patrick.net

Another new underlying layer of motivation for the GCC to shun Qatar

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-06/forget-terrorism-real-reason-behind-qatar-crisis-natural-gas

The real reason behind the diplomatic fallout may be far simpler, and once again has to do with a long-running and controversial topic, namely Qatar's regional natural gas dominance.

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It is not surprising that Russia's interest in Syria is multi-faceted. The main interest is the naval base and a friendly partner. The pipeline question is a newer consideration. Certainly Russia and Rosneft could do without the competition, but perhaps if Rosneft is brought into the partnership it can happen. As an aside, previously mentioned manic flattering of King Abdullah of Jordan by Charlie Rose and a bunch of US political/security surrogates now suddenly makes more sense in a 2nd way, namely due to the pipeline route.

Credit where credit is due: Strawman touched upon the Natgas/Rosneft connection earlier.

in light of the above, it now makes sense what Qatar has been doing: Qatar has been shifting their allegiance toward Syria, Iran and Russia, and have been funding anti-ISIS and pro-Assad fighters. This is because Qatar thinks it is more likely that the Trans-Jordanian pipeline will be built with the cooperation of Russia (Rosneft) and Syria as ruled by Assad. Yeah, does anyone remember the name "Trans-Jordanian" pipeline? Actually no, that name has not been used yet. But the Jordan portion of the pipeline must be the reason that the US is suddenly kissing King Abdullah's butt in Jordan, using Charlie Rose and his talking guests as the propaganda medium. After all, King Abdullah may be able to block the pipeline, which clearly the US wants ONLY if Syria has been regime-changed.

What an ugly and immoral mess. And people still think terror is caused by Islam. Nope. ADDED: Not Islam per se. Terror is caused by local powers using their money to fight each other, using desperate and therefore radicalized islamic populations to fight the wars for them, causing secondary terror in the west. The primary terror is all over the middle east. The terror in the west is just minor collateral damage compared to all the death and destruction in the ME. Yet, the US and other western powers are surprised and indignant when the killing spills into their own territories. What did they expect, after causing so much death playing Energy Chess with so many human pawns?

Of historical and background interest: There used to be an oil pipeline from Saudi-Arabia that terminated in Lebanon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Arabian_Pipeline

This pipeline still exists, but is not operational or functional. It passes through the Golan Heights! No wonder the US always had a big "anti-terror" hard-on about Hezbollah (and therefore Iran), which controlled the other side of the Lebanon border. It's all about oil and energy, not about moral considerations.

justme says

Qatar eager to pass its own pipeline, connecting Europe to its vast natural gas deposits, however as that would put Gazprom's monopoly of European LNG supply in jeopardy, Russia had been firmly, and violently, against this strategy from the beginning and explains Putin's firm support of the Assad regime and the Kremlin's desire to prevent the replacement of the Syrian government with a puppet regime.

PS. The phrase "Gazprom's monopoly of European LNG supply" reeks of idiocy.

Now, after reading all of the above, do you realize, dear reader, that for the most part these reasons for the various wars and terrorism in the ME have almost never been mentioned in the big US and European media? That makes the US/western media the biggest source of fake news on the planet. But we knew that already.

justme says

in light of the above, it now makes sense what Qatar has been doing: Qatar has been shifting their allegiance toward Syria, Iran and Russia, and have been funding anti-ISIS and pro-Assad fighters. This is because Qatar thinks it is more likely that the Trans-Jordanian pipeline will be built with the cooperation of Russia (Rosneft) and Syria as ruled by Assad. Yeah, does anyone remember the name "Trans-Jordanian" pipeline? That portion of the pipeline must tbe the reason that the US is suddenly kissing King Abdullah's butt in Jordan, using Charlie Rose and his talking guests as the propaganda medium. After all, King Abdullah may be able to block the pipeline, which clearly the US wants ONLY if Syria has been regime-changed.

What an ugly and immoral mess. And people still think terror is caused by Islam. Nope. Terror is caused by local powers using their money to fight each other, using desperate and therefore radicalized islamic populations to fight the wars for them, ...

This has got to be the most ridiculous and delusional excuse I have ever heard for Islamic terrorism. We have a world wide attack from crazy Muslims who want to kill us because their barbaric religion commands them to kill, and you think it's all because of a fucking pipeline.

justme says

And people still think terror is caused by Islam.

