"It is often said that the fact that Trump was not seen to have won in 2020 was a blessing in disguise."

"Why? Because had he been allowed to take office in January 2021, he would have still been surrounded by swamp creatures. His great liability when he first took office was that he did not understand how Washington worked. ... how deeply embedded... the self-serving, globalist, neo-con mentality really was. It took his rustication in 2020 and the unhinged, unremitting tsunami of lawfare that washed over him for four years to school him in the ways of official Washington.... Impeachments, indictments, subpoenas, trials, convictions, and fines.... When none of that worked and he was on course to seal the GOP nomination, they tried to kill him—literally.... He learned how the octopus moved. He got to know what made the swamp habitable. He mastered its strategies, its tactics, and its weapons.... My main question at this point is when a large-scale Gestalt shift will take place.... I predict he will end his days as one of the most celebrated presidents in American history."

Writes Roger Kimball, in "Trump in Riyadh: A Rejection of the Globalist Gospel/Trump’s Riyadh speech rejected nation-building and globalist dogma, marking him as a bold champion of sovereignty over interventionism."

"Before our eyes, a new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts and tired divisions of the past..."

"... and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos; where it exports technology, not terrorism; and where people of different nations, religions, and creeds are building cities together — not bombing each other out of existence. (Watch) This great transformation has not come from Western interventionists… giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs. No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called ‘nation-builders,’ ‘neo-cons,’ or ‘liberal non-profits,’ like those who spent trillions failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought about by the people of the region themselves … developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies. (Watch) In the end, the so-called ‘nation-builders’ wrecked far more nations than they built — and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves. (Watch)..."

From President Trump's speech in Riyadh.

Here's how the NYT covered the tremendously important speech: "Trump’s Pledge to the Middle East: No More ‘Lectures on How to Live’/In Saudi Arabia, the president denounced Western intervention and nation-building, garnering both praise and eye rolls." (Yes, the speech garnered.) Excerpt:

"While planning the first major overseas trip of his second term, a four-day swing through Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates..."

"... Mr. Trump told his advisers that he wanted to announce deals that would be worth more than $1 trillion. As a branding exercise it makes perfect sense. Surrounded by resource-rich royals and American business executives, Mr. Trump, who likes to brag about his deal-making skills, will scrawl his Sharpie over term sheets, and lots of them. He will visit palaces, walk on red carpets and be treated like a king in a region that is increasingly vital to the Trump family’s financial interests. Yet as a strategic exercise, the trip’s purpose remains foggy...."

From "Trump Heads to the Middle East With a Single Goal: Deals, Deals, Deals/President Trump has always viewed the presidency as a worldwide hunt for deals. And there is no better place for that than the Gulf, where a few men wield absolute authority over vast wealth" (NYT).

"My quest is to become the first person to cross Saudi Arabia north to south on foot, an expedition I’m completing in two parts..."

"It has really only just become possible for me to do this kind of trip, now that Saudi Arabia is opening up for tourism and welcoming non-Muslim tourists....  [A]t the border with Jordan... [w]e were planning to camp in the desert but when the farmer Abu Saqqar heard what we were doing he exclaimed, 'What God wills, what God wills, I must slaughter a sheep for you!'... This was my first taste of the Saudi hospitality that was such a delight on this journey. All the district notables were invited and we sat on the floor together to eat. I was the only woman so asked the men if they minded if I ate with them. They all politely invited me even though it may have been uncomfortable for them.... [T]he flat plains of pastel desert... were deeply soothing to the spirit.... The final stage will be a totally different experience as I head to the cool, misty mountains of the south, where the men wear flowers in their hair.... [T]he Saudis I have met on the way have been universally excited by the quest and desperate to show hospitality.... 'May God make you strong, may he bring you success, may you reach your goal if he wills it' are the words that will linger in my mind...."

Writes Alice Morrison, in "What I discovered on my journey to be the first to cross Saudi Arabia on foot/The explorer Alice Morrison describes the first stage of her 1,500 mile journey across volcanic fields and pastel deserts — and what she learnt along the way" (London Times).

