you are quoting a million news outlets. each and every one of those outlets, are quoting an article of the washington post. released nov 16th...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-concludes-saudi-crown-prince-ordered-jamal-khashoggis-assassination/2018/11/16/98c89fe6-e9b2-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html?utm_term=.831842880c68

not even our senate knows the info currently, which is why lindsay graham is upset currently.

in short, that "conclusion" was made up by washingpost.

This post was edited by tagged4nothing on Nov 28 2018 10:43pm

Are you a political novice? Because there's very basic understanding of what happens next if he acknowledges. If he acknowledges their findings the logical conclusion is to cut ties/push for sanctions/some form of repercussions, essentially damage our relationship with the saudis. By denying it, he can maintain the status quo with less backlash istead of acknowledging and not doing anything about it. In a perfect world we can be idealogues but in reality you have to be practical. I despise the Saudis but damaging our relationship with them over this would be really idiotic.

thousands of numbers of people die everyday through natural and nefarious means. media doesnt even bother with a footnote

soon as the CIA “says” a journalist was killed the entire media industry freezes and demands retribution

there isn’t a more deluded,protectionist, self-serving, arrogant group. even some politicians lawyers and bankers and athletes have some form of honor

Bogie denied that Trump disputed US intelligence. The potential implications of acknowledging or disputing the CIA's findings on this topic is indeed an interesting conversation but a separate point.

I'm not denying your point about Saudi Arabia or Bogie's...these are clearly tenuous and complicated politics.

trump has not disputed cia intelligence. at least that we know of yet.
you are refusing to read my posts, but i'll keep reminding you that you are just lying now

edit: or maybe you have an actual source you would like to link outside of the washington post article? or every article repeating it...

This post was edited by tagged4nothing on Nov 28 2018 11:03pm

It is both unlikely that the CIA can directly tie MBS to the murder, and likely that they have "high confidence" he ordered the killing. Trump is arguing that they have not definitively concluded in the sense that they do not have direct evidence. That's probably true, but also not the basis on which the CIA necessarily makes conclusions. In any case, we're arguing semantics.

The point is that the president doesn't really care whether or not MBS ordered the killing. It's not germane to the issue at hand. Trump cannot punish MBS without escalating the situation. Escalating the situation threatens Saudi Arabian stability, which is counter to American interests. Ergo, Trump does not punish MBS, and deflects to reduce pressure to do so.

The Washington Post was the first to report on MBS's involvement, but European intelligence has also stated that the CIA’s finding was “highly damaging to the kingdom’s official narrative.” Turkish sources have also reported that they may have audio tapes surrounding the murder plot.

Additionally, Saudi Arabia and their intelligence has already criticized the CIA report. Bolton refused to answer questions about the Khashoggi audio tapes because he "does not speak Arabic", despite translators being available. Pompeo painfully dodged multiple questions about why the CIA director wasn't at a briefing.

Both the available evidence and common sense point to MBS and Saudi Arabia being involved in the murder. Sure, the American public hasn't seen 100% proof yet in the form of audio tapes or admission, but the Trump administration is also in no hurry to get to the bottom of this for obvious political reasons (strengthens the rationale for their soft stance on Saudia Arabia). But unfortunately their mishandling of this situation has now become a scandal.



What you label semantics was my entire original point. My point was that Trump didn't believe his own government's intelligence and findings, be it with the Khashoggi murder, climate change, or Russian interference. Now, you could argue that in this case Trump is making the right call by not publicly acknowledging the CIA's conclusions and going soft on Saudi Arabia, but that's a separate issue.

I would argue that our country could still maintain a strong strategic and financial alliance with Saudi Arabia and also be tough on them for this murder if we employed some leadership and courage. I'd also argue that Trump could acknowledge his own intelligence's findings but point out that our relationship with Saudi Arabia is too important and the situation is too tenuous, etc (an argument of priorities). Instead, he's doing neither. His political action and stance could be what is the best for the US, but his public stance surrounding Saudi Arabia's involvement in Khashoggi's death and the CIA's conclusions do differ at the moment.

1. washington post article has an anonymous source for the "cia conclusion" that doesn't even exist yet. (again to our knowledge at least) and this was 13 days ago when this article was posted...
2. european intelligence has not stated much according to what you quoted.
3. bolton did not refuse any to answer any questions. he answered them in full. left-winging mdeia kept drilling him about "why won't you listen to the tapes?" and he responded... "they are in arabic, it does me no good to hear them." because guess what, he doesn't speak arabic.
bolton also stated... that translators have already listened to the tape and it is written in transcripts, in which the team has read.
he would even read the transcripts himself if it was requested, but instead they told him he should listen to a translator... "listen to the tapes with a translator"... "because you can feel the emotion". emotion was the exact word used. he answered everything asked, and the reporters kept making excuses as to why he wasn't.

i can't speak about pompeo yet, i didn't see todays press conference. but everything you are bringing up is completely inaccurate outside of pompeo so far. at least by the statements i've been correcting.

incoming edit:

This post was edited by tagged4nothing on Nov 29 2018 12:19am

Less likely that Trump doesn't believe the CIA's findings, more likely that he's spinning their lack of direct proof to suit political objectives.

I disagree that there's a good out to this. It isn't palatable to say "Mohammed Bin Salman ordered the death of Khashoggi, but we must back him anyway". He needs to give the American people an out, hence the "CIA indicates he did it, but we'll never really know" shtick he's been selling. If people can reasonably believe that Saudi Arabian leadership is not responsible, they'll forgive and forget. If we treat this as a smoking gun, it's hard to justify a continued relationship with Saudi Arabia, but that's absolutely what needs to be done.

This post was edited by bogie160 on Nov 29 2018 12:21am

what do you expect him to do in this situation? announce to the public
"I'll keep siding with the dictator who had a dissenter tortured to death in a state-planned murder because backing that guy up is in the best of interest of our country, for several technical and boring reasons which are too complex for the broad american public (or myself...) to understand"?

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 29 2018 12:21am