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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

#101

Post by tarsinge »

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.

It may be a conspiracy theory but we must not be naive usually the marketed reasons have nothing to do with the real geopolitical ones. Remember the Iraq invasion?

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

#102

Post by marklgr »

dragonwriter wrote: post #86
marklgr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the link itself: "Much of the time the truth does indeed lie between two extreme points" That's the problem with all these fallacies lists: things are a fallacy, except when they are not. So most often, they are just used as rhetoric weapons in verbal jousts.

> That's the problem with all these fallacies lists: things are a fallacy, except when they are not. No, fallacies are always fallacy, but a fallacy is an error in logic that does not imply that the conclusion is wrong [0], only that the argument offered fails to establish the truth of the conclusion it seeks to justify. [0] An argument for the negation of a conclusion based solely on a fallacy in an argument offered…

Fair, but establishing the truth from a mathematical standpoint and navigating in life, which involves a huge amount of (most often serviceable) rules of thumbs, are two different things. So there seems to be some arbitrary threshold where the rules of thumb is deemed good enough (eg. my toddler has chocolate all over him near the empty cookie jar) and when it's not (eg. put-up job). And from my experience, people will very, very often set that arbitrary threshold according to their own opinions.

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

#103

Post by geezerjay »

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.

> Except that at the time, Iraq was itself a highly unstable conflict zone.

I fail to see how turning Syria into an unstable conflict zone would help.

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

#104

Post by WillReplyfFood »

simias wrote: post #85
_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…

Surprised to see tinfoil hat theories on top of a HN thread. Not to say that there's not some truth in there but reducing the extremely complex geopolitical situation in the middle east to "they wanted to build a pipeline" is rather laughable. I mean seriously: >The actual goal was of course had nothing to do with democracy and Arab spring was total bullshit. >Western news brainwashed the whole world with ISIS and YP…

You could reroot the pipeline through israel? or egypt?

The syrian crisis was a sunni -shia powerblock escalation. The problem i have is that we - the west side with the wrong faction here. Assad had many minorities somehow getting along, no sunni country has that. Iran is quite inventive - even if the relgious fanatics try to come down on that. Western money flows through saudi arabia an finances wahabit missionarys everywhere.

Are we really assisting the good guys here?

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

#105

Post by psergeant »

marklgr wrote: post #102
dragonwriter wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the problem with all these fallacies lists: things are a fallacy, except when they are not. No, fallacies are always fallacy, but a fallacy is an error in logic that does not imply that the conclusion is wrong [0], only that the argument offered fails to establish the truth of the conclusion it seeks to justify. [0] An argument for the negation of a conclusion based solely on a fallacy in an argument offered…

Fair, but establishing the truth from a mathematical standpoint and navigating in life, which involves a huge amount of (most often serviceable) rules of thumbs, are two different things. So there seems to be some arbitrary threshold where the rules of thumb is deemed good enough (eg. my toddler has chocolate all over him near the empty cookie jar) and when it's not (eg. put-up job). And from my experience, people wi…

I wonder how often you consider “the truth as always somewhere in the middle” and decide that your toddler has been partially framed by the cat, while also having stolen some of the cookies.

I suspect not often.

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

#106

Post by simias »

tarsinge wrote: post #101
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 may be a conspiracy theory but we must not be naive usually the marketed reasons have nothing to do with the real geopolitical ones. Remember the Iraq invasion?

You say "usually" but you only give one single example. Not to say that you couldn't come up with others but I'm not sure I agree with the "usually".

Being french this argument annoys me particularly because if you remember France was against this intervention because we thought the WMD menace was bullshit. Turns out that we were right. Then a few years ago France was saying "Assad is using chemical weapons against civilians, we must do something!" and the whole internet started parroting the russian talking points "But remember Iraq!!! It's all a bunch of lies!!!".

Not to say that french intelligence is infallible or can't be manipulated but using the garbage fire that was the "Gulf War Episode 2: The Empire Strikes Back" to immediately dismiss any kind of foreign intervention is rather disingenuous. Yet an other terrible long term consequence of the Bush administration years I suppose.

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

#107

Post by ptaipale »

ben_w wrote: post #88
hitekker wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A well thought-out and researched response to a breathless conspiracy theory. Nicely done.

From here, I can’t tell which is the conspiracy theory and which (if any) is the truth. (I wonder if my complete lack of clue about what is plausible in this context is a common theme amongst conspiracy theory believers?)

When someone writes about "a big alliance", which however is not evidenced by any public formal contracts of alliance, that is a fairly good indicator that a theory could be considered conspiratorial.

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

#108

Post by Nimitz14 »

_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…

> That was also the time FSA split into bunch of groups; Wahabist ISIS and socialist YPG

Well that's completely wrong. The idea that ISIS and YPG would ever fight together is so stupid it's hilarious. Maybe read less RT.

YPG has always been independent, they're Kurds, you idiot. ISIS has always been its own group, but started turning on everyone else at the end of 2014. The FSA is a mix of radical to less radical Arabs that sometimes fought with AQ (decent amount of times) and maybe a long time ago with ISIS (rather rare). Can't blame them considering what they're up against. I see russian propaganda has been very effective in making you think FSA==ISIS, not surprising they would do that considering how consistently they never bomb ISIS and always target groups like the FSA instead.

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

#109

Post by avip »

_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…

Sure. Syrians are ponds in a vicious game managed by the US over some pipe - a pipe they apparently care for more than their own lives. How could it be otherwise? The world was a peaceful place before the US was funded and started destabilizing it.

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

#110

Post by simias »

WillReplyfFood wrote: post #104
simias wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surprised to see tinfoil hat theories on top of a HN thread. Not to say that there's not some truth in there but reducing the extremely complex geopolitical situation in the middle east to "they wanted to build a pipeline" is rather laughable. I mean seriously: >The actual goal was of course had nothing to do with democracy and Arab spring was total bullshit. >Western news brainwashed the whole world with ISIS and YP…

You could reroot the pipeline through israel? or egypt? The syrian crisis was a sunni -shia powerblock escalation. The problem i have is that we - the west side with the wrong faction here. Assad had many minorities somehow getting along, no sunni country has that. Iran is quite inventive - even if the relgious fanatics try to come down on that. Western money flows through saudi arabia an finances wahabit missionarys…

Do you think hacker news is the good place to find the answer to such a question? This is the place where you ask about Javascript libraries and Go vs. Rust comparisons, not geopolitical advice. That's why I tend to dismiss any comment in this thread that's not properly sourced.
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