So you're saying Islam did not cause terror in Nigeria, China, Russia, Sweden, and the Philipines?

Those Islamic terrorist acts were clearly not in response to US oil wars, so what caused them?

I'll grant you this: Islam teaches hate and murder of non-Muslims, and that makes Islam a very useful weapon for destabilization of target societies through terror. And oil, especially Saudi oil, is used to fund that terror by funding wahhabi madrassas around the world. And America is partly to blame by refusing to acknowledge the close causal connection between Saudi funding of these schools and the inevitable result of such authentic Islamic teaching.

Terror is not caused mainly by Islam per se. It is caused by the rampant death and destruction instigated for monetary reasons, leading to radicalization of the population. The population is rallied and rallies under various banners of Islam, but the religion itself has little to do with the desire for vengeance.

justme says

Terror is not caused mainly by Islam per se. It is caused by the rampant death and destruction instigated for monetary reasons, leading to radicalization of the population. The population is rallied and rallies under various banners of Islam, but the religion itself has little to do with the desire for vengeance.

Strange no other religions have that effect. Very strange.

justme says

the religion itself has little to do with the desire for vengeance

You are quite wrong about that.

The religion itself is highly specialized and effective at instilling exactly the desire for vengeance, especially against those who have done absolutely nothing wrong except to refuse to submit to it, who are relentlessly vilified.

The whole theme of Islam is resentment of non-Mulims. Have you read any of the Koran or Hadith at all? Can you find even a single page in the Koran without disparagement of non-Mulsims?

https://patrick.net/Islam

justme says

Terror is not...

Seriously, read about the Barbary Wars, and what necessitated them. It's a tragic failure of American education and culture that this founding history is no longer taught. You quote Wikipedia a lot, so I'll quote Wikipedia for you:

"In March 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to London to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy, ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman (or Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). When they enquired "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", the ambassador replied:

Jefferson reported the conversation to Secretary of Foreign Affairs John Jay, who submitted the ambassador's comments and offer to Congress. Jefferson argued that paying tribute would encourage more attacks."

Note the year, 1786. The Constitution was created in 1787, and ratified in 1788. The reason we have a Constitutional republic is largely to enable Congress to raise an army and navy, and the reason America needed that was largely because Islam says what it says.

Jefferson became President in 1805, and ordered the first transatlantic crossing by the United States Navy, and five bombardments of Tripoli. That's why the Marine Hymn refers to the shores of Tripoli. America didn't start the fight with Islam, but Jefferson and Madison won it, for more than a century. Today, too many of their successors have decided to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

You might read also about why the Crusades began when they did: Muslims kidnapping and killing Christian pilgrims, descriptions read like a script for the Islamic State videos, because Muslims 1k years ago and Muslims today are in fact following the same script.

curious2 says

It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise.

That is Islam in a nutshell.

Perfect description of it.

How is this different from Christians invading America and killing the "savages", because those savages obviously had a flawed religion and did not understand what was good for them? Why are they so angry? Why are they fighting back. We killed them for their own good!

And now we, the US and the West, are doing the same in the ME. Invading, pitting the natives against each other, and causing general mayhem. Why are we surprised that they are striking back against us. Is it just because their religion is flawed?

Step back and look at the big picture.

justme says

And now we, the US and the West, are doing the same in the ME. Invading, pitting the natives against each other, and causing general mayhem. Why are we surprised that they are striking back against us Is it just because their religion is flawed?

Step back and look at the big picture.

rando says

So you're saying Islam did not cause terror in Nigeria, China, Russia, Sweden, and the Philipines?

Why not look at the still bigger picture. The picture of the whole world that you refuse to answer, but rather continue to mindlessly blame the US for everything.

justme says

How is this different from Christians invading America and killing the "savages", because those savages obviously had a flawed religion and did not understand what was good for them? Why are they so angry? Why are they fighting back. We killed them for their own good!

And now we, the US and the West, are doing the same in the ME. Invading, pitting the natives against each other, and causing general mayhem. Why are we surprised that they are striking back against us Is it just because their religion is flawed?

Step back and look at the big picture.

