Qatar bugged secret meeting between Swiss Attorney General and FIFA President | Hacker News Reader

Qatar bugged secret meeting between Swiss Attorney General and FIFA President

nzz.ch

157 pointsgeox69 comments

And now, in the world we live in, they know that they can do what they want and there will not be any consequence for them.

Look, their neighbor killed and chopped a journalist in a foreign country, and except a few "offended letters" from some ambassadors, it is like forgotten.

I really count the days until the middle east countries will run out of petrol or that we will not need that anymore!

Saudis have 200 years of oil left. Another scenario is oil becoming a minor source of global energy supply. The time horizon of both events is likely decades if not a century.

As soon as it ceases being an energy source for technology, it will transition into a food source for humans.

A barrel of oil contains 1.7MWh of energy, a grilled cheese sandwich is about 435 Wh of energy. A barrel of oil contains the equivalent of about 3900 grilled cheese sandwiches. At 80$/barrel, that is a 0.02USD per sandwich.

How do you convert it to food?

Make asphalt sandwiches?

Can't oil be used as a fertilizer somehow?

Fissile uranium is a much denser energy source than oil. We should eat that first.

If you could convert the Uranium into a hydrocarbon first. Otherwise you would be an alchemist.

You could have a Uranium powered greenhouse, light and heat. Might be better to use it as an energy source for converting oil into food.

I mean, the US invaded two countries under false pretences and killed hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were disintegrated into dust, and instead of "offended letters" from some ambassadors, had many other countries show strong support.

But it's the middle east countries that are a problem.

The US-backed Middle Eastern countries can be a problem also.

Yes sadly, it is in fact the middle east countries that are the problem. That's why they got invaded.

Unfortunately, the biggest "problem country" in the middle east is the one that's the safest from US invasion.

Which countries were those?

Iraq was definitely invaded under false pretenses: "WMD".

Afghanistan was not: it really did have Al Qaeda training camps and the Taliban refused to do anything about it. Of course, you can argue that the US expanded the mission greatly from "squash OBL and AQ" to "overthrow the Taliban and turn Afghanistan into New Norway", which was doomed to failure, but the initial invasion (of the AQ camps) was justified. Don't forget, the US didn't just invade and take over all by itself: it partnered with some pre-existing rebel groups and helped them take over and set up a new government.

As to anyone with power caring, you're probably not far wrong, but it's not forgotten in the English Premier League, where one of the long-standing teams, Newcastle United, who've been playing in one form or another since 1892, were bought by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund: https://icdn.empireofthekop.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/S... Fans feel pretty powerless (and many Newcastle fans are dismayed too) but these protests are ongoing.

This is low quality commenting

What's the point of involving Saudis in the discussion? Are you a renewable energy researcher, investor or at least hobbyist? Don't you think it's important that countries around the world, despite major differences of human development, keep trying to build relationship? It's important to point out unacceptable behavior from any country, this article is very great in this respect But such bland generalizations (your comment, not the article) are good for family dinner not for sharing on the web

My point is that now bad behaviors commonly goes unpunished and that leads to the bad students to thrive and the good student to be ruined little by little.

Look at the Saudi and Fifa corruption examples, in both cases the bad states do not bear any bad consequences but here are the ones in the good parts of the world:

- corruption is expanded, giving an incentive to bad actors to have bad behaviors, leading honest democratic countries to the downard path.

- free voices (journalists and co) tone down in the whole world because of fear as it get obvious that bad actor can target you physically or economically wherever you are in the world.

Everybody is doing something that goes unpunished, just look closer.

You misunderstood the parent. Not everybody can do whatever they want. But those guys kind if can.

I think you would find that looking closer would reveal a world of difference.

Unfortunately they probably also contain lots of lithium. Just recently in Iran second biggest reserve is found. And lithium is the new black gold.

God I'm so sick of this nonsense. No, lithium is not 'black gold'. Lithium is absurdly common and availability of lithium is borderline meaningless.

Extract and refining lithium is a tiny business and even with many more years of growth its still a pretty tiny business. It will never be even close to oil in any meaningful metric.

Its not an energy source is a 3% of a storage medium for energy. And on the is common. And can be recycled.

It's not an energy source, but if worldwide demand for lithium-based batteries goes up exponentially with electrification of transport modes and use for grid storage systems, then the value of lithium will also go up greatly.