ADDED: Here are some nice photos of those "Flower Men." The area is called the Asir province.

"More than 1,300 people died making the Islamic pilgrimage of hajj in Saudi Arabia this month..."

"... the vast majority of whom the Saudi government said did not have permits.... While pilgrims with permits are transported around the holy city of Mecca in air-conditioned buses and rest in air-conditioned tents, unregistered ones are often exposed to the elements... [walking miles] as temperatures surpassed 120 degrees.... Entry to Mecca was barred weeks before hajj for visitors who did not have permits. Yet many pilgrims were able to evade the restrictions, arriving in Mecca early and hiding out, or paying smugglers to ferry them into the city...."

The NYT reports.

Two of the dead were Americans, a couple from Maryland, who spent $23,000 on the trip but did not have the permits. The article ends with a quote from their daughter, the classic statement: "They died doing exactly what they wanted to do."

"Saudi Arabia's First Male Robot Touches Female Reporter, Sparks Outrage."

Headline at NDTV.

During its introduction at DeepFest, Muhammad, the first bilingual male Saudi Arabia-made humanoid robot, declared, "I am Muhammad, the first Saudi robot in the form of a man. I was manufactured and developed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a national project to demonstrate our achievements in the field of artificial intelligence."

This isn't just a case of special Saudi Arabian standards of keeping men and women apart. The Muhammad robot grabs her by the buttock:

Saudi Arabia unveils its man shaped AI robot Mohammad, reacts to reporter in its first appearance pic.twitter.com/1ktlUlGBs1

— Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) March 6, 2024

Ron Johnson said that word that can get you in so much trouble: "purity."

I'm reading a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article that begins: "U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson has one main concern when it comes to the merger of the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series: maintaining what he calls the 'purity' of golf."

What? Is that racist?! That's the static I had in my head as I read through many paragraphs before I could see the actual quote that contained that word, "purity":

Is this an occasion for poetry? I don't like that impunity/immunity rhyme. It feels callous, and it doesn't even make sense.

 

If he has impunity, he doesn't need immunity. The headline writer seems to have lost his head. But why? It's no occasion for rhapsodizing!

Here's the article. The immunity is from a civil suit brought by the fiancee of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

"A Saudi student at Leeds University who had returned home to the kingdom for a holiday has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for having a Twitter account..."

"... and for following and retweeting dissidents and activists. The sentencing by Saudi’s special terrorist court was handed down weeks after the US president Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia, which human rights activists had warned could embolden the kingdom to escalate its crackdown on dissidents and other pro-democracy activists.... Salma al-Shehab, 34, a mother of two young children, was initially sentenced to serve three years in prison for the 'crime' of using an internet website to 'cause public unrest and destabilise civil and national security.' But an appeals court on Monday handed down the new sentence – 34 years in prison followed by a 34-year travel ban – after a public prosecutor asked the court to consider other alleged crimes.... By all accounts, Shehab was not a leading or especially vocal Saudi activist...."

The Guardian reports.

"They’re scary motherf-----s to get involved with. We know they killed [Khashoggi] and have a horrible record on human rights."

"They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates." 

Said Phil Mickelson, quoted in "Dustin Johnson quits PGA, joins Phil Mickelson on Saudi-backed tour" (WaPo).

"I tried to visit Eve’s tomb once in Saudi Arabia."

"For some Muslims, tradition holds that the grave site of the woman who is the biblical Eve is in the Red Sea city of Jeddah (the Arabic word for 'grandmother'). The cemetery’s caretaker said no women were allowed in.... The [Depp/Heard] trial resonated because it was a primary story. We find depictions of vertiginous falls compelling. It is human nature to be fascinated by stories that echo how our nature became human, in darker respects, once Adam and Eve were demoted to mere mortals. According to the Book of Genesis and 'Paradise Lost,' the sort of behavior described in the sordid defamation trial — jealousy, violence, excess, overindulgence — came as a result of Eve giving in to Satan and Adam giving in to Eve.... And what could be more Edenic than Depp’s $100-million property portfolio...?"

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Johnny and Amber: Trouble in Paradise" (NYT).

