It appears that Jamal Khashoggi (see https://gordonfeil.blogspot.com/2018/10/saudi-crown-prince-on-skids.html)
is dead. The Saudis have said something about an “interrogation gone wrong.” How
is it possible that you walk into your country’s consulate in a foreign country
to renew your passport and you die from the interrogation? What a cruel system
which has no respect for human life. I cannot believe that ever happening at a
consulate of a modern nominally Christian democracy. But, of course, Saudi
Arabia is none of that description.
So now President Trump is threatening reprisals, and from
the Saudis is the retort that the world will be pushed to economic disaster if
that happens, no doubt an implied threat of oil production cutbacks. The Saudis
can try that, but this is not 1973. The industry is very different now. There
are the Canadian tar sands, the American fracking industry, and Russian
production --- lots of oil to be sold at the high prices that might initially result
from a Saudi cutback. I suspect that in the end, the Saudis would only be
reducing their own income without accomplishing anything.
Let’s hope so. There is nothing about Saudi conduct that deserves
a rich reward methinks.
