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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 whi

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 total bullshit. The goal was to create a new pipeline from Qatar to Europe so Europe don’t have to buy gas from Russia. Syria, between Turkey and Jordan was the only barrier for this project. If they removed Assad, Russia would be screwed. This is why Russia got in the field and started fighting back to protect Assad. In 2014, Qatar and Turkey splitted from this alliance because they realized that Russia will not let Syria down. That was also the time FSA split into bunch of groups; Wahabist ISIS and socialist YPG. Noone ever questioned how a group backed by Saudi money would fight another backed by American money. Western news brainwashed the whole world with ISIS and YPG, people don’t even remember what did happen before; Russia won the war in both Ukraine and Syria, at same time. This is the deal; the war is lost, and the alliance is defeated & splitted. Qatar and Turkey are now enemies on the Russian side. The western alliance tried hard to take down their presidents by organizing coups but it failed. Qatar will survive just as Iran, Syria and Russia. The article is just another Western propaganda painting a middle eastern enemy as “little lone wolf”, and people just buy this stuff easily in the propaganda bubble they live in.

caf 9y ago
You are completely misreading this article. It isn't painting Qatar as any kind of enemy - the article reads as very sympathetic to the Qatari position (which basically is that the Saudis consider it a vassal and aren't happy with it daring to have an independent foreign policy).
- roadbeats 9y ago
  I can't imagine a "very sympathetic" article accusing a country for hosting "terrorists". Did we read the same article ?
  - _mhr_ 9y ago
    I read it as going both ways. Accuses the Qataris of, at the very least, turning a blind eye towards terrorism while also depicting their sympathetic plight. It isn't black and white. If anything, it's too sympathetic and glamourizing.
    - roadbeats 9y ago
      Every story has two versions as you know. If you ask Qatari leaders, they'll show the proofs of how Saudi planes carrying drugs and weapons to ISIS got busted in Lebanon.
  - caf 9y ago
    It referred to the case of one alleged terrorist financier who was put before their courts and not convicted. That hardly seems like an accusation against the country, accused people are found not guilty in countries all over the world every day.
nashashmi 9y ago
Your information has depth. What articles have you been reading? I want to learn more.
- psergeant 9y ago
  I suspect RT and Sputnik both will be able to provide a wealth of similar viewpoints
  - anticodon 9y ago
    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.
    - psergeant 9y ago
      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!
      - anticodon 9y ago
        For the news source being freely owned might be a necessary condition to be objective but it is definitely not sufficient.
        psergeant 9y ago
        Sure. That’s why a hundred years of vigorously criticising the government is important to take into account. Also: your comment history seems unusually political when it comes to Russia.
- wilsonfiifi 9y ago
  You can check out Globalresearch [0], they tend to have a different take on current affairs. It’s always interesting to read the “Other side’s” perspective (with a little heap of salt nearby) [0] https://www.globalresearch.ca
nikcub 9y ago
> Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Europe, US and Turkey was the big alliance which tried to take down Syria. This isn't true - they have all backed different factions in the conflict against the Syrian government, against ISIS and today against one another in Idlib. Assuming they defeated the Syria government this conflict was always going to split down the differing interests between the Saudis and Qataris The succinct way (as always, this stuff is a lot more complicated than surface reporting) Qatar are the largest foreign opposition backers in Syria and supported in order the Army of Conquest and today Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) The Saudi's are likely the second largest foreign backers in Syria and started out supporting FSA and other groups but today have their own umbrella group called Ahrar al-Sham. HTS and Ahrar al-Sham have been in conflict for some time now and in all out war for some months now in Idlib (would always eventually happen - they're just squabbling over a lot less today) The USA, Russia and Turkey all have their own groups that they support but the alliances have almost always fallen along axis of Turkey-Qatar on one side and Saudi-Jordan-UAE-USA on the other What the OP article has left out is the conflict in Libya which makes this split a lot clearer. Qatar backed the Islamist group that took over a lot of Libya. In the new civil war (the one that no one cares about) the Saudi's and former Gadaffi loyalists have formed an anti-Islamist alternate government. The UAE and Egypt have sent fighter jets to bomb the Qatari-backed side in this conflict[0][1] It was a big deal in the Arab world (and I can't believe it isn't mentioned in the NYTimes piece) when militants raised a Qatari flag over Ghadaffi's palace - that was a "holy shit that could be us next" moment for many of these Arab nations and hardened their opposition to Qatar[2] Also only vaguely mentioned in the article is that Qatar and Kuwait are a huge source of the financing for ISIS. The governments there may not have an official position of supporting ISIS - but they sure as hell aren't doing much to stop the flow of money from Kuwaiti and Qatari citizens to ISIS[3] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/26/united-arab-emirates-bombing-raids-libyan-militias https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/26/united-arab-em... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/26/qatar-troops-libya-rebels-support https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/26/qatar-troops-l... [2] http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/qatar/raising-of-qatar-s-flag-in-libya-was-an-eerie-moment-1.2042345 http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/qatar/raising-of-qatar-s-flag-... [3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/kuwait/11077537/How-our-allies-in-Kuwait-and-Qatar-funded-Islamic-State.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/kuwait/...
psergeant 9y ago
> The article is just another Western propaganda Your rebuttal appears to be very close to the viewpoint that Russian propaganda is trying to promote
- roadbeats 9y ago
  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 deeply sad about how a beautiful country got ruined by some dickheads for no reason...
  - psergeant 9y ago
    > 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.
  - ex3ndr 9y ago
    I believe that people are also affected by local propaganda and they told you propaganda instead of something real. Same is happening with Russia and Ukraine. My ex-wife have Ukranian roots and i am from russia. Ukranian part of her family stopped to talk to russian one and both sides always turn on propaganda when talking to other side. No one of them know what's happening and the truth as always somewhere in the middle.
    - psergeant 9y ago
      > the truth as always somewhere in the middle This is a common logical fallacy used by propagandists. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/middle-ground https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/middle-ground
rgbrenner 9y ago
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.
- roadbeats 9y ago
  Would Iran let a pipeline pass through the Shia land next to it ? There is a short pipeline from North Iraq to Turkey, you need to research about it. Syria was the best bet and that also didn't work. Believe it or not, every time something goes wrong in the world, the US is not behind it. Ok, so you're just working on other people's democracies for their benefit. Gotcha.
- jgh 9y ago
  Indeed, my first thought when I read that was "why can't it just go through Iraq instead?" And as it turns out you've pointed out that there already is such a pipeline. So the whole theory stops making sense then.
- sremani 9y ago
  I would not entirely see them as conspiracy theories, but by now we all know.. conflicts or military operations are conducted for one reason but are "sold" to public with different kind of marketing.. one in which they appeal to our better angles and in other to our worst fears. So some of these stated items may be sub-plots, the truth is Iran - Saudi rivalry plays a major part in ME politics. Syria was a proxy battleground so was Yemen.
- Reason077 9y ago
  "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 9y ago
josephjrobison 9y ago
Yes, it’s 100% a foreign policy goal for the US and all NATO and EU members to wean Eastern Europe and Germany off Russian oil, that’s no secret!
paulcole 9y ago
>Here is my question for HN readers: do you trust this article? Because it tries to fool us. Genuine question, why should we trust you more than the article? How do we know you aren’t trying to fool us?
jimjimjim 9y ago
what are you talking about. that's a weird conspiracy theory you've got (and i know a lot of weird theories). but where do i begin. oil - yes europe want to reduce reliance on russian gas but there are a LOT of countries between qatar and europe. Arab spring - did NOT start in syria. in syria the flames were fanned by all interested countries in the hopes that a bunch of autocratic dictators would be overthrown with no effort required. didn't work, total balls up, in every case the cure was worse than the problem. Turkey - got involved for 3 reasons: 1) the shit-show was on their borders. 2) the more the kurds got involved the more turkey saw a need to reduce their power. 3) turkey now sees it self as a regional super-power and wants a show of force. Russia - they inserted themselves into the mess and claim Syria under there sphere of influence. their troops get a bit of practice, they get an ally and a port in the Mediterranean. Iran and Saudi - they have been having a proxy war in yemen and the US has re-affirmed it's support of the saudi (they would be crazy not to). they made a BIG flashy show about stopping terrorism. very next thing that happens they all turn on qatar. 'Russia won the war in both Ukraine and Syria, at same time' what is your sentence meant to imply? these weren't wars they were minor deployments of resources that wouldn't tax any reasonably large country. stop spreading propaganda.
