Prince Ahmed Returns to Riyadh + The Deaths of Whitey Bulger and the United Kingdom

UPDATE: Talks between Turkey and Saudi Arabia apparently have reached impasse. According to a dispatch from Reuters:

“Despite our well-intentioned efforts to reveal the truth, no concrete results have come out of those meetings,” the Istanbul prosecutor’s office said of the talks on Monday and Tuesday between Mojeb and Istanbul chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan.

Of course this could also be a cover for an amicable resolution. The Turks say, "We haven't arrived at the truth yet," the Saudis stay mum, and the whole Khashoggi affair eventually disappears from the collective consciousness.

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Today the mainstream Khashoggi news remains: "In Intanbul, Saudi public prosecutor Saud Al Mojeb continues to barter with Turkish officials."

David Kirkpatrick and Ben Hubbard report that King Salman's last remaining full brother, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, returned to Riyadh yesterday. Ahmed had been living in London for the last six years. He recently made public comments critical of the war in Yemen, the king and crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Ahmed's return to Saudi Arabia is being interpreted as a move to shore up the kingdom, a ceremonial display to placate Western governments that the crown prince has some oversight.

Prince Ahmed is widely seen as a figure of special gravitas in the family because he is the king’s only surviving full brother. He and the king are the last of the so-called Sudairi 7: the seven sons of the modern kingdom’s founder, King Abdul Aziz, by his favorite wife, Hussa bint Ahmed al-Sudairi. The brothers formed a powerful bloc among the king’s dozens of progeny, passing the throne from brother to brother and divvying up key ministries among themselves. 

Whitey Bulger was found beaten to death yesterday at Hazelton federal penitentiary in West Virginia. As Robert McFadden says in his story "Whitey Bulger Is Dead in Prison at 89; Long-Hunted Boston Mob Boss":

[Bulger] had been moved from prison to prison in recent years and was incarcerated in Florida before being transferred to Hazelton, which has been rife with violence. 

One of the workers said that the inmates were thought to be “affiliated with the mob.” A law enforcement official who oversees organized crime cases said he was told by a federal law enforcement official that a mob figure was believed to be responsible for the killing.

A couple years back I saw a decent documentary Whitey: United States of America V. James J. Bulger, about which I commented for my public library:

The takeaway from WHITEY is an obvious but important one: the United States Government is willing to collaborate with criminals and butchers to achieve strategic objectives. In this case, taking out the Boston area Cosa Nostra. We do it overseas -- working with the rich Gulf emirates who at the same time fund global jihad -- so why not at home? Whitey Bulger was mid-level tough Irish muscle before being made a king by the FBI. Our tax dollars hard at work.

In his latest blog post, "The Ignominious Death of the United Kingdom," Craig Murray predicts that the end of the United Kingdom is coming soon:

Astonishingly, this collection of untalented careerists that constitutes the “government of the United Kingdom” is managing currently to extend its lead in the UK wide opinion polls, while falling back again into third place in Scotland. I have sympathy for friends in England who do not wish Scotland to be independent, because the Tories have such a majority in England. But they have no right to force Scotland to live under a succession of Tory governments, which it has not voted for in over 60 years. Similarly, the Scots have no right to prevent the English from living under Theresa May – or even under Jacob Rees Mogg – if the English continue inexplicably to wish to do so. 

I have expressed for many years the hope that I will see Scottish Independence and a United Ireland before I die. I am happy to say I am now convinced that I will do so. That the end of the UK would be marked by such a squalid, incompetent and dysfunctional political leadership I could not have dared to hope. Thank God the UK will soon be over.

Tories and Saudis in Trouble

Tory prime minister Theresa May is in trouble, and it is has nothing to do with Brexit negotiations or Grenfell Tower; it has to do with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. May is sitting on a report that purportedly links the Saudis to the funding of jihadist terrorism. Now, as David Kirkpatrick reports, a London think tank, named after Washington State's historic "senator from Boeing," has published a report of its own accusing the House of Saud of not only funding jihadists but actually training the preachers who preach violence in Britain:

The government of Prime Minister Theresa May has acknowledged in recent days that it is withholding a study on the Saudi role in fostering extremism in Britain, and opponents have accused her of pandering to the Saudi royals to protect British trade deals.

On Wednesday, a report from a hawkish think tank in London called new attention to the debate by arguing that Saudi Arabia had, in fact, played a singularly important role in promoting extremist strains of Islam in British mosques and religious schools — including the training of British preachers who have advocated jihadist violence.

Over the last 30 years, “Saudi Arabia has spent at least £67 billion,” or about $87 billion, on this endeavor around the world, said the think tank, the Henry Jackson Society, named for a United States senator from the Cold War era.

[snip]

The attention to Saudi Arabia also comes at a time when Ms. May’s political opponents are ratcheting up their denunciations of her Conservative government’s support for the two-year Saudi-led war in Yemen, which has plunged that impoverished country into a humanitarian catastrophe of disease and famine with no end in sight. (Saudi Arabia says the campaign there is essential to keep power away from the Houthis, a Yemeni faction aligned with Iran.)