I mean US still has the torture chambers of Guantanamo bay, not to mention all the war crimes and “collateral” damage from the wars and “special operations” over the years. So really at least Saudis got backlash and had to absolve their king, US ignored the backlash and continues injustice. At least the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are over, but every day the US military apparatus gains blood on its hands, even if indirectly (I’m thinking specifically sanctions targeted at Afghanistan, among other unjust things the US supports).

https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-yem...

It is not possible for a country in the position of the US to not get its hands dirty, this isn't a touchy feel world. You are engaging is false equivocation.

False equivocation? Certainly the US doesn’t need to get involved or hands dirty with everything; this is a choice by its leaders. It is a government policy to enable such cruelty and use soft power to manipulate perceptions.

The false equivocation is calling out other countries when similar or worse atrocities have been carried out by the Us and there still are no reparations, restitutions, or repercussions to dissuade continued US aggression and transgression.

I am all for scrutiny of governments, but to leverage one against another while ignoring or downplaying, it is not a real argument, it’s optics.

The comparison is between countries with wildly different roles in the world my friend. It is not apt.

That type of belief is, in my opinion, self-serving and a way to justify geopolitical hierarchies. You may as well say the quiet part out loud that people from weaker countries are worth less.

I am not American. People in weaker countries are geopolitically worth less. Geopolitical hierarchies don't need to be justified, simply observed.

It is not as if the rest of the planet will simply fall into line with your Kumbaya attitude, so empty moralizing rhetoric is self-serving, sorry.

Being in Qatar Govt higher position is like finding interesting ways to throw money and do something fun at the expense of other countries/ groups/ people. Too much easy money and not many things to do to feed your own ego.

Isn't that the same with Qatar/UAE/Saudi Arabia/Russia or any other wealthy nation run as an autocracy / dictatorship.

They very well know what they have (oil and resources) is valuable, and consumer countries will look the other way unless they directly declare war with a NATO country.

It is 2023. You should pretty much assume you are on camera or being tracked some how unless you are taking steps to avoid that. If you want to talk about something criminal, assume your phone or computer is listening and don't talk beside them. There have been countless stories about client and lawyers being spied on and assuming anything otherwise is foolish if you have something to loose. Basically need to go stand in the ocean while the waves wash past you with your back to the shore so no once can read your lips and have a private conversation.

Or you can be those rich and powerful assholes, get recorded and face no consequences at all. Sounds much easier.

In what way is “just be rich lmao” easier?

These middle eastern countries may be scum, but I have some admiration for them. At least, they achieved something with their oil resources and built wealth, unlike let's say, Venezuela and my country Nigeria that are so rich in resources yet poor in money, intellect and morals.

Venezuela is so useless. Won’t even allow the US to coup them.

How is that 'useless'?

I suspect the poster saying "useless" meant to be ironic.

I suspected that but I needed to be sure.

I agree with you to some extent concerning Nigeria. But Nigeria oil reserve and output is not in the same league as Saudi. This is very fundamental. Another one is population. Nigeria is 9 times more populated than Saudi.

and unlike Saudi which is a Sunni monarchy with classes while Nigeria is a very large heterogeneous country with many groups

My understanding is that foreign oil companies make the vast amount of the profits and that most Nigerians don't much of any of the bounty.

https://phys.org/news/2022-09-nigeria-oil.html

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Nigerian-Oil-Swin...

This is different in many middle eastern companies where the state is the oil company or is in firm control.

We have a state-owned oil company called the Nigerian National Petroleum Commission (NNPC), but it is led by corrupt dunces that have no clue of what they're doing, so they've missed out on the recent oil boom that would have brought a lot of foreign exchange and strengthened our economy.

Picture this; we are Africa's largest oil exporter but have no local refinery. In other words, we get foreign exchange for selling oil then turn back and use those dollars to acquire end products instead of manufacturing those products by ourselves. We are corrupt and useless just like every other African country.

Nigeria has 200 million people and only a fraction of the oil industry of Saudi Arabia.

Qatar and UAE have vastly different demographics.

I've been really enjoying MLS since Apple launched their Season Pass. Sure, the skill level isn't what you'll find at the EPL or European league level, but it's nice to support football/soccer that isn't governed by overly corrupt organizations like FIFA and UEFA. There is also a lot less diving and dramatic acting which helps keep the pace exciting, and Apple's production is top notch.

