It is easy to understand the emir of Qatar’s politics: He always stands with both feet planted firmly in mid-air, one on either side of the fence. The emir rules a nation whose principal exports are oil, natural gas, terrorism and hypocrisy. Qatar is the home of the largest American airbase in the Arab world, which should make it a partner in the war on terrorism. But at the same time, Qatar is a safehouse for the leaders of nearly every terrorist group that America is fighting.
Leaked State Department cables make it very clear that over the years our government has known all about Qatar’s duplicitous performance in the war on terror, including its “permissive funding” of terrorist groups:
“According to leaked documents…Qatar’s record of counter-terrorism efforts was the ‘worst in the region.’ The cable suggested that Qatar’s security service was ‘hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the US and provoking reprisals.’”
The American government is not alone in this low opinion. Several Sunni majority Arab states have recently cut off ties with Qatar, citing its financial support of Iranian-backed Shiite terrorist groups. President Trump loudly condemned Qatar’s terrorist connection and then did an about-face, selling them $12 billion dollars’ worth of American warplanes. Qatar knows that no matter what trouble they get into, money will usually buy their way out. Maybe not this time.
The rulers of Qatar usually get what they want, because Qatar always has a lot of money. In fact, its 300,000 citizens are the wealthiest per capita in the entire world. Look at the way they bribed the international soccer organization, FIFA, into choosing Qatar to be the first Arab nation to host the World Cup.
Now bribing FIFA officials is not that unusual, but forcing athletes to play in a desert country in the summer where temperatures on the field can range from 115 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit borders on cruel and unusual punishment. At those temperatures, soccer players could faint from heat stroke before the game is over. Not to worry: Qatari money convinced FIFA to change the rule book for Qatar and allow special timeouts so that the players will be able to cool off under showers.
Well that’s okay for the athletes, but what about the fans? Won’t the people in the audience risk heatstroke just from watching the game in that kind of heat? I think 130 degrees cooks any kind of meat medium to well done. Do they want human beings to sit in that kind of temperature for hours at a time?
Not to worry, say the Qataris. They will build new soccer stadiums equipped with electronic misters and fans for the fans. Do you want to bet that only the Qatari bigwigs will get air conditioned boxes? So, who will build all these new World Cup stadiums? There are only a handful of citizens in Qatar and none of them ever work with their hands. Too dirty.
The 300,000 citizens of Qatar have brought in two million foreign workers to help them out. As a result, Hinduism, not Islam, is temporarily the largest religion practiced in some regions of Qatar. These citizens of India who work in Qatar are given a special status: slaves. It does not say “slaves” on their Qatari visas, but that is how the foreign workers are treated once they arrive in Qatar.
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