The Russians and Saudis look guilty by design - AEI
Gary J. Schmitt November 8, 2018 | The Wall Street Journal
What do the poisoning of Russian former spy Sergei Skripal in the U.K. and the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey have in common? The perpetrators in both cases did little to conceal their involvement in the attacks. Their grim methods and brazen execution drew the world’s eyes immediately to the governments in Moscow and Riyadh.
Many of the first reports after each attack suggested that their messiness was owing to poor planning. In the case of Mr. Skripal, how else to explain the failure of Russian agents to avoid being recorded by Britain’s well-known security-camera system, or the paper-thin cover the agents were given? As for the Khashoggi case, why deploy such a large hit squad, conspicuously arriving on jets direct from Riyadh?
Sharper observers may wonder whether these attacks bear all the marks of planned spectacle. It appears the master planners, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, designed the plots not only to eliminate their direct targets, but also to send a fearsome signal to other current and potential dissidents.
Read more at: http://www.aei.org/publication/the-russians-and-saudis-look-guilty-by-design/
The line now, for the record, is that the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had nothing to do with it and that the Saudis are going for the death penalty for those involved.