How long are we going to keep filling their pockets and let them do whatever. Oil money already owns much of European soccer and now they started doing the same with golf. And we're just sitting here watching it happen.

So? We knew they were doing all kinds of shady stuff long before the World Cup. Why did FIFA go ahead with the World Cup in Qatar if all this stuff was happening? An organization with actual balls would have called the whole thing off and banned the offending country from international football for 10 years.

FIFA probably used to be about balls at some point in time. Now they're all 'bout tha moneh, after funeh, in a rich man's wierld.

FIFA has been known to be corrupt for many decades. They might have had 'balls' 100 years ago when the was little money in it, but I its not that likely.

Because FIFA is IOC-level corrupt? Any governing body of a high-value competition structure becomes corrupt to one level or another, a very small number of individuals can be bribed to obtain a desired outcome, and when the desired outcome is prestige the multiplier is almost infinite.

And supporters with actual balls would have boycotted the World Cup in Qatar.

Turns out (almost) nobody gave a shit, it was business as usual.

Well, I boycotted it but I suspect that made little difference.

Problem is that if an institution (like the BBC) boycotted the Qatar World Cup, they'd almost certainly be in breach of contracts and banned from future world cups (and depending how vindictive FIFA wanted to be, UEFA and Premier League coverage too.)

So the fact that the event goes against human rights is not enough to cancel a contract? What a sad world we live in.

> [Qatar] therefore launched an international espionage and influence operation over several years, with the help of ex-CIA agents.

Ouch. That "ex-CIA" thing is interesting, as the US is legally going after some US ex-military aviators for training (military?) people in China.

Feels like a double standard of sorts.

Yes, and 30 other countries had bugs in the same room. So what?

Why is there a secret meeting? can they meet in public?

Nobody cares. They have monay!!!

Why we continually engage with the Middle East outside Israel is beyond me.

Oil and gas, what else?

Suez canal, arms sales, preventive measures

Realpolitik. Goes back to FDR. Reportedly he once said (in a different context): He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.

Disengaging or virtue signaling would be a mistake. The world is filled with unpalatable regimes that the US needs to handle somehow.

Frankly, if we follow your attitude to its natural conclusion you'd disengage from most of South America, Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe.

Actually, if it was Realpolitik then the US would engage in a off-shore balancing approach. Not giving unending support to the Saudi-Israel alliance. In fact, the US would gain strategic power by stopping to be so anti Iran. In a more neutral position both nations have far more to lose.

And the Saudis are rightfully panicked about this ever happening and Israel-Saudi alliance spend absurd amount of money in Washington, including think-tanks, employing generals, paying politicians, producing fake intelligence, grand standing and many other methods to make sure not even a slight change in position towards Iran is ever allowed.

As the US, literally putting yourself in the position where you have no other choice then being somebodies little toothless bitch isn't actually good realpolitk. Letting Saudi money so directly influence US politics is idiotically dumb in fact.

You might want to reconsider this take by reading the news of the day: Iran and Saudi Arabia just had a rapprochement brokered by... the Chinese. Whoopsie daisy.

Implying that Israel is neutral or good?

Some people argue that Israel is an Apartheid state.[1] Why should “we”/you(plural) engage with that?

[1] Chomsky argues that even that is a compliment https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/07/03/chomsky-israel...

Is there any reason why we should engage with an apartheid state?

Yeah, I mean israel is just pure good. Ignoring the apartheid state, the open air prison, violation of international law, secret hidden nuclear weapons, bombing and attacking foreign nation more consistently then Russia, conducting international spying and information campaigns, influencing election, assassinating foreign scientists, producing false evidence accusing other nations of building nuclear weapons (the irnoy) and that just the first few things that jump to mind.

They are such a great ally, they have done all those great things. Like in the Golf War 1, when they did literally nothing and they were the biggest hindrance to forming a coalition. Or that time where they broke all agreements with the US and made a 2-state solution practically impossible. Or when a war they started led to mass radicalization, that motivated directly motivated the 911 bombers to join AQ. Or when top level Israeli officials literally said they preferred ISIS and certainty wouldn't help much defeating them, bombing the forces who were fighting ISIS.

Israel is such a great ally, they really have earned unending friendship and support. They are not at all like other nations in the middle east.

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