It's different because:

1. There were very few natives in America at all upon European contact, maybe 7 million in the entire continental US.
2. 90% of those few dropped dead from smallpox. They were not killed. You are believing a myth of slaughter with very little justification:

Most mainstream scholars believe that, among the various contributing factors, epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the American natives because of their lack of immunity to new diseases brought from Europe.[35][36][37]

3. Christianity does not teach hate and murder of non-Christians, even if Christians have historically done bad things.
4. It's not the same at all in the Mideast. The US is not colonizing it.

Why don't you blame yourself? Here you are on Indian land as a white oppressor, no? If you don't blame yourself (because you are in truth not guilty of any crime against the Indians) why blame the large majority of Americans whose ancestors where not even here when most of the Indians died?

justme says

Is it just because their religion is flawed?

Please go back and read the comment where I quoted Wikipedia for you. You seem to believe Wikipedia, since you cite it. The Barbary Pirates, with the support of the Barbary States, were attacking American ships, capturing and enslaving and ransoming American sailors. Jefferson and Adams asked the ambassador why, pointing out that America had never done anything to them. The answer was because their religion commanded them to plunder and enslave us. The words are on the screen in front of you, but you seem to have missed them.

I've been reading more about cognitive dissonance, and the hallucinations it causes. Apparently, the words on your screen violated the narrative that you identified with and preferred to believe, so you didn't see them, and you reverted instead to your narrative that we attacked first and they are striking back. They attacked first, precisely because of what their religion says. If you want to say that the American MIC reignited old hostilities, OK, the Bush&Clinton wars on behalf of KSA did have that effect, along with many misguided American policies going back to Nixon's disastrous deals with KSA. But that doesn't change the fact of what Islam says and does.

Probably the worst American foreign policy blunder remains LBJ&Nixon's wars in southeast Asia, which Nixon expanded with financing from KSA. Yet, we don't see non-Muslims from southeast Asia hijacking planes and flying them into the WTC.

Muslims have been killing non-Muslims, and each other, for more than 1k years. America had nothing to do with most of that. Fighting back had nothing to do with most of that. Most of that results directly from what the charlatan Mohamed fabricated Islam to do. He hijacked the Old Testament to launch a crusade of endless violent conquest. Really, most Islamic violence has nothing to do with us, even though of course Muslims blame us, as Islam commands them to do.

curious2 says

Probably the worst American foreign policy blunder remains LBJ&Nixon's wars in southeast Asia, which Nixon expanded with financing from KSA. Yet, we don't see non-Muslims from southeast Asia hijacking planes and flying them into the WTC.

You could also give the example of Latin America, where the US has supported dictators and suppressed democracy, for example, this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende

And yet the Latin Americans also do not kill random Americans in retaliation.

rando says

And yet the Latin Americans also do not kill random Americans in retaliation.

But by your logic, justifying collective punishment, they should.

FP says

But by your logic....

Patrick has never suggested killing random people.

curious2 says

FP says

But by your logic....

Patrick has never suggested killing random people.

Thanks, true.

I'm just forwarding deportation as a suggestion from a British Muslim about how to solve the problem.

rando says

I'm just forwarding deportation as a suggestion from a British Muslim about how to solve the problem.

So innocent. What is the collective punishment you propose for killing hundreds of thousands? You OK with somebody dropping a bomb on SF next time Bush is in town (not targeting you in particular of course).

Iran will move into the vacuum & help Qatar.

@FP so deportation to prevent more murders is the same as murder?

@Patrick
1) You are advocating collective punishment - that is punishment of innocent people.
2) There's no good collective punishment. If you accept it as moral, then you don't get to draw the line what is allowed. Somebody (with similar mindset to you!) may decide that for killing hundreds of thousands of people, killing a few innocent Americans is a deserved retribution, or acceptable collateral damage. It's a slippery slope with plenty of historical precedents.
3) Even if you believe that what you are advocating is moral, deporting muslims and banning/prosecuting the religion is not a solution that will work. It is pain stupid!
3) I have had enough of this bullshit and disgusted by the hate-fest going on here. I will let you and your echo chamber drive yourself into a frenzy without further interrupting you. I am off.

FP says

1) You are advocating collective punishment - that is punishment of innocent people.

Or ones who turn the other way when they know innocents are about to be murdered because...

