Irony and Qatari Perfidy

Al Jazeera English is at least partially an information operation designed to divide America, one of several such operations being run by the nation of Qatar. This nation presents itself as an ally of the United States, but it is constantly working to harm us and advance its own interests. 

The beauty of being a propaganda operation is that you don't have to have any devotion to consistency or principle; any stick will do to beat your opponent. Consider this feminist writing against her own country in this particular outlet:

In a tribute to the tight weave of religious fanaticism, patriotism, and similarly noxious elements in a country supposedly predicated on the separation of church and state.... Again, the “taking of innocent human life” has long been America’s game – just Google the words “US bombs hospital in Afghanistan”. Of course, there has been plenty of innocent post-embryonic life taken on the domestic scene, as well – and not just in extrajudicial police killings of Black people and Native Americans. As it turns out, poverty is also deadly in the US.

Now Qatar infamously shelters Muslim Brotherhood leadership and serves as a workaround/agent for the Iranian mullahs, with whom they share certain economic interests related to the natural gas field they both sit atop. They thus enable religious fanaticism and the terrorism associated with (and funded by) it. 

Meanwhile, they actually enslave the majority of their population: 88% of the people who live in Qatar are 'contract labor,' often contracted under false promises and with their passports seized. Poverty can be fatal anywhere, but in Qatar the poor are worked to death in the heat. Being an ethnic minority in Qatar likewise entails being a slave. 

Nor will one prosper greatly as a feminist in Qatar, not to put too fine a point on it. Not unless you're a useful tool for propaganda, that is

The description of patriotism as a 'noxious element' is a sign of mental unhealth, but in addition it is deeply ironic in Al Jazeera, which exists to serve the patriotic purpose of pursuing its homeland's national interests. 

I suppose this sort of person has always been with us; Lenin spoke about them and how useful they were. Still, the lack of self-awareness and the inability to recognize irony is stunning.