In an age without religion, fake virtue signalling is the primary measure of "morality". Over and over many on the left and on the right signal their virtue by ranting against the "hypocrisy" of Trump stating "maybe he did, maybe he didn't" ... but Saudi Arabia remains an ally.
As the NY Times opinion piece concudes, OF COURSE that is the case!
The murder of Mr. Khashoggi was a brutal and grotesque act. The United States has registered its feelings loudly and clearly by putting sanctions on the 17 men who were directly involved in the killing. Punishing the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia will not bring justice for Mr. Khashoggi, nor will it make Saudi Arabia a more dependable ally. It will simply diminish the influence of the United States and embolden its enemies.
The biblical advice to be as “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” offers sound counsel to anyone who seeks to see their principles influence the world. The advice of Mr. Trump’s critics is long on abstract morality but lacking in strategic wisdom.
It is very hard to imagine "what everyone knows" these days -- so much reasoning is purely emotional and tribal. It is hard for me to imagine that ANYONE seriously wants to give up Saudi Arabia as an ally in the Mideast, especially over the murder of a single journalist. If we wanted to have a serious disagreement, it might be over Yemen for example, but I for one am not interested in going out and trying to figure out the "right" answer to that situation.
Saudi Arabia and Iraq are locked in a political and Sunni vs Shia religious war in the Mideast that is somewhat comparable to the Cold War with the USSR and the US. They largely fight by proxy, and fighting by proxy tends to be very messy (see Tom Clancey and other novels of the US - Soviet Cold War).
The question in my mind is how many people these days actually believe what they tweet, post, etc about how they are SHOCKED at such things as Trump's comments on the Kashoggi murder!
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