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Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

nytimes.com

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Re: Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

#41

Post by indubitable »

nashashmi wrote: post #17
_fwu1 wrote: post #5

Here is my question for HN readers: do you trust this article? Because it tries to fool us. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Europe, US and Turkey was the big alliance which tried to take down Syria. Please check the records western news channels in 2013, it was full of joyful propaganda about Free Syrian Army fighting for democracy in Syria. The actual goal was of course had nothing to do with democracy and Arab spring was tota…

Your information has depth. What articles have you been reading? I want to learn more.

Seymour Hersh has written a phenomenal amount about Syria. Here are a couple of interesting articles:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-a...

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-mi...

Stratfor, something like a private intelligence organization - well beyond a think tank, also has written a vast amount on Syria to the point that I think just googling for 'strator syria' would be more productive than me listing a slew of articles. In general I find news that's from first party analysts tends to be vastly more informative than the filtered drivel that you end up getting from most US news sites.

As an aside, I am not suggesting that that the above directly support OP's hypothesis. What it does support is the fact that what's stated in most US mainstream outlets is a childlike misrepresentation of the war over there framing it as the 'good guys' (which is naturally us) are trying to take out a pure evil 'bad guy.' I'm not sure if that's propaganda or just something that gets clicks. In either case, it's false. The interactions are complex, motivations rarely benevolent, and the whole thing an entire mess in general.

Ultimately the reason I stopped reading about Syria is because I think it's futile to try to 'truly' understand what's happening. We'll only be able to begin to actually dig into the truth 50 or so years from now when the documentation around the war is declassified.

Re: Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

#42

Post by anticodon »

psergeant wrote: post #24
nashashmi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your information has depth. What articles have you been reading? I want to learn more.

I suspect RT and Sputnik both will be able to provide a wealth of similar viewpoints

So, how can be US propaganda from NYT any better? I understand that for people living in the US it's easier to believe in because it always says: "We bomb half of the world and spy on all the world just because we want to give everybody democracy and happy life". But that doesn't make it objective and true.

Re: Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

#43

Post by Gibbon1 »

nikcub wrote: post #21
Gibbon1 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qatar has natural gas and connections to Iran. And is still in the black economically. When I look at Saudi Arabia it looks like over time their oil income which pays all the bills is fixed while their population keeps growing. Both common poor people and the number of ultra rich. Divide one by the other and it's not pretty. UAE has no oil or gas income and is living off loans. Probably part of the reason the current…

> UAE has no oil or gas income and is living off loans. You're thinking of Dubai. The major emirate has always been Abu Dhabi and they're resource rich a.f (and they provider of many loans to Dubai, including financing of the Burj Khalifa)

You're correct, was thinking of Dubai. My bad.

Re: Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

#44

Post by Consultant32452 »

rgbrenner wrote: post #27
_fwu1 wrote: post #5

Here is my question for HN readers: do you trust this article? Because it tries to fool us. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Europe, US and Turkey was the big alliance which tried to take down Syria. Please check the records western news channels in 2013, it was full of joyful propaganda about Free Syrian Army fighting for democracy in Syria. The actual goal was of course had nothing to do with democracy and Arab spring was tota…

The goal was to create a new pipeline from Qatar to Europe so Europe don’t have to buy gas from Russia. Your missing something obvious with this conspiracy theory. Look at a map. Iraq borders both SA and Turkey. It would be cheaper to build through Iraq than destabilize an entire country. Believe it or not, every time something goes wrong in the world, the US is not behind it. These conspiracy theories help no one.

Worth the read: https://www.mintpressnews.com/wikileaks-us-israel-and-saudi-...

Re: Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

#45

Post by psergeant »

roadbeats wrote: post #25
psergeant wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article is just another Western propaganda Your rebuttal appears to be very close to the viewpoint that Russian propaganda is trying to promote

I'm sure Russian propaganda could be more reliable than American propaganda when it comes to Middle East :) My sources are not media and propaganda though. I read & also travel a lot. Before the war my cousin and I were importing carpet from Syria. During the war I traveled along Turkey - Syria border twice, also to the south side, Jordan. And since the beginning of this war, I think about it almost every day, feel d…

> I'm sure Russian propaganda could be more reliable than American propaganda

Propaganda is rarely reliable, from any side.

However, your conflation of the consensus view of the free world’s press with “propaganda” of the type explicitly pumped out by state-controlled Russian outlets is disingenuous to the extreme.

Re: Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

#46

Post by [deleted] »

Reason077 wrote: post #39
rgbrenner wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal was to create a new pipeline from Qatar to Europe so Europe don’t have to buy gas from Russia. Your missing something obvious with this conspiracy theory. Look at a map. Iraq borders both SA and Turkey. It would be cheaper to build through Iraq than destabilize an entire country. Believe it or not, every time something goes wrong in the world, the US is not behind it. These conspiracy theories help no one.

"It would be cheaper to build through Iraq than destabilize an entire country." Except that at the time, Iraq was itself a highly unstable conflict zone. Building a pipeline in those conditions was not viable, and probably still isn't.

[deleted]

Re: Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

#47

Post by psergeant »

anticodon wrote: post #42
psergeant wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect RT and Sputnik both will be able to provide a wealth of similar viewpoints

So, how can be US propaganda from NYT any better? I understand that for people living in the US it's easier to believe in because it always says: "We bomb half of the world and spy on all the world just because we want to give everybody democracy and happy life". But that doesn't make it objective and true.

It seems odd to conflate a freely owned news source that’s seen as public enemy number one by the executive branch with Russian state news sources. Looking forward to those RT and Sputnik op-eds criticising Putin!

Re: Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

#48

Post by anticodon »

psergeant wrote: post #47
anticodon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, how can be US propaganda from NYT any better? I understand that for people living in the US it's easier to believe in because it always says: "We bomb half of the world and spy on all the world just because we want to give everybody democracy and happy life". But that doesn't make it objective and true.

It seems odd to conflate a freely owned news source that’s seen as public enemy number one by the executive branch with Russian state news sources. Looking forward to those RT and Sputnik op-eds criticising Putin!

For the news source being freely owned might be a necessary condition to be objective but it is definitely not sufficient.

Re: Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

#49

Post by petre »

Reason077 wrote: post #39
rgbrenner wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal was to create a new pipeline from Qatar to Europe so Europe don’t have to buy gas from Russia. Your missing something obvious with this conspiracy theory. Look at a map. Iraq borders both SA and Turkey. It would be cheaper to build through Iraq than destabilize an entire country. Believe it or not, every time something goes wrong in the world, the US is not behind it. These conspiracy theories help no one.

"It would be cheaper to build through Iraq than destabilize an entire country." Except that at the time, Iraq was itself a highly unstable conflict zone. Building a pipeline in those conditions was not viable, and probably still isn't.

Also Iraq is a buffer zone between SA and Iran which prevents Iran invading and taking control of the pipeline.

Re: Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

#50

Post by kchoudhu »

Hasz wrote: post #4

My knowledge of middle eastern politics is not good, but how does Oman factor into this?

Oman has maintained neutrality in the conflict, and their Sultan is doing shuttle diplomacy between Doha and Riyadh.

In the interim, Qatar has rerouted all of its trans-shipping activity from Dubai to Muscat.

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