidents between students and faculty in universities like California State University at Los Angeles, Middlebury College, Claremont McKenna College, and “other institutions.”

However, let’s pose a hypothetical and, as Rampell posits, imagine a public university hosting a “very controversial speaker” or one “known for making offensive and hurtful statements.” She pontificates, “Would it be acceptable for a student group to disrupt the speech by loudly and repeatedly shouting so that the audience can’t hear the speaker?”

Rampell is then seemingly shocked to learn that half of students surveyed said that “snuffing out upsetting speech — rather than rebutting or even ignoring it — would be appropriate.” Democrats were more likely than Republicans to agree with this response – 62 percent to 39 percent – and men more than women – 57 percent to 47 percent. Even so, she said, “sizable shares of all groups agreed.”

Again, Rampell fails to understand that counter-speech can be produced in many fashions, as it has been here in the Commonwealth. It can be a point of fact aimed at debunking a speaker’s claim. It can be an opinion that the speaker’s view is misleading, ignorant, offensive, or hateful. It can even be accusatory, claiming that the speaker is racist or sexist, or that the speaker’s words amounts to an act of harassment, discrimination, or aggression (looking at you, Milo and Richard).

Rampell or others may argue that these communications tactics aren’t attacking “the merits” of the speech, but she’s once again misguided in that assumption.

Arguing that a speaker’s stance is racist or sexist is to say something about the merits of their position, given that the majority agree that racism and sexism are bad. Even arguing that the speaker themselves is racist does indeed go to the merits, since it gives the public context for judging the motives and implications of the speaker’s viewpoint.

Besides, what principle of free speech limits discussion to the merits? Political discourse quite often deviates from the merits of “the issues” to personal or divergent matters.

Rampell views this as “liberal intolerance,” but once more, that’s disingenuous. Insults, shaming, demonizing, and even social ostracism are not unreasonable consequences for speakers to expect and bear. Sure, the Constitution allows Westboro Baptist Church and Richard Spencer to hold forth, but it does not protect them from the consequences of their words.

Why Virginians Need to Care about the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi

Opinion: Debating Free Speech in Virginia