- BatFastard 9y ago
  I am betting on the Kurds to kick their ass. The Kurds are a well trained, well equipped (for the moment at least), motivated force defending themselves. The Turks (IMHO) are unseasoned forces are fighting battle that is against international laws, and is for a country run by a dictator. Both points that are huge factors against their success. It will probably come down to air power, I wonder what the Kurds have in the way of surface to air missiles?
  - jimjimjim 9y ago
    alas, since the crack downs, turkey just does not care about international opinion (they have a cordial relationship with russia, and donald seems to admire Erdoğan). they will probably just shell it for a while.
    - 9y ago
danmaz74 9y ago
It's the first time I see such a complete garbage Putin-propaganda comment at the top on HN (I won't repeat the reasons here - just read the other top answers). I find it very, very worrying.
- roadbeats 9y ago
  I don't see how you connected my thoughts to Russia. I'm just a guy who has been praying for the people in Syria since the beginning of the war.
  - danmaz74 9y ago
    I linked it because I keep a close eye on Putin's propaganda war on democracy and, specifically, on the EU (me being in the EU). But just re-read your comment and the connection is pretty obvious... > The goal was to create a new pipeline from Qatar to Europe so Europe don’t have to buy gas from Russia > Russia won the war in both Ukraine and Syria, at same time > Qatar and Turkey are now enemies on the Russian side. The western alliance tried hard to take down their presidents by organizing coups but it failed.
    - roadbeats 9y ago
      Either you follow Russian media agencies closely so you can categorize information by national news agencies, or you're just labeling me for telling facts that you don't like to hear. Neither behavior is not smart.
      - marklgr 9y ago
        The conspiracy theory crowd is always full of "facts" (ahem) that "people just don't want to hear". Because people "live in their bubble", obviously.
        ben_w 9y ago
        One of my fears is that I might be in a bubble, a conspiracy theory, of my own. Suggestions?
cmurf 9y ago
I read something rather different; depicts Trump as clueless, infantile, and manipulated by Saudi Arabia; all these countries have a risky excess of American made arms, Qatar in 2017 alone ordered enough military jets to increase its holdings by a factor of 8. The mere possibility of Emirates or Saudi Arabia let alone both, starting a war or attempting a coup of Tamim should bother anyone. I don't see how it's remotely propaganda, what's the motive? And is it really such good propaganda to depict the leader of the free world as inept and a compulsive Twitter junkie? And Erdogan staged his own failed coup. By all rights even before the coup attempt Turkey should be ejected from NATO. A conspiracy is not required to oppose an autocrat in violation of his country's constitution, and has made it a good deal less secure by showing to its enemies how easy it is make it react contrary to its own law, its international agreements, and the will of its own citizens. But I don't really know why you bring up Turkey, as this article doesn't mention it.
salimmadjd 9y ago
VP, Biden indirectly confirmed your points [1] Every one must watch this for a candid view. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25aDP7io30U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25aDP7io30U
simias 9y ago
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 YPG >The western alliance tried hard to take down their presidents by organizing coups but it failed. And the most amusing part of your comment: >people just buy this stuff easily in the propaganda bubble they live in WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!! This whole comment is one big huge [citation needed] tag.
- WillReplyfFood 9y ago
  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?
  - simias 9y ago
    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.
    - WillReplyfFood 9y ago
      You are propably right. But sometimes such discussion can meta-stasize into intersting ones. For example- what is the definition of a good guy? Is a good guy something stable, reliable, someone behaving reproducable? Is a good guy somebody who gives you a short term reward, and costs you dearly in the long run? Or can a good guy be someone who costs you short term, but becomes a long term positiv force. What if somebody is hostile, but stabilizes out of self-interest a otherwise negative are in the world. Its all very complicated, and the dynamics playing into it, can be horrifying for anyone idealistic.
hux_ 9y ago
Mr. Nuance/Intellectual Peace Prize winner would disagree with this.
Nimitz14 9y ago
> 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.
- mkalygin 9y ago
  Isn't it possible to say the same without calling the parent an idiot?
- dang 9y ago
  > you idiot Personal attacks and uncivil swipes will get you banned on Hacker News. You've done this several times before. If you want to keep commenting here, please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again.
avip 9y ago
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. <disclaimer: though I live in the middle east, and in a good day can see Syria - am brainwashed by evil media>