FP says

2) There's no good collective punishment. If you accept it as moral, then you don't get to draw the line what is allowed. Somebody (with similar mindset to you!) may decide that for killing hundreds of thousands of people, killing a few innocent Americans is a deserved retribution, or acceptable collateral damage. It's a slippery slope with plenty of historical precedents.

This already happened on 9/11, in Manchester, and near London Bridge. The first reaction of the members of the same community responsible for the attacks was to talk about Islamofauxbia. You can probably count the number of Muslims who were killed due to 'vigilante' Islamophobia in the single digits, compared to thousands of non-Islamist victims of terror. Yet dishonest community leaders act like there are daily killings of innocent Muslims by non-Muslims.

FP says

3) Even if you believe that what you are advocating is moral, deporting muslims and banning/prosecuting the religion is not a solution that will work. It is pain stupid!

Once they fear the authorities more than they fear their own community, and place (for their own self-interest and preservation) their well being more in the hands of authorities than their Community's, shit's gonna change real fast.

BTW, threatening and co-opting Palestinians with personal and family reprisals works wonders with minimal violence. I don't think any occupation force has been so successful, while the territory it's occupying borders on hostile powers and coreligious/coethnic states, the East Palestine aka Jordan.

FP says

3) Even if you believe that what you are advocating is moral, deporting muslims and banning/prosecuting the religion is not a solution that will work. It is pain stupid!

It is better to be loved than feared, but if you aren't loved, then you must be feared. After doling out free housing, billions of euros or dollars or pounds, healthcare, tickets, etc. to migrants who seem to stab, loot, rape, smuggle and engage in acts of violence on the original inhabitants, it's clear that Love Alone isn't working.

Terror Attacks in Europe is increasing, not decreasing in frequency and scope.

Time to add some fear to make a stick-carrot mix.

FP says

I am off.

It looks like FP's illogic and motivation got exposed by people smarter than he is, so he ran away to his safe space where he can bully subordinates and bask in the echo chamber of his peers.

It's a lot like Islam really: either submit to his authority or he'll punish you, and when he can't do that, he runs away. From the time of Mohamed, Islam has been fundamentally about bullying people into submission. When you confront bullies, if they can't beat you, they run away. If the west dared to confront Islam, most of the Islamic bullies would give it up, except for a few gullible losers who would throw away their own lives rather than admit they'd been duped by a hateful fraud.

FP says

1) You are advocating collective punishment - that is punishment of innocent people.

WTF. You just described Islam. Murder, rape, slavery and terrorism.

How come you don't give us a solution for Islamic terrorism?

It does seem that Qatar actually does finance terrorism:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11233407/Terror-financiers-are-living-freely-in-Qatar-US-discloses.html

Turkey backs Qatar - sending troops:

The Turkish parliament ratified an agreement on Wednesday evening to deploy additional troops to Qatar, throwing its support behind the country in the midst of its diplomatic feud with its neighbors.

Turkey will send an unspecified number of soldiers to an existing military base to train regional security forces and hold combined military exercises.

The move was in motion before the outbreak of the current tensions between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Libya and the Maldives, which severed diplomatic ties with Doha, accusing it of supporting terrorism and Iran.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan criticized the Saudi-led approach to Qatar.

“I’d like to say that we don’t find sanctions against Qatar right,” Erdoğan told a group of Turkish diplomats on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. The most appropriate ways for the countries to resolve the issues “is through dialogue,” Erdoğan said, adding he admired “Qatar’s constructive and cool-headed approach.”

Yay! Big Sunni Split!

TwoScoopsMcGee says

Yay! Big Sunni Split!

I can hardly wait for them to start killing each other.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

Yay! Big Sunni Split!

Lol, Trump may have inadvertently been extremely effective at foreign policy just by being the loose cannon he is.

A pretty accurate description of the horrible things that happen when the US starts a civil war in a foreign country, and especially one with a different culture.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-08/while-my-qatar-gently-weeps

"The average terrorist looks exactly like everybody else in the country. US ground troops, however, stand out like a sore thumb. Brave young Billy Joe Swanson, armed with pimples, testosterone, and enough hardware to take out New Zealand, doesn't actually know why he's there, but he's there because he was recruited from a low socio economic area where his prospects were late shift at Taco Bell or the excitement of "fighting for freedom".

