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Today's Poll: Should the U.S. impose sanctions or otherwise punish Saudi Arabia?

By Howard B. Owens
david spaulding

I assume this question is in regards to the missing journalist..... The President of the United States is on record stating that journalists and the media are "the enemy of the people" . Don't expect any action from this President.... Do the yes voters know the U.S. is very busy killing all kinds of people all over the world ? Now we wouldn't want any sanctions or punishment placed upon us would we ? ........

Oct 19, 2018, 4:32pm Permalink
Brian Heick

David touches on a good point there. Our president on several occasions states that the media was the "Enemy of the people". A tweet with "enemy of the american people" kind of throws insight behind the though of it when he directly referenced the NY Times, NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN. Trump has gone after literally every news agency except for Fox. Jamal Khashoggi was a contributor for the Washington Post (and many other networks), which Trump has bashed in the past for their coverage.

Now, In my opinion, what I've seen in actions/responses from the White House has been too little/late and anemic at best. I can understand our administration not wanting to make a strategic partner look bad, but this one time is the exception. The Saudi track record on human rights a little backwards compared to places like here in the US and other western nations. touched on that in another post a couple days ago. The other fact here is that the Trump organization has obvious ties with the Saudis past and present. If something was going to happen like this, you can bet that the Saudis would be hoping for a muted US response on Trumps part because of the ties and his disdain for the media.

Oct 20, 2018, 9:05am Permalink
Howard B. Owens

Just two days ago, Trump praised an attack on a journalist in Montana.

Turkey has locked up dozens of journalists.

I'm sure the Crown Prince has been surprised by the response to Khashoggi murder. He didn't expect it to even be a blip on the radar.

Oct 20, 2018, 10:04am Permalink
Brian Heick

Trumps attitude towards media/journalist is not surprising at all. He has literally normalized this behavior from himself to the point where no one is surprised anymore unless something exceptionally bad happens. One would think it would be Trumps ideal to silence critics the way Saudi Arabia or Turkey does.

Also, I am kind of surprised at how Turkey is responding to this situation seeing as how since 2016 they have shuttered media and locked up journalist more than prior years. I'm pretty much betting that they don't want fingers pointed at them with their record.

Oct 20, 2018, 2:59pm Permalink

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