Qatar, 60 minutes piece.

Anyone see the piece about Qatar on 60 minutes? Seems like Utopia until I rewound a second time and realized there were about 250K actual Qatar residents, and over a million from other countries to do the work. That part was not addressed. How do they live?

Anyone been there?


c

 

I think it's like Saudi Arabia where the ruling class doesn't lift a finger to do anything. They bring in foreign nationals from poorer countries to do ALL the work. If you have enough oil revenue why should anybody in your family/country work?

 

Cradle to grave, that's for sure. The Emir was asked about his tenacity in peace keeping in the Region. They own Al-Jazeera TV, and have been accused of being peace-niks I guess. His response was kind of funny, something to the effect of 'a Country as small as ours, do you not think peace is a good idea' - thought that was a good answer.


c

 

I saw the piece. It's called oil money. There is another country like that. It's called Norway. They have a fund set up where all the profits going into a pool to pay for all their social services like in Qatar. Of course we could drill in this country and do that but we might kill some endangered lizard so the environmentalists would just have us import our oil.

 

So, drill for oil, establish socialism? Hmm, perhaps a bit too many mouths to feed here, no matter how big the oil money.

I just thought it was interesting. Small, rich country, with the biggest media outlet in the region. Pushing peace? How dare they?


c

 

They are not pushing peace.

Beginning in 1992, Qatar has built intimate military ties with the United States, and is now the location of U.S. Central Command’s Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center.

Like Israel, we protect Qatar, more specifically, we protect their oil.

 

Not sure I understand your point here. Are you saying that because the U.S. is their ally, that they are against peace? That would make it seem we are against peace. I'm sure you don't mean that, it just reads that way?

I did see where they dispatched aircraft for humanitarian purposes.


c

 

I thought it was "our oil" and that they were only accidentally born on top of it.

 

The oil rich countries in the middle east have been given a brief moment in time to control their destinies. They can spend all the capital that is pouring into their bank accounts to make their lives easier and invest around the world. I think this is a mistake. Making life easier is going to be temporary and investments are going to disappear when they eventually run out of oil and they have to compete in the world.

There is little, other than oil, in the ME that the world needs or wants. I think those countries should be building universities and research facilities and try to become the intellectual and research capitol of the world. Actual manufacturing would be difficult without nearby resources. And, without those resources available to them they need something to offer the world. The logical solution is to become the place the world goes for education and cutting edge research.

But no, they have a religion that creates power struggles, war and murder as the way of life. Unless they can get rid of Islam, in 100 years they will be riding camels across the desert again and having their little tribal conflicts. The rest of the world won't care about them anymore.

 

I tend to agree. In Qatar they have several U.S. Universities to educate their people. Perhaps, hopefully in the short term, this Western influence will re-direct their centuries old tribalism. I wouldn't count on it, but we can hope.


c