The case Jamal Khashoggi is unprecedented and a benchmark for the brutality of undemocratic regimes against “rogue” citizens.

Well, he'll offer you a cigarette

He'll offer you a light

Oh but he hasn't finished with you yet

On another long knife night

Nik Kershaw – Human Racing

If anything, 2018 has perhaps been the year of the ruler: the democratically chosen or unelected leader of a country, who leaves little doubt that he is the man in charge.

Everybody can name a few rulers that left a lasting impression on the world during the last few years. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un are a few names that come to mind, when the topic is ‘rulers’. And of course the leader who is on everybody’s retina currently: President Donald Trump of the United States.

A less common choice for an ill-reputed ruler would perhaps be Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of the secretive kingdom Saudi Arabia and ‘son of’ of the current, old king Salman. However, his relative mysteriousness might change quite soon. And that is due to one man: journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

During the last few years the world became used to brutal killings of people that stood up against questionable regimes all over the world. Iran, Russia (i.e. the Skripal affair) and Egypt were countries that showed little compassion with their political opponents and former ex-intelligence people gone ‘rogue’. And the number of journalists that have been killed in the line of duty lately is depressingly long.

Still, there is hardly a case that made such a lasting impression on me as the unfortunate case of Jamal Khashoggi. The journalist and critical follower of the new unofficial ruler of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who probably walked in a lethal trap at the least conspicuous of places. 

This is caused by the truly weird circumstances and the gruesome details of this murder and especially the outrageous denial of the people who are responsible for this “possible” killing.

The story is short and relatively simple. Khashoggi, who wanted to divorce from his former wife and wanted to marry his new, Turkish girlfriend, walks into the Saudi Arab consulate in Istanbul, in order to arrange some divorce papers, and never comes out of it alive anymore.

Rumours (or are it already facts) are that a fifteen(!) people death squad, including a forensic medic, were waiting in the consulate for Khashoggi and “arrested”(or captured) him. Afterwards, they brutally tortured and killed him and dismembered his body with a surgical saw, before bringing him outside in a blinded bus and reporting to the consul that the job was done successfully. 

Against his more and more impatient and worried wife-to-be and other people, the consulate stated that he left the consulate alive and well. Only… nobody saw that happen and nobody heard of him ever again in the days after the presumed murder.

I am not naive and I know that various regimes do anything to get rid of the unwelcome voices in their society, even if these voices left their country a long time ago. Yet, that a country has the guts and bluntness to (allegedly) kill a political opponent in their own consulate in a foreign country is totally new for me, in spite of my middle aged life. 

And it shocked me beyond belief that Saudi Arabia had the nerve to do this and then deny that it ever happened. Nevertheless, this is what all the signs seem to point at.

The whole idea of embassies and consulates is that they represent their country: not only for their own citizens abroad, but also as a meeting point for their allies and adversaries, in order to keep negotiations and communication channels open in good and in dire times. 

This is the reason for the concept of diplomatic immunity and for the fact that countries virtually always leave ambassadors, consuls and other diplomats of their visiting countries at peace, in spite of their (sometimes) conflicting interests and (in some cases) the mounting hardship between countries. These are the foundations of international diplomatic traffic.

It is definitely true that embassies and consulates are the starting point of most intelligence operations all over the world and that not all inhabitants of such residences have the interests of their hosting country in mind; rather to the contrary. This is the reason that spying and eavesdropping of diplomatic residences is an international sport. Everybody knows this and everybody does their best to ignore this with a straight face, while maintaining the friendship and/or good relations. 

The advantages of diplomatic residences simply outweigh the drawbacks and that is the main reason that most countries “play by the book” with respect to the do’s and don’ts of international diplomacy.

It is exactly this circumstance that makes the Saudi attack against Jamal Khashoggi – when proven beyond doubt – such an outrageous and unprecedented incident. In possibly or deliberately lethal inteligence operations ‘deniability’ is of utmost importance, in order to curtail diplomatic damage when an operation goes awry and perpetrators get caught by the police of their hosting country.