caf 9y ago

You are completely misreading this article. It isn't painting Qatar as any kind of enemy - the article reads as very sympathetic to the Qatari position (which basically is that the Saudis consider it a vassal and aren't happy with it daring to have an independent foreign policy).

roadbeats 9y ago
I can't imagine a "very sympathetic" article accusing a country for hosting "terrorists". Did we read the same article ?
- _mhr_ 9y ago
  I read it as going both ways. Accuses the Qataris of, at the very least, turning a blind eye towards terrorism while also depicting their sympathetic plight. It isn't black and white. If anything, it's too sympathetic and glamourizing.
  - roadbeats 9y ago
    Every story has two versions as you know. If you ask Qatari leaders, they'll show the proofs of how Saudi planes carrying drugs and weapons to ISIS got busted in Lebanon.
- caf 9y ago
  It referred to the case of one alleged terrorist financier who was put before their courts and not convicted. That hardly seems like an accusation against the country, accused people are found not guilty in countries all over the world every day.

nashashmi 9y ago

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

psergeant 9y ago
I suspect RT and Sputnik both will be able to provide a wealth of similar viewpoints
- anticodon 9y ago
  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.
  - psergeant 9y ago
    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!
    - anticodon 9y ago
      For the news source being freely owned might be a necessary condition to be objective but it is definitely not sufficient.
      - psergeant 9y ago
        Sure. That’s why a hundred years of vigorously criticising the government is important to take into account. Also: your comment history seems unusually political when it comes to Russia.
wilsonfiifi 9y ago
You can check out Globalresearch [0], they tend to have a different take on current affairs. It’s always interesting to read the “Other side’s” perspective (with a little heap of salt nearby) [0] https://www.globalresearch.ca

nikcub 9y ago

> Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Europe, US and Turkey was the big alliance which tried to take down Syria. This isn't true - they have all backed different factions in the conflict against the Syrian government, against ISIS and today against one another in Idlib. Assuming they defeated the Syria government this conflict was always going to split down the differing interests between the Saudis and Qataris The succinct way (as always, this stuff is a lot more complicated than surface reporting) Qatar are the largest foreign opposition backers in Syria and supported in order the Army of Conquest and today Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) The Saudi's are likely the second largest foreign backers in Syria and started out supporting FSA and other groups but today have their own umbrella group called Ahrar al-Sham. HTS and Ahrar al-Sham have been in conflict for some time now and in all out war for some months now in Idlib (would always eventually happen - they're just squabbling over a lot less today) The USA, Russia and Turkey all have their own groups that they support but the alliances have almost always fallen along axis of Turkey-Qatar on one side and Saudi-Jordan-UAE-USA on the other What the OP article has left out is the conflict in Libya which makes this split a lot clearer. Qatar backed the Islamist group that took over a lot of Libya. In the new civil war (the one that no one cares about) the Saudi's and former Gadaffi loyalists have formed an anti-Islamist alternate government. The UAE and Egypt have sent fighter jets to bomb the Qatari-backed side in this conflict[0][1] It was a big deal in the Arab world (and I can't believe it isn't mentioned in the NYTimes piece) when militants raised a Qatari flag over Ghadaffi's palace - that was a "holy shit that could be us next" moment for many of these Arab nations and hardened their opposition to Qatar[2] Also only vaguely mentioned in the article is that Qatar and Kuwait are a huge source of the financing for ISIS. The governments there may not have an official position of supporting ISIS - but they sure as hell aren't doing much to stop the flow of money from Kuwaiti and Qatari citizens to ISIS[3] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/26/united-arab-emirates-bombing-raids-libyan-militias https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/26/united-arab-em... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/26/qatar-troops-libya-rebels-support https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/26/qatar-troops-l... [2] http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/qatar/raising-of-qatar-s-flag-in-libya-was-an-eerie-moment-1.2042345 http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/qatar/raising-of-qatar-s-flag-... [3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/kuwait/11077537/How-our-allies-in-Kuwait-and-Qatar-funded-Islamic-State.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/kuwait/...