Young, uneducated, and not being the sharpest tool in the shed, Billy chose the latter and now, in a country and culture he knows absolutely nothing about, is faced with unknown and mostly unidentifiable attackers who will cut him down in an instant. Billy, together with his friends, feels increasingly isolated, frustrated, frightened, and angry. We're here to help, he thinks. WTF is wrong with these people?

When Billy has to push what's left of his best friends organs back into the gaping hole an IED left in his side, he quickly comes to hate the locals. They're all terrorists or terrorist sympathisers. You can tell by the language used by Billy and his fellow soldiers where they are in the world - narcos, gooks, chinks, flops, commies, ragheads.

The countries change but the results do not. Billy and his friends hate them, and this means that more innocents are killed. This turns the country increasingly against the invaders.

The locals, now presiding over rubble, grow increasingly intolerant of arrogant, heavy handed Billy and the "liberating forces". Whatever synergy and initial euphoria may have existed rapidly disappears. The gap -- a result of cultural, religious, and value systems -- widens with each viewing the other as more alien than ever.

Remember Abu Ghraib?

The lines between acceptable and outrageous blur in war. All wars, all militaries. None are immune. It's how it is.

Western media continue to speak of "precision strikes" and, when things inevitably go wrong, "isolated incidents". Locals speak of genocide and murder.
...
...
US forces "train" local forces to stand up and fight for whatever the US thinks they should be fighting for. All too often it involves killing the citizens of their own country.

Pray tell, why US-trained forces in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan never seem to work?

Let me put it this way. It'd be like the Russians invading the United Kingdom and having Ivan force Peter in Yorkshire to fight Luke in Devon. Only government could fail to see this for what it is: a terrible idea. This won't stop it from happening. You can't fix stupid."

justme says

Pray tell, why US-trained forces in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan never seem to work?

Because the Muslim cowards run like hell the moment they see the enemy. You can't train bravery.

justme says

Remember Abu Ghraib?

Yup. A big fuss over nothing.

Pakistan sending 20,000 troops to Qatar (?!)

https://www.pakistantribe.com/62243/pakistan-send-20000-soldiers-qatar

Random Guess I'm not heavily invested in: Contest over Sunni Leadership and the Role of Terror.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

Pakistan sending 20,000 troops to Qatar (?!)

I would welcome a major war between the Sunnis.
They kill each other, and we get to sell them more arms. It's what I call a win win situation.

rando says

I'll grant you this: Islam teaches hate and murder of non-Muslims, and that makes Islam a very useful weapon for destabilization of target societies through terror. And oil, especially Saudi oil, is used to fund that terror by funding wahhabi madrassas around the world. And America is partly to blame by refusing to acknowledge the close causal connection between Saudi funding of these schools and the inevitable result of such authentic Islamic teaching.

So you are saying that the radical wahabbi sect of islam with less than 5 million which is responsible for funding and sponsoring the vast majority of terrorism is islam and the 1.6 billion muslims that don't believe in terrorism are not Islam? How does that work exactly?

Strategist says

TwoScoopsMcGee says

Pakistan sending 20,000 troops to Qatar (?!)

I would welcome a major war between the Sunnis.

They kill each other, and we get to sell them more arms. It's what I call a win win situation.

You will be welcoming $500 a barrel oil also?

bob2356 says

I would welcome a major war between the Sunnis.


They kill each other, and we get to sell them more arms. It's what I call a win win situation.

You will be welcoming $500 a barrel oil also?

$500 a barrel oil would instantly welcome alternative fuels, and in turn a quick end to the reliance in oil.

bob2356 says

rando says

I'll grant you this: Islam teaches hate and murder of non-Muslims, and that makes Islam a very useful weapon for destabilization of target societies through terror. And oil, especially Saudi oil, is used to fund that terror by funding wahhabi madrassas around the world. And America is partly to blame by refusing to acknowledge the close causal connection between Saudi funding of these schools and the inevitable result of such authentic Islamic teaching.

So you are saying that the radical wahabbi sect of islam with less than 5 million which is responsible for funding and sponsoring the vast majority of terrorism is islam and the 1.6 billion muslims that don't believe in terrorism are not Islam? How does that work exactly?

He is saying "Islam teaches hate and murder of non-Muslims" "And oil, especially Saudi oil, is used to fund that terror"
You know exactly what he said, but if you need to rely on BS to make a point, it tells me you have no real argument.