2.1 Foreign Policy Trouble!
1. What is the last that anyone knows about journalist Jamal Khashoggi? The 59-year-old veteran journalist was last seen on October 2 walking into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He was there to obtain a document verifying his divorce so that he could marry his Turkish fiancée.
2. What does Turkey say happened? What does Saudi Arabia say happened? Turkish officials have said they have concrete evidence that Khashoggi never left the building and was murdered there; some have even put forth gruesome theories of how his body may have been dismembered and smuggled out. The Saudi government, however, says it had nothing to do with his disappearance and maintains that he left through a back entrance, though it has provided no evidence to support that.
3. Why would the Saudi Arabian government have motive to murder him? He was scared that the Saudi Arabian government would punish him for his dissident views.
4. How has Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tried to change Saudi Arabia? The 33-year-old crown prince has tried to paint himself as a reformer by loosening restrictions on women driving and opening up cinemas in the Kingdom, but he’s also led a purge of opposition within his government under the guise of a crackdown on corruption and championed a bloody, brutal war with Yemen that’s left tens of thousands dead.
5. How did Khashoggi come to work for The Washington Post instead of the Saudi paper Al Watan? To criticize Saudi government from afar.
6. Why did he visit the Saudi Consulate in Turkey? He doubted he'd ever be able to return to his home country.
7. The US is an ally of both. Why don't they get along? Because the consulate was allegedly murdered in Turkey
8. How is the president responding to the issue? How are Senators responding? President Donald Trump visited the country on his first trip abroad as president in May 2017, and hosted MBS at the White House in March. The Pentagon has also continued to back the devastating Saudi-led war in Yemen by providing intelligence assistance, refueling planes, and engaging in gargantuan arms deals. National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior presidential advisor (and Trump’s son-in-law) Jared Kushner have all spoken to the crown prince by phone about the journalist’s disappearance. During an interview with Fox and Friends that aired on Thursday, President Trump reaffirmed that US-Saudi relations were “excellent,” but also said that it was important to find out the facts about the journalist's fate.
2. What does Turkey say happened? What does Saudi Arabia say happened? Turkish officials have said they have concrete evidence that Khashoggi never left the building and was murdered there; some have even put forth gruesome theories of how his body may have been dismembered and smuggled out. The Saudi government, however, says it had nothing to do with his disappearance and maintains that he left through a back entrance, though it has provided no evidence to support that.
3. Why would the Saudi Arabian government have motive to murder him? He was scared that the Saudi Arabian government would punish him for his dissident views.
4. How has Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tried to change Saudi Arabia? The 33-year-old crown prince has tried to paint himself as a reformer by loosening restrictions on women driving and opening up cinemas in the Kingdom, but he’s also led a purge of opposition within his government under the guise of a crackdown on corruption and championed a bloody, brutal war with Yemen that’s left tens of thousands dead.
5. How did Khashoggi come to work for The Washington Post instead of the Saudi paper Al Watan? To criticize Saudi government from afar.
6. Why did he visit the Saudi Consulate in Turkey? He doubted he'd ever be able to return to his home country.
7. The US is an ally of both. Why don't they get along? Because the consulate was allegedly murdered in Turkey
8. How is the president responding to the issue? How are Senators responding? President Donald Trump visited the country on his first trip abroad as president in May 2017, and hosted MBS at the White House in March. The Pentagon has also continued to back the devastating Saudi-led war in Yemen by providing intelligence assistance, refueling planes, and engaging in gargantuan arms deals. National Security Adviser John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and senior presidential advisor (and Trump’s son-in-law) Jared Kushner have all spoken to the crown prince by phone about the journalist’s disappearance. During an interview with Fox and Friends that aired on Thursday, President Trump reaffirmed that US-Saudi relations were “excellent,” but also said that it was important to find out the facts about the journalist's fate.
9. Why doesn't the president want to cause too much trouble with Saudi Arabia? Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday that he didn’t want to risk losing a lucrative weapons sale to Saudi Arabia in the context of a conversation about the journalist’s disappearance.
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