The U.S. Has Put Six Worse Things Than the World Cup in Qatar, by David Swanson

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis meets with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and Defense Minister Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Sept. 28, 2017

Image by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jette Carr via U.S. Secretary of Defense via Flickr

by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy, Nov. 21, 2022
November 22, 2022

Here’s a video of John Oliver denouncing FIFA for putting the World Cup in Qatar, a place that uses slavery and abuses women and abuses LGBT people. It’s a video about how everyone else glosses over nasty truths. Oliver drags in Russia as a past World Cup host that abuses protesters, and even Saudi Arabia as a possible host in the distant future that commits all sorts of atrocities. My concern is not just that the U.S., as one of the planned hosts four years hence, gets a pass on its general behavior. My concern is that the U.S. has far outdone FIFA this year, and every year, in Qatar. The U.S. has put six things into that horrific little oil dictatorship, each of which is worse than the World Cup.

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