That deniability, however, is totally gone when a Saudi Arab citizen enters the consulate of his country in Turkey on camera and is never seen alive again. 

There is simply no way denying that the consulate was under control of the Saudi Arab government. There is consequently no way denying that this must have been an officially approved kidnapping or murder operation; approved by the very highest ranks of the country, meaning either King Salman or (almost certainly) the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman are involved in it.

And to make the diplomatic damage for Saudi Arabia even worse, Khashoggi allegedly made audio recordings with his smart watch, while being arrested, tortured and murdered by the 15 man hit squad that had been flown in.

That idea alone is gruesome and might give a clue why the Turkish government knew so quickly that Khashoggi was murdered indeed, even though evil tongues could state that the Turkish government already had top notch eavesdropping and video equipment in the Saudi residence.

In spite of the shocking nature of this incident, it is hard to say what the consequences will be for the Middle Eastern Kingdom in the long run, if any.

POTUS Donald Trump openly stated that the $110 billion in Saudi investments in the US counted more for him than the life of one journalist. And the fact that some of the captains of industry, like Richard Branson or Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, canceled their visit to the Saudi Future Investment Initiative conference could have more to do with political, mood-driven opportunism than with sheer shockedness about this “unfortunate incident”, albeit it an outrageous one.

Saudi Arabia has not changed much during the last hundred years – ask the poor people of Jemen or the thousands of imprisoned people, who live in fear of being decapitated on Chop Chop Square. And the chance that ‘MBS’ will bring that desperately wanted change is minute in my humble opinion, since the world and I learned about his ‘Night of the Long Knives’ of last year.

Nevertheless, money talks! And virtually nowhere it talks louder than in Saudi Arabia, where the massive flow of oil yielded immeasurable fortunes during the 20th and 21st Century. Unfortunately, all this happened in a country that lives closer to medieval times than to modern times, in spite of their countless Bugatti’s, Ferrari’s and Rolls Royces and other symbols of conspicuous wealth. 

In spite of it all, this has never been a factor that stopped people, like King Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands, and countries from doing massive business with the desert state.

So when all this blows over in a few weeks or months, I expect that the roads, luxurious skyscrapers and countless palaces of the enormous royal family become overcrowded again with the same powers-that-be and same captains of industry that now take a raincheck for a few months.

The Dutch government will be a perfect testcase for this slightly cynical concept of mine: it already organized a trade mission to Saudi Arabia from November 18 – 21st and did so well before the Khashoggi case emerged. I would really be surprised if the Dutch government actually ponders for one moment about abandoning this trade mission. 

You don’t slaughter the goose with the golden eggs, don’t ya?!

“Dear Mr. Bolton. What are you so afraid of and what triggers your war against the ICC?? Open letter to US National Security Advisor John Bolton…

Dear Mr. Bolton,

There is little doubt that the United States is still the most powerful country in the World...

It is arguably still the largest economy in the World and its military force is second to none, with vast amounts well-equipped soldiers and with the help of the best and most sophisticated arms arsenal ever to win every battle in every situation and on every terrain. On top of that your country maintains the largest nuclear apparatus in the World, with enough strategical and tactical nuclear weapons to destroy our planet many, many times over.

I even believe that your ambitions stretch out to winning the battle for outer space within the coming decades. I have little doubt that you will fullfil these ambitions, when you put your country’s energy in it.

As you call it yourself: your country is the greatest country in the World and it stands on the forefront of civilization. The events enrolling after the Second World War made that your country has turned into the “policeman of the World”: a role that your country has played well. Sometimes reluctantly and sometimes overenthusiastic with your trademark gung ho attitude. But always as a reliable partner for your country’s allies in the Western World and in the Middle East.

Perhaps it is there – in your role as policeman of the World – that the trouble begins.

