July 16, 2017

WaPo: UAE Hacked Qatar to Invent Pretense for Retaliation

Nikku/Xinhua via ZUMA

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As you know, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries have imposed a blockade on Qatar, allegedly due to concerns over Qatar’s support for various and sundry terrorist groups. The blockade began in May, after Qatar’s official news agency published incendiary remarks from Qatar’s leader, and then claimed they had been hacked:

The fake article quoted Qatar emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani as calling Iran an “Islamic power” and saying Qatar’s relations with Israel were “good” during a military ceremony.

The Qatari state television’s nightly newscast…scrolling ticker…included calling Hamas “the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” as well as saying Qatar had “strong relations” with Iran and the United States. “Iran represents a regional and Islamic power that cannot be ignored and it is unwise to face up against it,” the ticker read at one point. “It is a big power in the stabilization of the region.”

Hacked? Get serious. Does anyone seriously believe that—

The United Arab Emirates orchestrated the hacking of Qatari government news and social media sites in order to post incendiary false quotes attributed to Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, in late May that sparked the ongoing upheaval between Qatar and its neighbors, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

Officials became aware last week that newly analyzed information gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed that on May 23, senior members of the UAE government discussed the plan and its implementation. The officials said it remains unclear whether the UAE carried out the hacks itself or contracted to have them done.

That’s from the Washington Post. The UAE denies everything, of course.

This is a very big deal. For starters, what are the odds that the UAE did this alone? Pretty slim, I think. Saudi Arabia was almost certainly involved too. And what does President Trump do now? He’s taken the Saudi side of this dispute, but now his own intelligence agencies are telling him that other Arab countries conducted the hack as a deliberate way of giving themselves an excuse to create the blockade. In fact, he probably learned this a week ago.

Someone in the intelligence community apparently decided that (a) Trump was never going to go public with this, and (b) it really needed to become public. But who? And why?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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