Tit for Tat

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.