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MBS Mohammad bin Salman prior to his most recent
nose job (Art work courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
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When this cranky space last delved into the fate of the Saudi Journalist Jamal Kashoggi, who wrote for the Washington Post and happened to be in Istanbul, where he walked into the Saudi consulate and never walked out again, we considered 11 partial scenarios of what might have actually happened.
Fortunately, we now have the official Saudi version. No no, not that version. I mean the latest version. Well then, versions. All of which Donald Trump believes. And also Jared.
So we now can authoritatively and confidently report:
A cordial invitation
to come home to Riyadh
Khashoggi did go to the consulate. Although we previously said he was never here, and then that he was here but he left, we now admit that we decided to invite him home to Saudi Arabia for, um, high level discussions.
However, once Khashoggi realized that he was being invited by fifteen husky-looking security guys, most of whom were half his age and twice his size, and also by a forensic pathologist armed with a bone saw, Khashoggi decided that he was the Karate Kid and got very unsuitably pugnacious.
Badly-made body parts
keep falling off Khashoggi
Khashoggi went on the attack against these perfectly innocent security people, who had been flown in just that day merely to keep Khashoggi feeling secure. However, the ingrate started a fight. Naturally the security guys had to fight back to protect themselves. During the scuffle, all the fingers on Kashoggi’s hands accidentally fell off. I mean, some of these newspaper writers are really shoddily constructed.
However, Khashoggi stubbornly kept on fighting. So one of the security guys tried to subdue him with a strangle hold, during which Kashoggi’s head accidentally fell off. And he still kept on fighting. Eventually his arms and legs accidentally fell off, too.
To return Khashoggi safely home to Riyadh in his condition, we put him in seven trunks and suitcases, which we put in the back of the car. Why all that luggage? So that in case one or two pieces of luggage got lost (you know how airlines are) we could still put most of him back together.
The old rolled-up
Arabian rug trick
What about the story that we gave him to a “local cooperator" rolled up in a rug? Well, that’s true, also. But after the local cooperator got the rug home and spread it out on his living room floor, he gave Khashoggi back to us because the bloodstained body parts didn’t go with the rest of the decor. So we had to start all over again.
What's that? What's a "cooperator," you ask? Don't ask.
Anyway, there's the issue of Khashoggi’s clothing. We didn’t want to cut his clothing up into pieces because it’s so hard to find a decent tailor shop to mend clothing in Riyadh, so we gave it to one of our security people to wear. We told him not to go out like that, but you know, some of these young guys don’t listen. Or you think they’re listening, but all the time they’re swiping their cell phones and tapping the Like button on videos of the latest public beheading in Riyadh, or the news photographs of little children starving to death in Yemen.
Now we know you find this all rather far-fetched, but it’s all up-to-the-minute true, and will be for at least another two minutes. And even your Trump administration believes every word. Trump behaves as if he believes it. Jared, the Middle East maven isn’t denying it. We even bombed a Yemeni school bus for him the other day, just to demonstrate our sincerity. And Mnuchin is going to our little conference. No boycott after all.
Car? What car?
What about that abandoned Mercedes — or was it two abandoned Mercedes-es? — from the Saudi consulate that the Saudis then decided to reclaim after Turkish forensic teams started to search them? Whaddaya complaining about? We cleaned off the bloodstains before we abandoned them.
Yes but what about…..?
Sorry no more questions until we issue version 13.1.2.