A policeman has special privileges, granted to him by the government and the law, that common citizens don’t have. He may carry weapons at all time and has a special permit when it comes to the usage of lethal force against civilians: where normal citizens have no right to kill other people, a policeman has that right when he has to maintain the law and when the situation requires this.

Looking at this, your country also have been granted those special privileges in global politics and in military operations, by its grateful allies after the Second World War: not so much de jure, but de facto. The rest of the World was looking for a sheriff and your country was willing to play that role. 

Your country is a permanent member of the security council and your military fleet is sailing across the oceans to maintain peace and quiet all over the globe. No country is really challenging your military might! Not even China, although they are making great progress in building up their military apparatus.

One of the finest expressions from the Marvel Spiderman Saga is: “With great power comes great responsibility!”.

This means in your case that the special privileges that your country enjoys lead to a special responsibility to use them wisely and to the benefit of the human race and the planet as a whole. Not just for your own purposes and benefit. In most situations the USA stuck to these principles and played a pivotal role in maintaining the peace indeed.

However, the distance between being the school’s sheriff and the school bully is remarkably thin. The only difference is that the school’s sheriff uses his force restrainedly and for the greater good, while the school bully uses force exuberantly and for his own good. But I know that you are very much aware of that, Mr. Bolton. And so is the rest of the world.

Although accidents can always happen, the school sheriff should be open about the necessity of his usage of force and – when things went wrong – he would be willing in the end to face the consequences when his usage of force was beyond legal boundaries, if such is decided by justice.

In this case “justice” is represented by either the United Nations security council or (since roughly twentyfive years) the International Criminal Court in The Hague, lying in The Netherlands. The ICC is not a vague ‘hobby’ from a few utopian countries, but an official, legal institute that is acknowledged by a substantial majority of the countries in the world (i.e. 124). That is an undeniable fact.

Countries that did not acknowledge the ICC or that withdrew their confirmation are a.o. China, India, Russia, some of the Arab states, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and… Israel and the United States. Your country, Mr. Bolton.

As a matter of fact, it is a tell-tale and worrisome signal that the largest and most powerful countries in the world did not acknowledge (or did, but in a later stage withdrew their acknowledgement) such an important institute as the ICC.

Most of these countries’ fear for the ICC is based upon the assumption that the ICC could be prone to politicized trials, spurred by the enemies and political adversaries of these countries. Perhaps they have a point. Isn’t that so, Mr. Bolton?

And people who state that the ICC is a warrant for virtually endless and extremely expensive trial cases definitely might have a point. The court is a very bureaucratic and relatively powerless institution that is rather based upon good intentions than on a proven trackrecord.

Nevertheless, it is quite remarkable and even worrisome that an international court that is considered to be “perfectly capable” of dealing with local African and former Yugoslavian ‘quarrels’ – which are harmless for the powers that be – is considered to be too politically biased to deal with f.i. Russian, Chinese or Israelian and American disputes. Yet, that is what such powerful countries, including the United States, claim.

There is a blatant double standard in this way of thinking, discriminating between those countries in power and the countries at the other end of the power scale, whom nobody really listens to. The powerful countries are seemingly out of bounds for the ICC, while the powerless countries aren’t. I am sure that you are aware of this, Mr. Bolton.

And where other countries simply deny that the ICC has the jurisdiction to deal with trials against their militaries and/or countrymen, the USA takes this to the next level. They did so with a series of laws and other countermeasures that hinder possible interference against their militaries by the ICC.  I believe that you are the main architect behind some of these laws, Mr. Bolton. Aren’t you? The most infamous of these laws is the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, jokingly called the The Hague Invasion Act. Although my country does not fear (yet) that this law might become reality, its aggressiveness is nevertheless worrisome.

