THE RUSSIAN INTEREST IN THE KHASHOGGI CASE
By John Helmer, Moscow
A man loses his life while he’s on a mission for one or two countries’ secret services in their attempt to change the regime of a third country. It’s a life or death risk he’s running but he calculates he’s well protected. He miscalculates; the outcome is fatal.
The third country’s regime miscalculates too. Their agents hastened his death (manslaughter), possibly murdered him (premeditation); they certainly disposed of his corpse (class-3 felony). As they made their escape, their aircraft was intercepted in the air over the first country, but the ruler of that country allowed the aircraft to fly on safely. Almost everything subsequently announced by officials of each of the three countries, or leaked by them to their media; also, almost everything announced by employers and spokesmen for the dead man, is incomplete, misleading, fabricated, disinformation, or bald-faced lies.
This is the case of the dead Jamal Khashoggi (pronounced ), willing agent of the US and Turkey for regime change in Saudi Arabia.
None of this involves Russia directly, and until now there’s been no blame cast at Russia’s secret services, the General Staff, or President Vladimir Putin for what has happened. Not even if Russian interests benefit, have the Russia-hating media and the US Congress accused Putin of masterminding the Khashoggi case. But strategically in the Middle East, and tactically on Russia’s war fronts in Syria, Iran, and the Balkans, Russian interests do benefit – although not a single Russian politician, security analyst, academic expert, or media commentator will say so.
They think that gloating or schadenfreude, the satisfaction felt from another’s misfortune, especially an enemy’s, is impossible for Russians in the Khashoggi case because it’s much too complicated. (more…)