psergeant 9y ago

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

roadbeats 9y ago
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 deeply sad about how a beautiful country got ruined by some dickheads for no reason...
- psergeant 9y ago
  > 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.
- ex3ndr 9y ago
  I believe that people are also affected by local propaganda and they told you propaganda instead of something real. Same is happening with Russia and Ukraine. My ex-wife have Ukranian roots and i am from russia. Ukranian part of her family stopped to talk to russian one and both sides always turn on propaganda when talking to other side. No one of them know what's happening and the truth as always somewhere in the middle.
  - psergeant 9y ago
    > the truth as always somewhere in the middle This is a common logical fallacy used by propagandists. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/middle-ground https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/middle-ground

rgbrenner 9y ago

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.

roadbeats 9y ago
Would Iran let a pipeline pass through the Shia land next to it ? There is a short pipeline from North Iraq to Turkey, you need to research about it. Syria was the best bet and that also didn't work. Believe it or not, every time something goes wrong in the world, the US is not behind it. Ok, so you're just working on other people's democracies for their benefit. Gotcha.
jgh 9y ago
Indeed, my first thought when I read that was "why can't it just go through Iraq instead?" And as it turns out you've pointed out that there already is such a pipeline. So the whole theory stops making sense then.
sremani 9y ago
I would not entirely see them as conspiracy theories, but by now we all know.. conflicts or military operations are conducted for one reason but are "sold" to public with different kind of marketing.. one in which they appeal to our better angles and in other to our worst fears. So some of these stated items may be sub-plots, the truth is Iran - Saudi rivalry plays a major part in ME politics. Syria was a proxy battleground so was Yemen.
Reason077 9y ago
"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 9y ago

josephjrobison 9y ago

Yes, it’s 100% a foreign policy goal for the US and all NATO and EU members to wean Eastern Europe and Germany off Russian oil, that’s no secret!

paulcole 9y ago

>Here is my question for HN readers: do you trust this article? Because it tries to fool us. Genuine question, why should we trust you more than the article? How do we know you aren’t trying to fool us?

jimjimjim 9y ago

what are you talking about. that's a weird conspiracy theory you've got (and i know a lot of weird theories). but where do i begin. oil - yes europe want to reduce reliance on russian gas but there are a LOT of countries between qatar and europe. Arab spring - did NOT start in syria. in syria the flames were fanned by all interested countries in the hopes that a bunch of autocratic dictators would be overthrown with no effort required. didn't work, total balls up, in every case the cure was worse than the problem. Turkey - got involved for 3 reasons: 1) the shit-show was on their borders. 2) the more the kurds got involved the more turkey saw a need to reduce their power. 3) turkey now sees it self as a regional super-power and wants a show of force. Russia - they inserted themselves into the mess and claim Syria under there sphere of influence. their troops get a bit of practice, they get an ally and a port in the Mediterranean. Iran and Saudi - they have been having a proxy war in yemen and the US has re-affirmed it's support of the saudi (they would be crazy not to). they made a BIG flashy show about stopping terrorism. very next thing that happens they all turn on qatar. 'Russia won the war in both Ukraine and Syria, at same time' what is your sentence meant to imply? these weren't wars they were minor deployments of resources that wouldn't tax any reasonably large country. stop spreading propaganda.

