by Zahack Tanvir
How can media accuse a stable government responsible for hosting millions of pilgrims across the globe based on the statements of “anonymous people” whose identity, truthfulness, integrity, and credibility is ambiguous?
America’s infamous WashingtonPost and other media units have published a brazenly dubious report on Friday stating “CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination” while the Saudi Public Prosecution on Thursday called for death penalty against the five Khashoggi killers – which slammed all the open doors against the conspiracy theorists.
However, media do not seem to end the smearing campaign against the Saudi Arabia’s dynamic Crown Prince who is stuck in the throat of the Iranian expansionism project and the ISIS war-lords.
If you keenly read the crafty report, it deliberately tries to push the narrative that Crown Prince himself ordered the murder of WashingtonPost’s Op-ed columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
They claimed that, Saudi Ambassador to US – Khalid bin Salman – called Khashoggi from US to Turkey to inform him to visit Saudi consulate to collect his marriage related documents.
Is it plausible to believe that an “Ambassador” calls all the way from US to Turkey to tell “your documents are ready sir, you can go and collect.” Isn’t it a hilarious claim?
However, if you check the source of this claim, the article mentions “according to people familiar with the matter”, “who spoke on the condition of anonymity”, these claims baffle any rational reader. Why does free press have to narrate reports based on conditional anonymity? Had any state-controlled media made such claims, it would be a justifiable case.
Later the article speculates, why would Khalid call without being instructed by the Crown Prince, hence Crown Prince was involved, “according to the people familiar with the call”.
How can media accuse a stable government responsible for hosting millions of pilgrims across the globe based on the statements of “anonymous people” whose identity, truthfulness, integrity, and credibility is ambiguous? Or is it a well-planned and enough-funded smearing campaign against Saudi Arabia to create chaos, the way chaos was created in other Arab lands?
The article also adds the refutation made by spokeswoman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington – Fatimah Baeshan – “the ambassador and Khashoggi never discussed anything related to going to Turkey. The purported assessment is false. We have and continue to hear various theories without seeing the primary basis for these speculations.”
But the article outrightly ignored Khalid bin Salman’s clarification that he never persuaded Khashoggi to visit Saudi consulate in Turkey, and he spoke to him on 26 October 2017 last time.
On one hand Saudi Crown Prince is accused based on statements of ambiguous entities – “people familiar with the matter”, while the known and apparent entities have rejected the claims. Aren’t we supposed to accept apparent claims over the hidden and ambiguous claims?
It’s as clear as a day, the matter is being politicized in order to strain Saudi and American relations in order to create an international anti-Saudi opinion to hamper the ongoing liberation of Yemen by Saudi-led coalition forces to restore the legitimate Yemeni sovereignty.
Have we forgotten that the same media-trials caused Iraq’s destruction by claiming Weapons of Mass Destruction, but it turned out to be a century’s hoax.
Are we repeating the same pattern?
Zahack Tanvir is a regular blogger and holds diploma in Journalism from London School of Journalism. He tweets under @zahacktanvir.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect The Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.
