Collusion: Our Supposedly Anti-Foreign-Collusion Media Just Can't Get Enough of Colluding With Iran, Turkey, and Qatar

Interfering with an American election is okay if you're doing it for the Democrats.

Dave Reaboi:

Mehdi Hasan seems to be everywhere on TV these days. Reliably Trump-obsessed cable channels like CNN and MSNBC relish the opportunity to promote a foreign-born Muslim guest who, they believe, has the credibility to call the president and his supporters racists and white supremacists.

...

After spending the last several years claiming to be concerned about hostile countries interfering in American politics, though, it's a bit jarring to see the employee of a state-run media outlet hostile to the United States appear so frequently on CNN and MSNBC.

By promoting Mr. Hasan, these cable news outlets are facilitating the insertion of foreign propaganda into the American political debate.

Mr. Hasan works for al Jazeera, the Qatari-owned media enterprise that advances the interests of the state and its royal family. When he speaks, he's no less a government spokesman than Kellyanne Conway or Sarah Sanders.

But the government he represents -- to millions of unsuspecting American viewers -- has long promoted the Muslim Brotherhood, funds the bloodthirsty designated terror group Hamas, has helped al Qaeda and the Taliban fundraise, and is relentlessly hostile to American interests. In addition to supporting terrorism against Israel, Qatar uses its powerful media infrastructure to destabilize our Arab allies in the region by fomenting revolution inside their borders.

Dave also talks about a film he's featured in called Blood Money, which is a documentary about Qatar's big (BIG) money information operations inside the US.

If you don't know -- and it's a mystery why the media doesn't tell you this more often, because it's a well-known fact and it's pretty simple and explains a lot of the otherwise confusing moves in the Middle East -- the Middle East is in a cold (or cool) war of two competing blocs.

In one bloc is Iran, Turkey, and Qatar. Qatar, which has less of a negative public profile than Turkey and certainly Iran, and also has a ton of money to spread around, is in charge of shaping US policy (and putting money in the hands of those who can shape US policy) in favor of the Iran-Turkey-Qatar troika.

I think people feel more comfortable being on the Qatari payroll than they would be being on Iran's.

But being on Qatar's payroll is essentially the same as being on Iran's. They're partners in this troika. Qatar is just the less-scary frontman for the troika.

This troika supports the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the other bloc is Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, most of the other Gulf States (Bahrain, etc.), and... Israel.

This group by and large opposes the Muslim Brotherhood.

This is why the Jamal Kashoggi assassination was such a major public spectacle: Kashoggi was a Qatari information officer assassinated for being a Qatari information officer, not for being a "journalist." This is why Turkey was so eager to milk the story for all the PR, and why American media who have for some reason partnered with Qatar really wanted to make this a huge event -- it was part of the Iran-Turkey-Qatar information ops against a major player in the rival bloc.

That doesn't mean it's a good thing to murder fairly minor intelligence assets like Kashoggi. But it does explain why there was so much storm and thunder about it.

Because Qatar was paying money so that there should be storm and thunder about it. And Turkey was lending a hand.

And the parts of the American media which have allied softly with Iran since Ben Rhodes' echo chamber, and since Obama decided to support Iran over Israel, were happy to play their part.

Since this is a Reaboi heavy post, I should link this recent appearance on Michael Malice's podcast YOUR WELCOME, discussing the film Blood Money and the media's Collusion Delusion (while choosing to actually collude with hostile foreign states themselves). He discusses Qatar's interest in fomenting revolutionary movements in its neighboring countries in the first ten minutes.

TL;DR version: only 12% of the population in Qatar is Qatari. The rest of foreign workers. Qatar needs to direct hatred outward or else it risks its huge foreign internal population getting ideas about a revolution against the Qatari royal family. Posing as the Most Wahhabist and Revolutionary of All makes the Qatar royal family seem like they're "on the right side" and thus keeps troublemakers from stirring up things inside Qatar.

By the way: The show is in fact called YOUR WELCOME, with that ironic typo. I guess it's a joke by Malice about internet culture.

Completely Unrelated! It turns out, for reasons wholly separate from Qatar's influence campaign, that so many NeverTrumpers are taking advantage of Holiday Opportunities in Qatar they're now calling Doha "The Aspen of the Persian Gulf."

Update: Malice and Reaboi start talking about the "soyboy beta cucks" in the last third of the YOUR WELCOME podcast, and Reaboi gives a few shout-outs to the site. Though, just mentions, nothing beyond that.

posted by Ace of Spades at 04:37 PM

| Access Comments