How naivety has led to chaos and the breakdown of western civilization
By Neville Berman
In the 1970’s and 80’s America was preoccupied with the Cold War against the Soviets. The Communists were the enemy and everything else was secondary. The disastrous Vietnam war cost America 58,000 lives and untold treasure and losses. In December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in support of the Afghan government who were fighting the Mujahideen. Osama bin Laden decided to join the Mujahideen.
Bin Laden was born in Riyadh. His father was a devout Sunni Muslim born in Yemen. The family became billionaires in the construction business in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah and attended courses in 1971 in Oxford where he learnt English. He was educated and rich and became a pupil of Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, a militant Islamic preacher. In 1979, Azzam fled to Afghanistan. He was the key figure who persuaded Bin Laden to come to Afghanistan to help the Mujahideen in their fight against the Soviets.
In 1986, the American administration had the bright idea of making the Russians suffer in Afghanistan by supplying the Mujahideen with shoulder fired American Stinger missiles. The Russian helicopters had no defence against the missiles. After losing 15,000 soldiers, the Russians decided to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1979. The Mujahideen lost between 75,000- 90,000 fighters but celebrated the fact that they had defeated a superpower. It emboldened Islamists across the world. The decision to arm the Mujahideen would have unintended consequences for America and the world.
The year before the Afghan-Soviet war ended, Osama Bin Laden used his wealth and organizational skills to form a new organization in Afghanistan called Al-Qaeda. It attracted thousands of followers. His aim was nothing less than the destruction of America and the promotion of Islam across the world. He had no interest in the Palestinians.
In August 1998, Al-Qaeda simultaneously attacked American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. 224 people were killed and about 4,500 were injured. Twelve of those killed were American citizens. In October 2000, al-Quada attacked the US destroyer USS Cole in Aden in a suicide attack by a small boat packed with explosives. Seventeen American sailors were killed and 37 wounded.
On September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda attacked America directly. Nineteen terrorists boarded four American civilian aircraft. They hijacked the planes and flew two into the World Trade Center in New York, one into the Pentagon in Arlington Virginia, and the fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attacked the hijackers. 2,977 people were killed on 9/11. Tens of millions of Muslims around the world celebrated the attacks. Islam was on the march.
In response, America decided on another brilliant idea. They attacked Iraq. They claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and supported Al-Qaeda. Sadam Hussein needed to be removed from power. No weapons of mass destruction and no link to Al-Qaeda were ever found. The attack angered the majority of the 1.7 billion Muslims that existed in the world in that time frame. The West then had another brilliant idea. In the name of multiculturalism, equal opportunity and diversity, it opened its borders to millions of migrants with no money, no education and a totally different culture. The majority of new immigrants arriving in the West, were not interested in assimilation. They arrived full of hatred and would soon use the right of “free speech” to bring chaos to the countries that welcomed them. The West had sown the seeds of its own demise.
After the attack on 9/11, it took America another ten years to find and eliminate bin Laden in Pakistan. His death did not end the Islamists aim of subjugating the West. The success of bin Laden, inspired the establishment of Islamic terrorist groups such as Boko Haram in Africa and numerous other terrorist groups in the Middle East and across the world. The Al Thani family that controls Qatar also stepped into the breach.
Qatar has over 25 billion barrels of proven oil reserves and sells approximately 1.7 million barrels of oil per day. It is overflowing with wealth. Qatar has approximately 320,000 citizens and is punching way above its actual weight limit. It is using a much more sophisticated strategy to that of bin Laden to undermine the West. It is using its enormous wealth to corrupt and influence the world to promote militant Islam. It has established a TV channel called Al Jazeera that operates in 150 countries and broadcasts to over 430 million households in both English and Arabic. It broadcasts 24/7 the Islamic world view of subjugation and jihad. Al- Jazeera has radicalised thousands of Muslims living in the West.
Qatar is portraying itself as an ally of the West. Their leaders appear on American TV speaking perfect English and smiling. The uneducated and ignorant American public lap it up. Qatar is using its massive wealth to buy whatever it wants. Everyone wants to do business with Qatar. Greed has no limits. Instead of blowing up buildings in the West, Qatar is buying buildings and whatever else it needs to buy in order to gain influence in the West. It has given massive loans to people who influence government policies. It has poured billions of dollars into sponsoring Departments of Middle Eastern Studies at the leading universities in America. Only lecturers who are known to be antisemitic and against western values are hired. The aim is for them to educate the next leaders of America to change its support for Israel and to promote the destruction of the West. They have already succeeded in creating chaos across America and many other countries. Qatar openly supports the Muslim Brotherhood that aims at achieving a world dominated by Sharia law. Qatar has supported Hamas with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. Hamas is a designated terrorist group with a genocidal policy of killing all the Jews in Israel. Hamas hopes to remain in power in Gaza in order to repeat the atrocities that it committed against Israel on October 7,2023. Israel is determined to prevent this from happening. Hamas is not a boy scouts’ movement. Qatar has become the home of several of the leaders of Hamas. They and their families live in luxury in Doha, while the people in Gaza live in the squalor that they created.
In 1996, America entered into a Defence Cooperation Agreement with Qatar and built the Al Udeid Air Base in the south east of Doha. The base is the largest American air force base in the Middle East. About 10,000 American troops are based there. In effect America is protecting Qatar, while Qatar is actively trying to corrupt and destroy the American way of life in America, A more absurd situation is hard to imagine.
The bottom line is that oil and money have replaced the very foundation pillars of western democracy, including the rule of law, human rights and other values. It’s time to wake up to reality. Qatar is playing a double game. It is not a Western ally in any sense of the word. It is actively supporting the demise of the West. The question now is:
“Are there leaders in the West who understand what is taking place and have enough backbone to take action?”
About the writer:
Accountant Neville Berman had an illustrious sporting career in South Africa, being twice awarded the South African State Presidents Award for Sport and was a three times winner of the South African Maccabi Sportsman of the Year Award. In 1978 he immigrated to the USA to coach the United States men’s field hockey team, whereafter, in 1981 he immigrated to Israel where he practiced as an accountant and then for 20 years was the Admin Manager at the American International School in Even Yehuda, Israel. He is married with two children and one granddaughter.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