BatFastard 9y ago
I am betting on the Kurds to kick their ass. The Kurds are a well trained, well equipped (for the moment at least), motivated force defending themselves. The Turks (IMHO) are unseasoned forces are fighting battle that is against international laws, and is for a country run by a dictator. Both points that are huge factors against their success. It will probably come down to air power, I wonder what the Kurds have in the way of surface to air missiles?
- jimjimjim 9y ago
  alas, since the crack downs, turkey just does not care about international opinion (they have a cordial relationship with russia, and donald seems to admire Erdoğan). they will probably just shell it for a while.
  - 9y ago

danmaz74 9y ago

It's the first time I see such a complete garbage Putin-propaganda comment at the top on HN (I won't repeat the reasons here - just read the other top answers). I find it very, very worrying.

roadbeats 9y ago
I don't see how you connected my thoughts to Russia. I'm just a guy who has been praying for the people in Syria since the beginning of the war.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  I linked it because I keep a close eye on Putin's propaganda war on democracy and, specifically, on the EU (me being in the EU). But just re-read your comment and the connection is pretty obvious... > The goal was to create a new pipeline from Qatar to Europe so Europe don’t have to buy gas from Russia > Russia won the war in both Ukraine and Syria, at same time > Qatar and Turkey are now enemies on the Russian side. The western alliance tried hard to take down their presidents by organizing coups but it failed.
  - roadbeats 9y ago
    Either you follow Russian media agencies closely so you can categorize information by national news agencies, or you're just labeling me for telling facts that you don't like to hear. Neither behavior is not smart.
    - marklgr 9y ago
      The conspiracy theory crowd is always full of "facts" (ahem) that "people just don't want to hear". Because people "live in their bubble", obviously.
      - ben_w 9y ago
        One of my fears is that I might be in a bubble, a conspiracy theory, of my own. Suggestions?

cmurf 9y ago

I read something rather different; depicts Trump as clueless, infantile, and manipulated by Saudi Arabia; all these countries have a risky excess of American made arms, Qatar in 2017 alone ordered enough military jets to increase its holdings by a factor of 8. The mere possibility of Emirates or Saudi Arabia let alone both, starting a war or attempting a coup of Tamim should bother anyone. I don't see how it's remotely propaganda, what's the motive? And is it really such good propaganda to depict the leader of the free world as inept and a compulsive Twitter junkie? And Erdogan staged his own failed coup. By all rights even before the coup attempt Turkey should be ejected from NATO. A conspiracy is not required to oppose an autocrat in violation of his country's constitution, and has made it a good deal less secure by showing to its enemies how easy it is make it react contrary to its own law, its international agreements, and the will of its own citizens. But I don't really know why you bring up Turkey, as this article doesn't mention it.

salimmadjd 9y ago

VP, Biden indirectly confirmed your points [1] Every one must watch this for a candid view. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25aDP7io30U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25aDP7io30U

simias 9y ago

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 YPG >The western alliance tried hard to take down their presidents by organizing coups but it failed. And the most amusing part of your comment: >people just buy this stuff easily in the propaganda bubble they live in WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!! This whole comment is one big huge [citation needed] tag.

WillReplyfFood 9y ago
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?
- simias 9y ago
  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.
  - WillReplyfFood 9y ago
    You are propably right. But sometimes such discussion can meta-stasize into intersting ones. For example- what is the definition of a good guy? Is a good guy something stable, reliable, someone behaving reproducable? Is a good guy somebody who gives you a short term reward, and costs you dearly in the long run? Or can a good guy be someone who costs you short term, but becomes a long term positiv force. What if somebody is hostile, but stabilizes out of self-interest a otherwise negative are in the world. Its all very complicated, and the dynamics playing into it, can be horrifying for anyone idealistic.

hux_ 9y ago

Mr. Nuance/Intellectual Peace Prize winner would disagree with this.

Nimitz14 9y ago

> 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.

mkalygin 9y ago
Isn't it possible to say the same without calling the parent an idiot?
dang 9y ago
> you idiot Personal attacks and uncivil swipes will get you banned on Hacker News. You've done this several times before. If you want to keep commenting here, please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again.

avip 9y ago

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. <disclaimer: though I live in the middle east, and in a good day can see Syria - am brainwashed by evil media>