Jamal Khashoggi Quotes
I don't want anything to affect my freedom, and we don't want Saudi Arabia to be another Iran.
Khashoggi, Jamal. Interview. NPR, 2017.
At the time our strongest allies in the Middle East were Monarchies, dictatorships, and Principalities. See {586704}.
This Proclamation was issued upon arrival of the British occupying imperial army in present day Iraq. The English policy makers like the Bush administration almost a century later were expecting a more welcoming reaction. See {585250}.
The Shah of Iran was one of the worst violators of human rights in the world. His secret security service were brutal thugs who murdered and tortured with impunity. Carter however in most other instances made human rights a centerpiece of his foreign policy. In Iran he overlooked the human rights abuses as the United States needed the Iranian oil. When the Iranians finally revolted against the Shah, they resented Carter and the United States for allowing the Shah to operate his empire with no regard for civil rights while the U. S. continued to preach about human rights. When the Iranians established their revolutionary government, they got the worst of all worlds. Iran became a fundamentalist theocracy, had their economy deteriorate despite their oil wealth, and the Human Rights violations of the Revolutionary Government were worse than the terrible record of the Shah.
The American sense of exceptionalism of the democratic republic we created and the almost messianic duty to extend freedom and democracy throughout the world is actually relatively new in American history. For most American existence, the sense of the desirability of spreading the American freedom was held from the very beginning, but it was very much inhibited by American isolationist tendencies and entanglements on other nation’s affairs.
This newspaper was an English language organ published by General Allenby’s British and Allied forces in the Middle East. Prior to the war, the Middle East was all part of the Ottoman Empire. However, the Ottoman Turks sided with Germany in WWI and their Middle East dominions were targets for the allied military strategy.
While this has been one of the great American principles of political philosophy, in reality we have on many occasions interfered when a people chose an enemy of the United States or made a choice of a government which would seize power and not allow any further free choices. However, from the time JFK made this statement to today, our foreign policy record has become much better on implementing this principle.
Graham was a very strong advocate for democracies. However, many politicians advocated staying out of that struggle. They pointed out that Graham was very inconsistent. He opposed the U. S. taking sides in most of the other struggles between democracies and dictatorships such as in Saudi Arabia, Arab Emirates, Kuwait and the dictatorships of Azerbaijan, Zimbabwe, and Burma among others. Graham was a strong anti-Russian and supported countries who were against Russia or with whom Russia was at odds.
Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi was a Saudi Arabian journalist, dissident, author, columnist for The Washington Post, and a general manager and editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel who was assassinated at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October 2018 by agents of the Saudi government, allegedly at the behest of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He also served as editor for the Saudi Arabian newspaper Al Watan, turning it into a platform for Saudi progressives.
