In The Court Of Public Opinion

"The intelligence pointing to a plan to detain Khashoggi in Saudi Arabia has fuelled speculation by officials and analysts in multiple countries that what transpired at the [Istanbul Saudi] consulate was a backup plan to capture Khashoggi that may have gone wrong."
Shane Harris, national security reporter, The Washington Post

"The voice recording from inside the embassy lays out what happened to Jamal after he entered. You can hear his voice and the voices of men speaking Arabic."
"You can hear how he was interrogated, tortured and then murdered."
Anonymous authority

"I've never been more disturbed than I am right now. If this man was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, that would cross every line of normality in the international community."
"There will be hell to pay [if the allegations of Saudi assassination were confirmed]."
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham 

"It symbolizes the departure of the United States as a restraining force against evil actors in the world."
"Saudi Arabia is a small nation that cannot defend itself without the support of the United States, and therefore no Saudi leader would have made such a brazen move without confidence that Washington, once the leader of the liberal world order, would do nothing."
Robert Kagan, The Washington Post

"I think that [denying the $100-billion Saudi arms sale] would be hurting us. We have jobs. We have a lot of things happening in this country."
"...Part of that is what we are doing with our defence systems and everybody is wanting them and frankly, I think that would be a very, very tough pill to swallow for our country."
U.S. President Donald Trump

"Trump's stance toward despots and authoritarians has generally been not to judge their conduct and suggest it's a mere distraction from his dealmaking."
"And that's also the case with Saudi Arabia, which Trump and his White House have treated warmly as a partner against Iran and on trade."
Aaron Blake, senior political reporter, The Washington Post

This image, taken from closed-circuit TV video obtained by the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, claims to show Khashoggi entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. (Hurriyet via AP)

There is nothing, nothing at all new about most countries willing to trade in weapons development, exporting highly technical arms to other countries that have the treasury to pay for these expensive and desirable pieces of war machinery, putting a blind eye to the recipients' record on human rights and their casual commission of covert atrocities. The Saudis were nothing if not clumsy in their execution of a plan to silence a Saudi journalist living in self-exiled protection in the U.S., as a sometime-contributor to The Washington Post.

As far as their intelligence itself goes, it seems strange that they would view it as a cautionary reality that instructions to remove an embarrassing irritation to the Saudis who happens also to have his revelations published in a powerful investigative news source, that even if they relied upon Donald Trump to express little interest, The Washington Post would make up for that with righteous rage that 'one of their own' was horrendously assassinated. Clumsiness is not monopolized by the arrogance of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for vindictive strikes at 'traitors' Russia has few peers.

It is an odd phenomenon that leaders of world powers focus on events such as a single assassination as a national retributive step in ridding irritants while the same country can be responsible for creating a huge humanitarian crisis of refugees streaming out of Yemen not wishing to be added to the mounting death toll from Saudi bombers targeting civilian areas in their purported intention to hit the Houthi rebels that the Iranian Shiite regime supports. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia have a background of terrorist activities mounted by the followers of their competing Islamic sects.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have until now kept relations cordial in the interest of stability.   CreditKayhan Ozer/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images

As a symbol at the very least of support for human rights negated by the ongoing sale of advanced warplanes to Saudi Arabia, the United States makes itself complicit at a remove in the deaths of thousands of civilian Yemenites. Just as it was remotely but acutely involved in the development of al-Qaeda resulting from their Salafist Wahhabist Sunni madrasses of which Osama bin Laden was a graduate and proponent, wholly responsible for the devastating carnage of 9/11. But trade is trade, and the sale of a hundred billion-worth of fighter jets is a good deal, even if NAFTA wasn't.

A man inspects the wreckage of a Saudi air strike on a crowded bus in Yemen.   Hani Mohammed / AP

But of course, it isn't just the U.S. administration's venal trade with Saudi Arabia; France, Germany, Britain and other human-rights-supporting nations in the West would do just about anything to be able to invest in and trade with the Islamic Republic of Iran, more than happy to overlook its role in the incendiary slaughter of Syrian Sunnis by Alawite Shiite Bashar al Assad's regime happily using internationally proscribed chemical weapons and barrel bombs to destroy the rebels in a civil war that Assad mounted on protesters he labels terrorists.

And then, there is of course, Canada, whose prime minister prides himself on representing a country whose values and respect for human rights (read: women's rights, transsexual rights in particular) is a beacon of light in a troubled world. Where his administration intended to restore relations with Iran, cut off by the previous Canadian administration in recognition of Iran's far reach in spreading jihad Shiite-style globally. Canada proudly demonstrated its credentials in demanding Saudi Arabia free imprisoned human-rights supporters from prison, earning the wrath of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

"Canada is gravely concerned about additional arrests of civil society and women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia, including Samar Badawi. We urge the Saudi authorities to immediately release them and all other peaceful human rights activists", reasonably enough wrote Canada's Saudi-dismissed Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Dennis Horak. Yet Canada, the champion of human rights notwithstanding refused to cancel its multi-billion sale of military 'heavy assault' vehicles to the Saudi regime. Their use in Yemen is no doubt yet another factor in the destruction carried out as a proxy war between the Sunni Kingdom and the Islamic Republic.

We trust that governments act in the best interests of their populations in a free and democratic society and uphold the values and traditions and customs that most people in such countries hold dear. Yet it is from among leading corporations that repercussions are being visited on Saudi Arabia for its demonstration of invulnerability to accountability. Prince Mohammed bin Salmon's Future Investment Initiative to begin in Riyadh in two weeks' time is being shunned by high-tech leaders from Richard Branson to Bob Bakish of Viacom, Dara Khosrowshahi of Uber Technologies, Steve Case venture capitalist, Patrick Soon-Shiong owner of the L.A. Times and Joanna Popper HP executive; along with Android creator Andy Rubin.

In this promotional image, taken by the Canadian Forces and hosted on the General Dynamics website, General Dynamics Land Systems Canada Lav 6 vehicles like the ones being sold to Saudi Arabia are shown carrying troops. (Combat Camera/General Dynamics)