We Seem to Have a Failure to Communicate Over Qatar

Msgt. Lance Cheung/Planet Pix via ZUMA

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Wait a second. WTF is going on here?

Qatar will sign a deal to buy as many as 36 F-15 jets from the U.S. as the two countries navigate tensions over President Donald Trump’s backing for a Saudi-led coalition’s move to isolate the country for supporting terrorism. Qatari Defense Minister Khalid Al-Attiyah and his U.S. counterpart, Jim Mattis, completed the $12 billion agreement on Wednesday in Washington, according to the Pentagon.

A couple of weeks ago the president of the United States goaded Saudi Arabia into leading a blockade of Qatar. It was time to crack down on support for Iranian-backed terrorists! Today, his secretary of defense agreed to sell Qatar three dozen F-15s. I guess Trump must have forgotten to tell Mattis that Qatar was on the presidential shit list.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

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