patrick.net

You know what this is?

It's a #TravelBan #MuslimBan - no air or sea connections or diplomatic relations, meaning no visas or passports accepted.

Egypt, UAE, SA, and Bahrain just banned all Qataris. Will be excited to see American and European Protesters show up at Airports to protest King Salman and General Sisi.

Al Jazeera?

lostand confused says

Al Jazeera?

TV network and website owned by Qatar. They broadcast in Arabic and English, and report sometimes from here. They've occasionally been mentioned and even quoted on PatNet.

It's pretty damn obvious that this action against Qatar was a recent decision, but the Lugenpresse #MSM can't even see it. I mean, they can't even see what obviously happened during the Don World Tour 2017.

Their Trump Hate / TDS blinds them utterly. They are cracking jokes about unfilled State positions, as if Trump was blindsided and is now rudderless.

I'd say it's at least 3:1 odds that Trump discussed these kinds of actions a few weeks ago, but the ability to put two and two together has been lost to #TDS

We should do the same to SA.

I have a question: Maybe about 6-12 months ago(?), Charlie Rose had a big thing about Qatar (which he pronounces "cutter"), and he was blabbering endlessly about it on his PBS program. Rose is a warmongering buffoon, so why was he on a tear about Qatar somehow being the salvation of "peace" or something? What kind of propaganda mission was Rose on? Someone who understands this please fill in the blanks and/or provide a link.

I find it surprising that Qatar suddenly is not considered polite company anymore. Of course, IMO, anyone who has a fallout with the Saudi royal rulers must be doing something that is right and moral, but what is the real story here?

I'll make a guess: Qatar served as the intermediary conduit for Saudi terror-money going to Sunni groups ISIS and Muslim Brotherhood. Now the Saudis has been taken to task by the US(?), and therefore have to pretend that they are being "tough on terror" by turning around and blaming Qatar, although it was really the Saudis that financed the terror. Or did Qatar refuse to be the errand boy of KSA, and orient towards Russia?

I wouldn't second guess your guess.

Also, there's a pantload of militarist US/UK/Europe think tanks and "Hedge Funds" in Qatar.

If memory serves, Applebaum's secretive Think Tank that pays her a salary in based in Qatar. And it's 24-7 Russia Bashing.

@anonymous, Interesting. The Charlie Rose propaganda mission then may have had something to do with US putting pressure on the Saudis (to do what?) by showing them that they could use Qatar as a base instead. None of this stuff about the airbase was stated explicitly, if I recall correctly. It made little to no sense at the time.

Along the same lines, the very same Charlie Rose slightly later went on a tear talking up King Abdullah of Jordan as a "great friend and peacemaker" or some such drivel. That may have been to show the Saudis that the US might have a 2nd base in Jordan for staging bombing raids against ISIS.

anonymous says

"Approximately every ten minutes, an aircraft is taking off or landing here -- this is not just during the duty-day -- it's 24/7," the wing's website says.

Yet another reason why the US miltary is the biggest single biggest polluter and emitter of greenhouse gasses on the planet.

Aha, Qatar is being bullied for the usual reason for the US to hate a Muslim country: It is friendly with Iran and Russia! Basically, Qatar is being singled out for being Shia instead of Sunni. This is the same thing that happened to Yemen, in many ways.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-05/its-geopolitical-earthquake-stunned-world-responds-after-saudi-alliance-cuts-all-tie

The above article from ZeroHedge is a must-read for anyone that really wants to understand what is going on in the middle east. While the focus of the article is Qatar, it touches upon may aspects of political and religious conflict and how it essentially boil down to just a couple of things: Are you US aligned or Russia aligned? Are you Sunni or Shia?

justme says

Qatar is being singled out for being Shia instead of Sunni

Qatar is only 20% Shiite. Just looked that up recently.

But it is true that they have said nice things about Iran, and I'm betting that is the core of the issue.

Saudi Arabia is quite afraid of Iran.

justme says

Are you Sunni or Shia?

rando says

Saudi Arabia is quite afraid of Iran.

...and KSA is Sunni, and considers Shia heretics. That's why America cares whether Muslims are Shia or Sunni. Nixon's deals with KSA aligned America with the Saudi Sunnis. Previously, America had supported the Shah of Iran (Shia), but that support weakened fatally as Nixon's deals brought America under Saudi Petrodollar influence. Even now, W's blunder in Iraq handed Iraq to the Shia and put it under Iranian influence. The goals appear to be service to KSA and opposition to Russia, though blunders happen.

BTW, on the subject of religion and blunders, I suspect W's blunder resulted partly from his ability to believe contrary to all evidence. Patrick linked a good article from the Intercept that argued the W administration must have known Iraq had no WMD. It was interesting, but sounded like an article saying a creationist must know about overwhelming evidence proving evolution. The problem is that some people can reject any amount of evidence and insist on their own belief, because, to quote W, he listened to "a higher father." Who can argue with "a higher father?" When a person hears voices in his head and imagines them to be an omnipotent deity, evidence and reason don't help anymore.

