This video from over a month ago shows us exactly where Hamas is. The American and Israeli governments know their precise addresses.
They haven’t moved in 12 years; they are a short drive from a major US military base, and everybody knows it.
The entire Gaza War has as much to do with “eliminating Hamas” as invading Iraq was about “weapons of mass destruction” and defeating the Taliban.
So when are we going to see the Israeli government invade Doha and kill civilians at point-blank range in an operation that actually could “kill Hamas”? They could bankrupt and utterly destroy the despotic Taliban government of Afghanistan at the same time. It is an indisputably good thing that would save thousands of lives and free a country with more people than Canada from a foreign regime that terrorizes their country.
Because Likud created Hamas, and they are codependent on each other. It is as clear as day. Netanyahu has every incentive to keep the status quo, and his actions prove it. He will never stop the war because if he stops the war, he will get a one-way ticket to Belgium.
Supplying Israel with weapons is entirely counterproductive to the national security interests of the United States and every democracy in the world. Those weapons need to be sent to Ukraine instead.
There is far more reason to firebomb Doha to dust than there was to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Qatar is a destabilizing force spreading its violent ideology around the world by being the banking center for terrorist organizations, and everybody knows it.
It is far past time to turn Doha into a pile of dust.
Natural gas prices will go up as a result, pushing people towards sustainable energy. This would temporarily increase global LNG prices but be a stabilizing force in the long term.
Qatar is one of many cases which clearly shows how dependence on fossil fuels builds dictatorship. The environmental consequences of fossil fuels are enough to reduce their consumption significantly, and by itself is enough to justify full decarbonization. But when you add on Dutch disease and how dependence on fossil fuels harms women’s rights and builds dictatorships like Qatar, which, although small, are lifelines for terrorist organizations like Hamas, al Qaeda, and the Taliban, it becomes a moral imperative.
Boycott, sanction, and divest from the Taliban’s ATM.
It is indefensible to do business with a country that is such a critical state sponsor of terrorism. It makes a mockery of the list the US government maintains.
Other countries that we know fund, or willfully act as intermediaries for the Taliban include Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which either explicitly or implicitly (by not prosecuting citizens who actively fundraise for terrorist organizations, or effectively criminalizing money laundering) fund terrorism.
To quote the 9/11 commission report:
It does not appear that any government other than the Taliban financially supported al Qaeda before 9/11, although some governments may have contained al Qaeda sympathizers who turned a blind eye to al Qaeda’s fundraising activities. Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of al Qaeda funding, but we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization. (This conclusion does not exclude the likelihood that charities with significant Saudi government sponsorship diverted funds to al Qaeda.)
I don’t know about you, but a government consistently turning a blind eye to their citizens for so long that they become the primary source for funding terrorist activities is beyond suspicious. Governments must block money transfers to terrorist organizations and monitor such transactions to prevent money laundering. It is absurd how the United States has this line in an official government document and then turns around and says that Saudi Arabia is not a fundraiser. George W. Bush then turned around the same year the 9/11 commission report clearly stated Saudi Arabia was the primary source of funds for the Taliban and erroneously claimed Iran was the major source, despite his administration presenting evidence to the contrary. Their government deliberately chooses not to monitor money transfers or arrest individuals who personally fund terrorist groups worldwide. The lack of oversight of Saudi banks in their operations as a vector for substantial funding of terrorist organizations is itself evidence that the Saudi government is not serious about its counterterrorism efforts. Counterterrorism starts by preventing the flow of resources into terrorist hands. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates continuously act as “neutral” banking centers to launder money to terrorist organizations, and everybody knows it. Those governments know it. You cannot be neutral as a government. When your financial institutions are acting as a primary vector for funding terrorist groups like Hamas, al Qaeda, and the Taliban, the domestic government remains the only organization with sufficient power to stop the flow of resources to terrorist groups.
On top of this are the heavily documented links between the House of Bush and the House of Saud; this American Prospect article is a good summary of their corrupt relationship.
One only has to look at the tiny nation of Bahrain to see how all of these states need to act. In 2020, Bahrain arrested five officials at The Future Bank who were fundraising money for Iran. Every country in the Middle East needs to do this active monitoring and harsh arrests when people are found to be directly linked to funding terrorism.
This is still a winning issue for the Democrats, just as much as it was 20 years ago. My God, we have had this evidence for over two decades and we still fail to deal with this problem.
I do not think there is any effective method to fight international terrorism without dealing with the money laundering behind their sprawling empires first.
This is the only way to defeat Hamas.