Yet, that legislation was not enough for you, as the current chief for National Security Affairs for the United States. You recently held a speech in which you promised “doom and gloom” for every ICC official who dared to incriminate American soldiers and other officials for their role in the various American wars, battles and peace operations of the last decades.

I quote here your own words from The Guardian:

 “The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court,” Bolton said.

He said the Trump administration would “fight back” and impose sanctions – even seeking to criminally prosecute ICC officials – if the court formally proceeded with opening an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by US military and intelligence staff during the war in Afghanistan or pursued any investigation into Israel or other US allies.

Bolton vowed that the United States would retaliate by banning ICC judges and prosecutors from entering the US, imposing sanctions on any funds they had in the States and prosecuting them in the American court system.

 “If the court comes after us, Israel, or other US allies we will not sit quietly,” he said, also threatening to impose the same sanctions on any country that aided the investigation.

He condemned the inquiry into war crimes in Afghanistan as an “utterly unfounded, unjustifiable investigation” and the court as illegitimate.

“We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead,” Bolton said.

He said the US would negotiate more binding, bilateral agreements to prohibit countries from surrendering Americans to the court in The Hague.

There is not a single unclear word in your speech here and if anybody still would expect that the policeman of the world would allow a serious investigation into its own warcrimes, then this message by you is a clear wake-up call to these eyes.

Yet, after your swollen statement, I would like say to you: “Hey Mr. Bolton, what are you so afraid of?! Are Abu Ghraib and the rendition flights with American prisoners-of-war to US-supported torture camps all over the globe still haunting you? Is the often excessive violence of the US airforce, navy and US ground troops against their adversaries and enemies still keeping you awake at night? Are you afraid that the American warcrimes might be exposed in the open, visible to the rest of the world?! Thus exposing that the US is not holier than the rest of the world?!

It better be!

If the United States really wants to behave itself as the policeman of the world and not as the school bully, it should make its troops object of scrutiny with regards to clean warfare! In every war there are bloody mistakes and acts of sheer violence, but the only way to deal with that is to expose such crimes and try to mitigate the damage done”

But that is not how you or President Donald Trump see things, Mr. Bolton…

America First has become the mantra of you and your “gang in the White House” and the American military apparatus is rather becoming your personal enforcer and hitman than the policeman for the world. Is that a worrisome development in these times of mounting tensions and aggression from countries like China, Russia, Saudi-Arabia and Iran, to name a few? You bet, it is!

The relatively powerless countries in Europe with their high moral standards, their naivety and their poorly equipped armies feel squeezed between the US, Russia and China: countries that they can’t really trust anymore and that are all much, much stronger than the European countries themselves. China, Russia, but also the USA with President Donald Trump at the helm, have their own agendas and their own ways of influencing politics and the national political climate in Europe.

On top of that, these EU countries have to deal with mounting political tensions in their own societies, with increasing tensions between left and right populists and the moderate parties at the other side, leading to a more poisonous political climate.

Yet, the silence of the rest of the Western world after your speech – which was almost like a declaration of war against the ICC on your behalf – was deafening. The whole Western world and especially the EU seemed to act as if your statement was just “a figment of their own imagination”, that had reached them in a bad dream.

“If we all do as if we did not hear it, we can deny that Bolton and Trump actually said it. And then it didn’t happen, did it?!!”.

With such friends and sponsors, the ICC is dead or at least in a deep coma! And that was exactly what you wanted to achieve with your speech, right?!

And while this European way of thinking is in fact quite pragmatic and perhaps even sensible as a policy, it reinforces for me personally the notion that your United States have indeed recently turned from the world’s policeman in the world’s schoolbully. This is the consequence of your aggressive politics, your crude president and your uncooperative foreign policies that seem to tear the Western world apart. I have serious doubts whether that is to the advantage of the USA in the long run or not.

The ICC, albeit not ideal and decisive yet for making the world a better and safer place, does not deserve your almost personal war – your vendetta – against its sheer existence, as it tries to do the good things and make the world safer and more balanced in power.