Dowd is distancing herself from the sordid detail of Depp's proving he'd been defamed. Let's back way the hell off and see only the vague outlines of the timeless myth of Man and Woman.

But who knew they had Eve's tomb somewhere?

"A court in Turkey transferred the trial in the murder of the Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia on Thursday..."

"... a move almost certain to end the last case that held out hope of serving some measure of justice for a heinous crime that drew global outrage. The Turkish decision was a blow to human rights advocates who had hoped the trial in Turkey would at least make public more evidence of who was involved and how Mr. Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by a Saudi hit squad in 2018 inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, where he had gone to get paperwork he needed to marry his Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz. 'Let’s not entrust the lamb to the wolf,' Ali Ceylan, a lawyer for Ms. Cengiz, told the court on Thursday before the decision was announced. 'Let’s protect the dignity and honor of the Turkish nation....'"

From "Turkey Transfers Khashoggi Murder Trial to Saudi Arabia/The move will almost certainly end the last trial aimed at serving justice for a heinous crime that caused global outrage" (NYT).

"The Saudi blogger Raif Badawi has been released after being imprisoned in the kingdom for a decade for 'insulting Islam,' his Canadian-based wife has said."

The London Times reports.

He had set up, in 2008, a website called Free Saudi Liberals, which discussed social issues in Saudi Arabia, promoted freedom of expression and human rights, criticised religious figures and promoted liberal views of Islam. 

After his sentencing a judge recommended that he also be tried for apostasy, which carries the death penalty, because Badawi had refused to “repent to God”. This was not pursued by prosecutors. His lawyer, Waleed Abulkhair, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his statements denouncing severe penalties against Saudi citizens, including Badawi.

He's banned from traveling and journalism for the next 10 years. 

MEANWHILE: "Saudi Arabia has executed 81 men over the past 24 hours, including seven Yemenis and one Syrian national, on charges including terrorism and holding “deviant beliefs“, state news agency SPA said on Saturday" (The Guardian).

"Thousands of women applied for 30 train driving jobs advertised for women in Saudi Arabia, revealing the extent of untapped potential in the conservative desert kingdom..."

"... which only permitted women to drive in 2018.... Some 28,000 put themselves forward to operate bullet trains between the holy cities of Mecca and Medina... Feminists greeted the news with cautious optimism.... Until recently Saudi women were mainly employed in health or education. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has promised to open more opportunities to women after he came under criticism for his role in the war in Yemen, the arrest of women’s rights activists and the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi."  

The London Times reports.

"President Biden has decided that the diplomatic cost of directly penalizing Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is too high..."

"... according to senior administration officials, despite a detailed American intelligence finding that he directly approved the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident and Washington Post columnist who was drugged and dismembered in October 2018. The decision by Mr. Biden, who during the 2020 campaign called Saudi Arabia a 'pariah' state with 'no redeeming social value,' came after weeks of debate in which his newly formed national security team advised him that there was no way to formally bar the heir to the Saudi crown from entering the United States, or to weigh criminal charges against him, without breaching the relationship with one of America’s key Arab allies. Officials said a consensus developed inside the White House that the cost of that breach, in Saudi cooperation on counterterrorism and in confronting Iran, was simply too high.... Mr. Biden and his aides have repeatedly said that they intend to take a far tougher line with the Saudis than did President Donald J. Trump, who vetoed legislation passed by both houses of Congress to block weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.... Mr. Trump refused to make [the intelligence findings] public, knowing it would fuel the action for sanctions or criminal action against Prince Mohammed."

From "Biden Won’t Penalize Saudi Crown Prince Over Khashoggi’s Killing, Fearing Relations Breach/The decision will disappoint the human rights community and members of his own party who complained during the Trump administration that the U.S. was failing to hold Mohammed bin Salman accountable" (NYT).

AND: From "President Biden Lets a Saudi Murderer Walk/The crown prince killed my friend Jamal Khashoggi, and we do next to nothing" by Nicholas Kristof (NYT):

Perhaps I’m biased because I knew Jamal. Some may think: It’s too bad about the murder, but other leaders have killed people, too. True, but M.B.S. poisons everything he touches. He kidnapped Lebanon’s prime minister. He oversaw a feud with Qatar. He caused the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. He imprisoned women’s rights activists. He has tarnished his country’s reputation far more effectively than Iran ever could. 

