The Curious Case Of The Qatar Air Base
Heck of a job, Hegseth!
The Secretary of WAR Pete Hegseth caused a mighty kerfuffle this weekend, announcing on Friday that the US was building a Qatari air force facility at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho.
This is not necessarily a dirty deal on the face of it. The US hosts foreign pilots for training on the F-15 fighter jets planes that the US sells all the time. Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and Singapore have had pilots training here for years, and the German air force maintains a tactical training command at the Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas. Britain also has a joint squadron manned by British and Qatari pilots. It’s not that weird.
But words matter, MAGA hit the fucking roof, and Hegseth and JD Vance were forced to spend the weekend scrambling to clarify and calm down the histrionics of MAGA Islamophobes.
The United Arab Emirates doesn’t appear to be involved at all. Choose words more better, PETE.
But the clarity didn’t help much, Laura Loomer was still mad that the US plans to be “training jihadis,” and posted this mashup of clips to try to convince Trump to get back to his Muslim-hating roots.
Hey, people can grow and change. Especially for billions of dollars of change!
But indeed, it helps nobody’s trust issues that President Donald John Trump has sure had a curious relationship with Qatar over the years. Now everything he does with them smells like three-day-old majboos left out in the sun. And not just that billion-dollar bribe plane.
Let us refresh! In his first term, in 2017, Jared Kushner’s father Charles, the Trump-pardoned felon who is now ambassador to France, approached the Qataris with an offer they shouldn’t have refused: to bail out his son Jared’s purchase of the distressed devil building at 666 Fifth Avenue.
But refuse they did! And even though Qatar was hosting CENTCOM and 40,000 American troops at the US’s largest base in the Middle East, Trump decided that now they were “historically” state sponsors of terrorism “at a very high level.” And in May 2017, Trump enthusiastically endorsed the blockade of Qatar by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Two countries that would never sponsor terrorism! Hey, where did that bonesaw come from?
And then Qatar apparently got the message and changed its tune. In November 2017 Kushner’s family got $184 million from Qatari-backed Apollo Capital, and the Qataris decided not to give the Robert Mueller team any allegedly incriminating info on Jared’s ties to the UAE. And the US posture toward Qatar swung back to normal. By March 2018, Trump was threatening to cancel a planned Camp David summit with the Gulf Cooperation Council if they wouldn’t stop being so mean to the US’s BFF Qatar.
PREVIOUSLY!
And where was Trump’s son-in-law on January 6, 2021? Why, on his way back from a sleepover in Saudi Arabia! And almost the very second Trump was officially out of the Oval office, Kushner got a hot cash injection of $2 billion from the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund, and also millions from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and the Qatar Investment Authority, too.
In Trump’s second term, the close friendship got closer, with Qatar giving him that plane after Trump dropped some heavy hints, and also a $5.5 billion real estate deal for a golf course resort in Doha. Trump plans to sell Qatar and the United Arab Emirates $3.5 billion worth of helicopters and weapons too.
Then last month, a real pickle. Israel bombed a Qatari government residential complex in Doha, and Trump seemed to finally grok that shit was out of control. He forced pissed-off Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to call and apologize to Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani for the bombing from the Oval Office, like a bully busted mid-noogie. Trump released a royal decree that hereafter the US would defend Qatar against any future attacks (Ukraine who?).
Then Trump got serious about making peace! He even brought back scholarly Middle East expert Jared Kushner. The nepo scion came out of his government retirement and took his waxen mug to Egypt to help Qatar broker a peace agreement between Hamas and Israel this weekend. Though Some People Say Jared never left: “[Steve Witkoff has privately referred to Kushner as one of his ‘rabbis’ when it comes to his efforts to drive a solution to the Gaza conflict, one source said.” Guess those 25 books The Kush claimed to have read about the Middle East really did make him an expert after all!
If billions to Jared Kushner, a pilot training facility and a $400 million bribe jet is what it takes to make lasting peace in the Middle East, that’s well worth it, honestly. (If. History remains to be written!) We will gladly accept a case of billions of wrongs somehow making a right. Have a Nobel, have two! Actually, we’ll just leave a whole bowl of them on the front stoop with the porch light on, use the honor system. Though it sounds like Qatar brokered a very loose framework of a deal to get the hostages released as quickly as possible before any of the parties changed their minds, and el diablo está en los details!
But here’s hoping for the best! Peace in the Middle East, and a minder for old flapjaws Pete and his dumb yap would be nice, too.
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Yeah, fuck no.
That's not how this works.
***
Ex-FBI Director James Comey was narrowly indicted by a grand jury this month, but according to his lawyer the Justice Department is refusing to reveal its evidence against him.
In a court filing Monday, attorney Patrick Fitzgerald accused the DOJ of withholding information involving its charges, citing that Comey and his legal team can't be trusted with it.
The filing states that the government has entered a protective order that blocks Comey from being entrusted with some of the materials that are being used to substantiate his indictment.
So far the ceasefire in Gaza seems to be holding. If it does, good for Trump. Fair is fair.
Only this is the Middle East, which is never more than a bomb away from destabilizing all over again. And if that happens, Trump will not have the patience or maturity to deal with it.