The study of Saudi extremism was initiated more than a year ago by Ms. May’s predecessor, Prime Minister David Cameron, also a Conservative. He agreed to it partly to win the support of another party, the Liberal Democrats, for airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, and on Wednesday the Liberal Democrats accused Ms. May of putting Saudi business deals ahead of public safety by declining to disclose the study’s findings.

“We hear regularly about the Saudi arms deals or ministers going to Riyadh to kowtow before their royal family, but yet our government won’t release a report that will clearly criticize Saudi Arabia,” Timothy Farron, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, said in a statement.

Britain is “cozying up to one of the most extreme, nasty and oppressive regimes in the world,” he said. “You would think our security would be more important, but it appears not.”

The Home Office, which conducted the study, denied that the government had withheld it to avoid offending or embarrassing the Saudis. But a spokesman declined to comment on whether the findings of the study had highlighted a Saudi role in spreading extremism. “Ministers are considering advice on what is able to be published in the report and will update Parliament in due course,” the office said in a statement.

The Saudi Embassy in London did not respond to telephone calls.

Something Western voters understand and understand viscerally is that the Saudis have rigged the system. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an absolutist monarchy that exports a puritanical interpretation of Islam by means of a global network of madrassas, yet it depends upon the "great" democracies Britain, France and the United States, for its defense.

An example of al-Saud's reach was on display yesterday when new French president Emmanuel Macron had to walk back an earlier proclamation that there was no legitimate successor to Assad. According to Reuters, "After criticism, France's Macron seeks to reassure Syria opposition":

Macron on Wednesday appeared to try to refine his comments after speaking to Riad Hijab, head of the Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee, which represents a group of military and political opponents at U.N.-mediated talks between Syria's warring parties in Geneva.

In a statement the presidency said Macron had confirmed to Hijab that France supported the HNC in the Syrian peace talks being held under UN auspices.

The High Negotiations Committee is a Saudi creation.

May's Tories are not the only ones in trouble. It is a perilous time for the Saudi royal family. Their blockade of Qatar is close to collapse; so too is Yemen. Palace intrigue, already intense with reports of the deposed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef under house arrest, is likely spiraling out of control.

Corbyn's Triumph Another Ill Omen for Hillary

Hillary's grave has been dug.

Back at the beginning of May, after Ed Miliband led Labour to a historic defeat in Britain's parliamentary elections, I opined that it augured ill for corporate Democrats in the U.S. At the time, analysts in the mainstream media were trying to spin Cameron's big win as a cautionary tale for Labour moving to the left. Somehow these analysts (I'm thinking here of Steven Erlanger's "Appeal to Dwindling Core Proves Costly for Labour Party in Britain") interpreted Miliband's meekly mouthed promises to roll back some of the egregious aspects of Tory austerity, and Labour's subsequent collapse at the polls, as proof that a leftist attack on neoliberalism was a surefire loser. These analysts failed to account for the incredible showing of the Scottish National Party, a party far to the left of Labour.

Now, this past weekend, Labour has corrected course by shifting hard to the left. Longtime socialist, anti-war firebrand and Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn has been elected leader of the Labour Party. (See top of the post the informative interview with Tariq Ali from yesterday's Democracy Now! for a good intro to Corbyn.) He won thanks in part to a change in rules that broadened the base of who could vote for party leader. Young people overwhelming supported Corbyn and his message of equality, fraternity and an end to foreign wars; he won with 60 percent of the vote over a mishmash of Blairites.

So Labour is starting its journey back to relevance. Rocky will be the road because zombies occupy most positions of power in neoliberal Western society. (Erlanger pitifully reprises his tune from May by arguing that Corbyn's election means a big Tory win in 2020.)

But the canon has sounded and the blast has been heard across the pond. The U.S. and UK are cousins. When neoliberalism drove it piles into the soil 40 years ago it did so with Thatcherism and Reaganism. Markets are always right and unions are insidious special-interest groups and blacks are lazy scofflaws and military might must be exercised frequently (preferably against a powerless opponent). These are some of the tenets of Thatcherism/Reaganism. And I would say that they have largely lost their purchase on the general public.

Hillary as the Democratic banner-waver of the neoliberal consensus has said that her plan to win the White House is based on returning the Obama coalition to the polls. One crucial bloc of the Obama coalition is the youth vote. Youth went overwhelming with Corbyn in the Labour leadership vote. Youth is not going to go for Hillary in any significant number.

Richard Hell said that the truth is in the youth. The youth has rejected neoliberalism and its perpetual wars and inequality. Even if Hillary manages to cart her carcass across the finish line and defeat Sanders in the Democratic primary, Trump's traveling fascist road show will prove far too formidable for a conventional champion of neoliberalism like Rodham Clinton.