So, Mr. Biden, it’s not a human rights “gesture” to sanction M.B.S. Jamal was a practical man who didn’t believe in mushy gestures — but he did dream of a more democratic Arab world that would benefit Arabs and Americans alike. And by letting a murderer walk, you betray that vision.

"Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman... released a short film in January outlining his plans for the Line, a postmodern ecotopia to be built on the kingdom’s northwest coast."

"It will be a narrow urban strip 106 miles long with no roads, no cars and no pollution. M.B.S.... calls the Line a 'civilizational revolution' to be inhabited by one million people 'from all over the world.'... To watch the crown prince’s promotional video is to be immersed in a distinctively Saudi form of arrogance, blending religious triumphalism and royal grandiosity. The film begins with a fast-moving montage of the 20th-century’s greatest scientific and technical breakthroughs, including an incongruous image of Saudi Arabia’s founding king — as if he’d been a Steve Jobs-style innovator rather than a camel-riding desert warrior.... As M.B.S. conjures this brave new world — no journey will take more than 20 minutes! zero carbon emissions! — you get the sense that his chutzpah is nothing short of metaphysical. He appears to believe that nature itself is at his command.... The film’s final words, spoken as a multicultural parade of faces flickers across the screen, are deliciously preposterous: 'A home to all of us — welcome to the Line.'" 

From "The Dark Reality Behind Saudi Arabia’s Utopian Dreams" by Robert F. Worth (NYT).

Here's my screen shot, showing "The Line":

"John Bolton, President Donald Trump’s fired national security adviser, harshly criticized Trump’s foreign policy on Wednesday at a private lunch..."

"... saying that inviting the Taliban to Camp David sent a 'terrible signal' and that it was 'disrespectful' to the victims of 9/11 because the Taliban had harbored al Qaeda. Bolton also said that any negotiations with North Korea and Iran were 'doomed to failure,' according to two attendees.... 'He ripped Trump, without using his name, several times,' said one attendee... Bolton also said more than once that Trump’s failure to respond to the Iranian attack on an American drone earlier this summer set the stage for the Islamic Republic’s aggression in recent months...."

Politico.

Tulsi outTrumps Trump.

.@realDonaldTrump

Trump awaits instructions from his Saudi masters. Having our country act as Saudi Arabia's bitch is not "America First." https://t.co/kJOCpqwaQS

— Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) September 16, 2019

"There is not a smoking gun, there’s a smoking saw."

Said Lindsey Graham, quoted in "Saudi Prince ‘Complicit’ in Khashoggi’s Murder, Senators Say After C.I.A. Briefing" (NYT).

Also: "Somebody should be punished, but the question is: 'How do you separate the Saudi crown prince from the nation itself?'" — Senator Richard C. Shelby.

"CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination."

WaPo reports.

The CIA’s assessment, in which officials have said they have high confidence, is [based on] multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince’s brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi, according to the people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence. Khalid told Khashoggi, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post, that he should go to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to retrieve the documents and gave him assurances that it would be safe to do so.

It is not clear if Khalid knew that Khashoggi would be killed, but he made the call at his brother’s direction, according to the people familiar with the call, which was intercepted by U.S. intelligence....

The CIA’s conclusion about [the role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] was also based on the agency’s assessment of the prince as the country’s de facto ruler who oversees even minor affairs in the kingdom. “The accepted position is that there is no way this happened without him being aware or involved,” said a U.S. official familiar with the CIA’s conclusions....

The CIA sees Mohammed as a “good technocrat,” the U.S. official said, but also as volatile and arrogant, someone who “goes from zero to 60, doesn’t seem to understand that there are some things you can’t do.” CIA analysts believe he has a firm grip on power and is not in danger of losing his status as heir to the throne despite the Khashoggi scandal. “The general agreement is that he is likely to survive,” the official said, adding that Mohammed’s role as the future Saudi king is “taken for granted.”...