I think the headline is a bit misleading. "given" immunity to me implied that there was some deal or something where the US government proactively gave MBS immunity.<p>What happened was the US State Dept <i>determined</i> he had immunity due to his current role as Saudi Arabia PM. Thus, my understanding is that this would be standard diplomatic immunity, no? And if MBS ever stopped being PM he would lose that immunity, as MBS only became PM <i>after</i> the killing took place (not sure if this part is correct).
I really hope the world can accelerate it's adoption of energy sources that will replace oil. They aren't without their own flaws but besides Norway, I can't think of place where oil hasn't corrupted society in some major way.
So he can't be held liable because he is the Prime Minister of SA.<p>Essentially the same thing here where the sitting President cannot be directly charged with a crime (or sued personally).
Maybe they should teach children in school from a young age how completely corrupt all of our institutions (government, private industry, science, religion, etc) are, rather than everyone having to slowly realize it as you get older.
This is disturbing. Outside of this, I actually deleted the Twitter App from my phone a few weeks ago when I found out they still own a huge part of Twitter.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/alwaleed_talal/status/1585975226567110656" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/alwaleed_talal/status/158597522656711065...</a>
How come Nelson Mandela still was treated like a crook and on the terrorist list up to the point of visit to the US in his last years of life. And this MBS guy gets away with it already?
It's just how it works unfortunately. Imagine if the whole world should justifiably call for arresting three decades of US presidents and generals over all the murders and deaths in the middle east, how would that work? Would you agree to it?
He was not given immunity, he has de-facto immunity due to his position.<p>Imagine if that didn't exist? Biden visits Qatar and gets arrested for dis-respecting their leaders? I can see that all working out.<p>The truth is, I doubt there would be much decent evidence that would hold up in Court. It's like Russians being murdered outside of Russia, "of course" Putin would have had to order it but "of course" wouldn't cut it in Court.
This was expected and nothing surprising. The world is deeply corrupt and law is only for the poor. 99.99% of the population is just cattle that is supposed to stay in the fenced area and pay taxes.
What's interesting in this whole Khashoggi case is not the US response or lack of response. Any other crime committed by the US and KSA will make Khashoggi murder a joke in comparison.
What irritates me is that KSA committed and still commit genocide in Yemen since at least 2015 (this is only one place), people are being starved, and no one feel the "ethical burden" to take any action or ask their "free world" leader to take any action or stop helping and leading that war. Yet the sensitive liberals are mad because of Mr. Khashoggi murder, they have the nerve the mention the "ethics" even when they're trying to invoke the geo-political argument (Yes MBS is bad but not as Bad as X while X changes every few years, today it's Putin).
The hard and brutal truth is that if you ever voted in US for Trump or Obama or Biden or Bush Or almost any President in the past 50 years, you have more ethical burden than simply worrying about the lack of response against MBS.
Well, America’s superpower status rests on being the reserve currency for petroleum imports so, in reality, KSA has America in a vise.<p>The US can’t do anything to antagonise KSA because the direct result will be KSA accepting currencies other than the dollar for petrol, which will lower the global demand for dollars, leading to devaluation of the USD leading to economic calamity.<p>I’m sure MBS, Biden, Trump, Obama, Putin, Xi, and every world leader knows this.<p>The green economy is going to upend the world order for reasons other than simply reducing dependency on fossil fuels, imo.
Misleading headline by the BBC, as is tradition. He wasn't given anything, it's simply the status quo - whether we like it our not. It's also not a US thing but an international convention: <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/68801/head-of-state-immunity-is-too-important-for-the-international-court-of-justice" rel="nofollow">https://www.justsecurity.org/68801/head-of-state-immunity-is...</a>
The same happened to Modi, the PM of India, if my memory serves me right. He was banned from entering USA for his deeds, until he turned out to be the head of India.<p>Apparently your only way out is to be the head of your state, if you have done something evil.
This is called "Realpolitik": international relations are meant to serve your national interests, not ethical principles. By now, the main national interest in the West is to not give oil money to the psychotic butcher in Moscow. The Saudi butcher is a little less psychotic by comparison.<p>There are dozens of philosophers that advanced this idea: Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes,...<p>Many of the most famous statesmen in history were followers of this principle: Richelieu, Frederik the Great, Von Clausewitz, Otto Von Bismark, Metternich, Henry Kissinger,... Unsurprisingly, many of them were Germans. And none of them was a nice person.
We want to be green so we're trying to stop drilling for oil. But we also need oil because our society runs on it. This guy has oil. This guy can therefore do whatever he likes.<p>This is obviously way better than drilling at home.
To be clear, the US is the largest oil producer in the world, and is a net exporter of oil.[1][2] (Shale is a large part of that growth in the last decade)<p>The US benefits when oil prices increase. If you want to speculate on the geopolitical reasons for this action, it could be to help the allies of the US by driving oil prices down through OPEC production plans. If you want to speculate on the domestic reasons for this, it could be to try to keep gas prices lower at the expense of overall US GDP.<p>In the end, a brutal dictator gets diplomatic immunity and prestige and the rest of the world averts its eyes to keep its economies well-functioning.<p>1. <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-production-by-country/" rel="nofollow">https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-production-by-country/</a><p>2. <a href="https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php" rel="nofollow">https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...</a>
If we object to a foreign country killing their own citizens, we can invade the foreign country and overthrow the ruler to make them stop killing (or threaten to invade unless they stop the killing). If we don't want to do that, we could try to put sanctions on them. If we can't do that either, there's not much we can do.
The world isn't stupid, every country does some dirty deeds for national interest.<p>We are deliberately turning a mole hill into a mountain.<p>How many victims have been created by the war on terror or search for non existant WMD?
Obama would be personally liable for drone strikes that were done under his authority. Would you be OK with that?<p>In any case, it's unclear if the US even has jurisdiction. The crime happened on Saudi territory in Turkey, and MBS has said he didn't authorize it. Why is this in US courts? Because he was a US citizen?<p>His fiancee is showboating.
I thought the <i>rule of law</i> was the reason behind the endless quest to disqualify Trump from being the President or running for the Presidency, but actually heads of state can sawzall barely-critical journalists into a pile of body parts as a fee for a marriage license.