And it also deserves a much better defence than this lackluster reaction by the rest of the world. But such a defence is not likely to happen for the time being. And that is a real shame…

I am sure that I can’t convince you, Mr. Bolton, and I can’t make you change your convictions. You have God at your side and your country is the shining city on the hill. You think that America should come first and that the opinions and interests of other countries are subordinate to your own countries’ interests.

But, as my country’s – the host country for the ICC – politicians do not dare to say you in the open that your statement was an aggressive, blunt and utterly wrong statement, I want you to hear it from me. Because it was…

And I truly hope that the American administration will soon change for the better. As I don’t trust the Americans anymore at this moment. I even consider the United States to be an adversary of The Netherlands, rather than an ally, as long as your gang is occupying the White House.

Yours sincerely,

Ernst 

Open response to scientist Chris Verhoeven of the Delft Institute of Technology: a robot is not a pet animal. In spite of its million lines of code, it still lacks the natural ability to give affection and to love and be loved. And it doesn’t fear death or pain, as it is not aware of being alive.

big brown beastie,

big brown face,

I'd rather be with you,

than flying through space...

Mike Oldfield – On horseback

In 2001 – the last year as a single as I did not come to know my wife yet – I went on a group holiday to Costa Rica. It was a very special holiday that I will remember for the rest of my life. One of the dearest memories to me was riding on a horse during this holiday.

With the group we received an hour of riding instruction on a small and gentle Costarican “Rent-a-Horse” as part of an excursion. It was a life-changing event. In spite of the fact that I had not more than two minutes(!) of horse riding experience at the time, I felt an immediate click with my animal. We understood each other and I was so impressed with the own will and own decision making of my horse.

Before riding on a horse, I had a lot of driving experience on mopeds and motor bikes: the moped did everything that I wanted and if I drove it masterfully, the moped never stopped me from going where I wanted to go. Driving my moped made me very happy and alive as a sixteen year old boy!

Yet, this horse was so different. It was so much alive and aware of its own being! On narrow and slippery paths (it was rainy at the time – EL) and dry levies, it watched for the most safe and sensible way to go, as it did not want to fall itself. If the animal did not want to go where I wanted it to go, it simply refused to walk. It seemed on a journey by itself to make this ‘one off’ jockey have a nice and safe ride. And I did!

The next day I was still so full of my ride, that a few group members and I decided to rent a horse for almost a day and ride through the beautiful Costarican landscape. It was a ride I will never forget and even though it was not exactly ‘safe’ to gallop on the slippery paths in the pouring rain with virtually no experience, I was so happy that I did it. My horse pulled me through that they and I loved it ever since! Even while my bottom hurt for a week or more after this ride.

I reflected upon this dear memory, when I read an article in Het Financieele Dagblad containing an interview with a scientist in robotics of the Delft Institute of Technology (TU Delft), Chris Verhoeven.

He argued that people should look at robots and robotized vehicles as a kind of animals. Then the initial fear and reluctance of using them would vanish, to be replaced for a relation based on trust and confidence. Here are the pertinent snips of this must-read interview:

“Yes, also with a self-driving vehicle something can go wrong. But in earlier years this could also happen with the equally autonomous horse and we never abolished that”, states Chris Verhoeven of the TU Delft Robotics Institute. To build up a ‘bond of confidence with your robot, that is the point.

Verhoeven is a very popular speaker about what he calls, ‘the robotic trinity’. In that he sees the robot as the physical manifestation of the information that is available via the ‘Internet of Things’ and Big Data.

A conversation with Verhoeven leads to surprising insights. He calls the difference between science and religion ‘fragile’, talks about ‘little drones fluttering around on Schiphol’, looking for drugs in your luggage. And he talks about ‘believing in your robot’, which is – by the way – an ‘electric animal’.