Some in the MSM are trying to hypnotize the left into supporting VP Pence to replace President Trump. IRL, I know educated Democrats who want that to happen, because of TDS, even though they would never have voted for Pence. We just had a hyper-religious President and it was a catastrophe, and the memory should remain fresh, but they're ready to do it again, because the MSM want more war. I can listen with equanimity to all sides most of the time, but when I hear identitarian "liberals" saying they want VP Pence to take over, I know they're lost.

rando says

Qatar is being singled out for being Shia instead of Sunni

Apparently so, but the Qatar population of Sunni are of the Salafi variety and not Wahhabi (like the Saudi) (see refinements below).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar#Religion

justme says

Salafi variety and not Wahaabi (like the Saudi).

Salafi is what the Wahabis like to call themselves. Wahabi might be considered a subset of Salafi, but there's little difference between them.

Wahhabis are known as Wahhabis to most Muslims, including numerous Wahhabis themselves. But because of the Wahhabi history of attacks on non-Wahhabi Muslims, the term "Wahhabi" repels many Muslims. Wahhabis therefore often attempt to recast themselves as "Salafis" for the same reason Communists called themselves "progressives."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/wahhabis-or-salafis/article/14224

Good information, guys. Yes, it is quite complicated.

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

Observers differ over whether Salafi are Sunni Muslims and whether they are Wahhabis. Self-described Salafis believe they are Sunni Muslims, while traditionalist Sunni critics claim that Salafis are the same as Wahhabis,

Anyway, to get back on track here, Qatar is much more liberal about religion than SaudiA is. That is one reason the Saudi Royals disapprove of Qatar so much.

I'm getting the feeling that ex-Exxon CEO and Trump-admin secretary of state Rex Tillerson knows all of the above quite well, and is busy exploiting the situation and stirring the oilwells to engineer higher oil prices through war.

TwoScoopsMcGee says

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain have broken off diplomatic relations and all land sea and air contacts with fellow Gulf Arab state Qatar on Monday.

Saudi Arabia said the move was necessary to protect the kingdom from what it described as terrorism and extremism. The kingdom also pulled all Qatari troops from the ongoing war in Yemen.

More evidence that Muslims will always be in conflict with each other. They are just not capable of making peace.

justme says

I find it surprising that Qatar suddenly is not considered polite company anymore. Of course, IMO, anyone who has a fallout with the Saudi royal rulers must be doing something that is right and moral, but what is the real story here?

Qatar is in bed with Iran (co-development of North Field a.k.a South Pars gas field) and Russia (owns 20% of biggest Russian oil company - Rosneft).

Interesting new angle on what is really behind the Qatar kerfuffle. The straw that broke the proverbial camel's back?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-05/shocking-trigger-behind-todays-gulf-scandal-qatar-paid-al-qaeda-iran-1bn-hostage-dea

According to the FT, the catalyst that forced the Saudis and their allies to unveil the cut in diplomatic and economic ties, is that Qatar allegedly paid up to $1 billion to Iran and al-Qaeda affiliates "to release members of the Gulf state’s royal family who were kidnapped in Iraq while on a hunting trip, according to people involved in the hostage deal"; the secret deal was allegedly one of the triggers behind Gulf states’ dramatic decision to cut ties with Doha.

The details of the payoff: "around $700m was paid both to Iranian figures and the regional Shia militias they support, according to regional government officials. They added that $200m to $300m went to Islamist groups in Syria, most of that to Tahrir al-Sham, a group with links to al-Qaeda."

-----

In other words, SaudiA is angry that Qatar gave money (under real or fake duress) to anti-ISIS Shia groups. No wonder SaudiA is upset, because SaudiA is bankrolling ISIS (Sunni) and Al-Qaeda (Sunni), the two major Sunni terror groups. But Qatar also gave 2-300M to the al-Qaeda affiliates (just to be nice?).

Now, who in their right mind goes on a hunting vacation in Iraq? It sounds more like a planned money transfer under the guise of ransom.

justme says

Now, who in their right mind goes on a hunting vacation in Iraq?

Persons afflicted with what Churchill called the madness of Islam. It doesn't say what they were hunting, maybe the most dangerous game.

justme says

kerfuffle.

How could you make so many spelling errors in such a simple word?

justme says

Now, who in their right mind goes on a hunting vacation in Iraq?

Kidnappers!

Possibly a good sign. Most recently, after 15yrs of foreign Middle East interference and subsequent fallout, the areas power brokers are once again turning inward to attend to their historically epic conflicts.

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.

------

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.