“In the first place, we didn’t do it. In the second place, we only did it by accident. In the third place, somebody else did it. In the fourth place….”

Your basic bone saw, frequently carried by Saudi tourists in 

Istanbul, in case they stumble across any bones that need sawing

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia was preparing an alternative explanation of the fate of a dissident journalist on Monday, saying he died at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago in an interrogation gone wrong, according to a person familiar with the kingdom’s plans. In Washington, President Trump echoed the possibility that Jamal Khashoggi was the victim of “rogue killers.”

Yeah. Right-oh. The story is getting a bit….shall we say plastic? The goop-y tale keeps melting down and re-forming, and melting down again, sometimes taking on an extra weird shape with the interpretive assistance of some guy in the White House named  Donald Whatzisname.

For openers, there was a Saudi journalist named Jamal Khashoggi. He was critical of the new regime of Mohammed Bin Salman, or MBS for short, who seems to be in the midst of a semi-hostile takeover the whole House of Saud Incorporated, or in other words, the country.

Heads you win!

(Also, heads you lose.)

MBS puts out that he’s a great liberalizer. He’s bringing Saudi Arabia into the modern age by letting women drive. At the same time he’s arresting the women who led the movement to let women drive. 

There are rumors around that some of those women may face the death penalty, in a country where people are put to death by getting their head chopped off with a sword. This proves, I suppose, that you can have your steering wheel and decapitate it too. Or something like that.

Well, because of his criticism, Kashoggi feels Saudi Arabia heating up for him faster than even the rest of the planet. So he skedaddles and becomes an American resident. He gets a gig writing for the Washington Post, but then ends up in Istanbul where he has a fiancée he decides to marry. 

In order to do that in Turkey, he needs a certificate of divorce from his previous marriage in Saudi Arabia. He calls the nearest Saudi consulate and asks how he can get his divorce certificate. They act, if you’re old enough to remember, like that big friendly guy in a 1970s TV spot for Florida tourism (was it Bob Barker?) who used to wave his arm and say, “C’mon down!”

The Saudi Arabian

Roach Motel

So Kashoghi goes to the consulate. It turns out to be a Saudi version of the Roach Motel. Dissidents check in, but they don’t check out. 

The Turks have security video which has played on TV ad nauseam showing Kashoggi going in. There are no videos as of October 16th of his coming out. At least, not in one piece. 

Meanwhile, a platoon of thug-y looking guys gets off two charted airplanes from Riyadh to Istanbul, and shows up at the Saudi consulate. For some reason they have a bone saw. A day later they all go home, with big suitcases. 

Now Kashogghi is missing.  Here are some some explanations we’ve since heard from the Saudis, along with some others that we expect to hear any minute.

1. He was never here.
2. He was here but he left.
3. You don’t have footage of him leaving because he left via the back door.
4. Well, okay, he was here and we arrested him. But only for questioning.
5. Well, we wanted to question him and then send him back to Saudi Arabia, but some strange rogue guys accidentally killed him, so it’s not like we’re responsible or anything, and furthermore MBS knows nothing about this. Anyway, that’s how Khashogghi managed to leave through the back door — in a lot of different suitcases.
6. The bone saw? Oh, nothing premeditated. That was just to saw up our camel for camel cutlets at a consulate reception for Mike Pompeo.
7. Where were the camel cutlets?

   

   Also, what happened to the camel? Whaddya mean, what camel?

   We decided, what with American companies cancelling on us left and right, that just for Pompeo to have one lousy camel cutlet we could not cut up our camel.
8. We are not executing the women who led the movement to let women drive in Saudi Arabia. We are merely temporarily removing their heads for their own protection.
9. Well, okay, that’s technically decapitation, but some rogue executioner is doing it, completely without sanction from the House of Saud.
10. What, back to Khashogghi again? We’ll refer you to what Donald Trump said about Khashoggi’s so-called mysterious disappearance, and this is an exact paraphrase: “Do you want to lose $300 billion worth of military orders, or what?” You know, business is business. I mean, it’s not as if we’ve kidnapped, tortured and killed any American citizens….yet.
11. Okay, we’re going to say this one more time. Khashogghi was never here. And furthermore, we never heard of him. Now please deposit our multi-billion dollar check and send those damn Boeing jets. We still have a ton of schools and hospitals in Yemen to bomb.