“I always start to tell that robots are animals. I specifically say ‘are’, not ‘are akin to’. A very important characteristic of an animal – look at a dog or a horse – is that it is autonomous. When you look at a farmer, ploughing a piece of land with a horse, then the horse is autonomous, but it listens to the farmer.

At this moment we have the feeling that we need to be in control. But ‘in command’ means that the autonomous system listens to you. There is a situation of ordination, a relation based on trust.

The farmer and his ploughing horse, in which the horse knew very well what it should do, that was an autonomous system.

[Consequently - EL] It is very good to realize that we have been there before. An autonomous truck is like horse and carriage. An autonomous car is a horse. You can step on a horse drunk and it will bring you home safely anyway”.

I totally dig what Chris Verhoeven states here and I fully understand where he comes from.

Yet, I utterly disagree with what Verhoeven has to say and I even think that especially the red and bold parts are quite dangerous. I want to write my response to Verhoeven with the image of my beloved ‘Rent-a-horse’ in mind.

Yes, my horse is autonomous and so is the robot. 

My horse was born and grown as an animal and it had to find his way through life from being a young foal to the old, retired horse that he one day will have become.

So the autonomy is what Verhoeven’s robot and my horse had in common. But that is where the similarities end, as far as I’m concerned.

My horse is alive. It knows and understands that it is alive, even though it probably can’t grasp the impact of this notion. My horse feels pain and fear and it wants to protect itself from experiencing pain and fear. In order to do so, it must not only protect itself from it, but also the horseman on his back.

Further, some horses are genuine heroes and other horses are a little more cowardice, when it comes to what they (don’t) dare to do. That is what makes every horse one of a kind.

Even though the trust in their horsemen is nearly endless, there can always be a moment that the horse says “No way, José!”. Everybody who saw a jockey fly through the air in front of a barrier during a horse show, knows that his horse pulled the ‘emergency brake’. At that moment the twenty-odd years of riding experience of the jockey suddenly don’t count anymore for the horse.

Almost certainly the horse feels affection and perhaps even love for his master or mistress, which gives them a bond for a lifetime. When one of those two must have to go, both feel the pain and sorrow of loss and grief. That is not autonomy, that is being alive.

The robot, however, is not alive and will never experience what it is to be alive. It will do the things it is programmed to do and it will learn the things that it is capable of learning. But it will never feel emotions like joy, fear, grief, pleasure and love. It will always be an intelligent and self-learning, but further utterly dead tool. Unless things will change dramatically in the next few decades.

Drones fly, because its their raison d'etre. Driving robots and autonomous cars and trucks drive, as that is for which they are designed. Killer robots kill without blinking an eye or thinking about the impact of such a deed, as that is for which THEY are designed. 

But it will never give them joy, pleasure, pain, grief or sorrow. These emotional capabilities are not in their package. Just because they are NOT alive. 

When an autonomous car crashes, because its software, its internet connection or its sensors let it down at a crucial moment, it will crash without experiencing any humane or animal emotion.

It. Just. Crashes! Killing itself and perhaps killing everybody inside it. Without pain or remorse.

And when an autonomous car or truck drives into an adolescent kid, an old lady or a child, killing it at the spot, it will feel no pain, sorrow or grief. It came to the end of its lifecycle without ever realizing what went wrong.

When I feel trust and confidence in an autonomously driving car or truck, it is because I trust its programmers and software testers to do the right thing overtime. And I trust time to have uncovered the most dangerous bugs during the various testing cycles. Just like what happened with the auto-pilots in airplanes.  

Therefore I am quite certain that I will start to have confidence in autonomous vehicles, when they pass me by on the road. Not now at this moment, but in a decade of testing and after painful, sometimes deadly accidents that kill innocent people.

But trust it or love it like an animal, like Verhoeven suggests?! Never! Even the suggestion is ridiculous.

And by the way, roads in the Wild West were littered with cowboys who thought that their horse would bring them home safely, in spite of their drunkenness.