Are arms, oil worth more than a life?

While there has been worthwhile, extensive press coverage of the killing of respected Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by “security” forces of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, there have been only mealy-mouthed denunciations, continued support for the Saudis and a laughable response of “rogue killers”/ phantoms being behind this atrocity by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Now, the Saudis and bin Salman have been allowed 30 days to supposedly investigate the killing, i.e. to offer plausible deniability to topof-the-heap Saudi leadership, including bin Salman and his family. If the murder of Khashoggi was not so blatant and vicious, its coverup such a sham-show, it would be a farcical soap opera.

The Saudis are a dictatorship that has only its oil-influence and its money to burn. Saudi leadership does not deserve the benefit of the doubt in this latest barbaric incident. It is accountable to world courts and justice for its use of state-sponsored killing, at home and abroad.

When munitions sales-income are made supreme over human rights and liberty, then all of us are doomed to the moral consequences of one man’s life meaning so very little.

Stewart Ford, Calgary