US prepares for war against Yemen

[Muzk]

WASHINGTON — In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen.

US Widens Terror to Yemen, a Qaeda Bastionhttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/world/middleeast/28yemen.html

Journalists everywhere were given a rude break from their vacations when Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab attempted his Christmas Day airplane bombing.http://trueslant.com/nealungerleider/2009/12/29/the-united-states-secret-war-in-yemen/

But White House officials could confirm that Obama telephoned Yemen's, Ali Abdallah Salih, after the raids to "congratulate" him on his efforts to combat al-Qaida.http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/dec/29/obama-war-on-terror-yemen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lOYLtSEZA&feature=sub

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

Does that guy go out in public dressed like that?

[Rusty Shackleford]

war against Yemen or war with Yemen? War against yemen would mean against the government but if he is for their government then it would be war with Yemen kind of like USSR and Afghanistan.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3827278,00.html


The US and Yemen are looking at new targets in Yemen for a potential retaliation strike, two senior American officials told CNN Tuesday following the failed Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, which al-Qaeda (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3478471,00.html)in Yemen claims it organized. answers my question. its in collaboration with the Yemeni government. i doubt it will be an actual invasion.


so much for a Nobel Peace prize huh? retaliatory strikes?

[Buffalo Souljah]

Woo-hoo!:laugh:

[KurtFF8]

Impoverished Yemen wracked by conflict (http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=13287&news_iv_ctrl=1009)


Monday, November 30, 2009
By: Jane Cutter Saudi, U.S. governments look to preserve the status quo
The conflict in Yemen has heated up in recent days, with a fresh round of Saudi air strikes targeting Yemeni villages Nov. 27 and battles between Houthi rebel forces and Yemen’s military Nov. 28.
http://www.pslweb.org/images/content/pagebuilder/59747.jpg
Buildings burn in Sa'ada, Yemen, following an
airstrike carried out by Saudi Arabian forces. Yemen, the poorest nation in the Arab world, is experiencing two different conflicts in the north and in the south of the country, only recently unified in 1990.
Starting Nov. 5, Saudi Arabia's military launched air and artillery attacks on Yemen’s Sa’ada province against Houthi rebels. This action by a U.S. client state in the region represents a major development in the civil conflict, ongoing since 2005.
The Houthis are members of the Zaydi branch of Shi’ite Islam. The majority of the population in the North identify with Zaydism, which is only found in Yemen.
The Zaydi Imamate ruled northern Yemen in a feudal theocracy from the eighth century until it was overthrown by the Republican Revolution in 1962. The revolution ushered in the beginning of capitalist development in the impoverished and underdeveloped nation.
The Yemeni government accuses the Houthi rebels of wishing to bring back theocratic rule; the Houthi leaders claim they oppose the corruption of the central government and only seek more autonomy for their region.
The Saudi government is weighing in on the side of the Yemeni government. Interestingly, during the eight-year civil war that followed the assassination of the imam, Saudi Arabia supported the very royalists that today the Houthis are accused of wanting to restore. In that civil war, Britain and Saudi Arabia, both backed by the United States, provided material aid to the royalists while Egypt sent troops with Soviet material aid to back the republicans.
The conflict with the Houthis has been ongoing since 2005, leading to a major humanitarian crisis with an estimated 175,000 displaced people, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. U.N. agencies have charged the Yemeni government forces with torture against people in the north. The government has also been accused of using phosphorus bombs against the population in Sa’ada.
The Yemeni government claims the Iranian government is supporting the Houthi rebels. For its part, Iranian officials have insisted that foreign governments refrain from interfering in the conflict, in an obvious rebuke to the cross-border Saudi attack on Houthi forces.
The allegations against Iran—regardless of whether there is any truth to them—could become a pretext to turn Yemen into an arena for a wider war of U.S.-backed Yemeni and Saudi forces targeting Iran via the Houthi rebellion.
Upheaval in the south
In the south, the Peaceful Southern Mobilization Movement has been leading demonstrations against the central government and calling for southern secession from the north since 2007, raising the flag of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.
Massive demonstrations in southern cities over the summer were brutally attacked by government forces, with many demonstrators jailed. Most recently, armed forces associated with the Southern Movement have attacked Yemeni government security forces, leading to at least one death.
In contrast to the north, southern Yemen was colonized by Britain. The British were eventually forced to withdraw in 1967 by socialist revolutionaries, who founded the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. The two Yemens united in 1990, but civil war broke out in 1994 as the south attempted to secede due to dissatisfaction with the domination of the more socially backward, pro-capitalist north. The southern forces were defeated in 1994, and the unification project continued.
Yemen’s President Ali Abdallah Saleh has been in power since 1978. His central government depends on the cooperation of traditional and tribal elements, especially in remote, mountainous regions.
Ever since the end of the 1994 civil war, the Saleh government has pursued economic development through integration into the capitalist globalization process. This has resulted in the destruction of traditional Yemeni economic and social structures, and has led to an increasing gap between the tiny few who have profited from this process and the impoverished majority. Despite widespread poverty, Yemen has natural resources, including oil, and a rich history and culture with potential for tourism.
The Saleh government has allied itself with U.S. interests in the region, cooperating with the United States in fighting Somali “pirates” and collaborating with Washington in the “war on terror.” Al-Qaeda does have roots in Yemen—Osama bin Laden’s family is from the disputed region between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and a number of Yemenis fought with his organization in Afghanistan.
U.S. imperialists fear that if the Saleh government loses all authority in the remote, undeveloped regions of the nation, those regions might become a base for forces that are not aligned with U.S. interests. They are willing to faintly support Saleh—to the tune of $34 million last year—in order to hold Yemen together and maintain stability in the region, which includes Saudi Arabia as Yemen’s neighbor to the north and east.
Should the Saleh government fail to prevent a socialist-led state from seceding from the south or stop rebel forces from gaining the upper hand in the north, would the United States refrain from more forceful intervention? Anti-imperialists need to be on the alert for developments in this region and steadfastly oppose U.S. intervention, be it through direct military action or traditional proxy forces.


I'm not a big fan of that "news report" however. Full of absolutism (there WILL be a war) and conspiracy theories.


It will be interesting to see how the South of Yemen responds to this increased activity in their own country considering their history of socialist organizing.

[The Red Next Door]

I have enough of the iraq and afghanstan tv show, and now they are going to make another show where their main characters always died.

[Canadian Red]

Hes an Imperialist puppet just like Bush was. They gave him the peace prize for no reason... I mean he hadnt even done anything yet.

[Drace]

What interests does the US seek in Yemen?
Also, why are the Yemen officials in support of US intervention?


Hes an Imperialist puppet just like Bush was.Who?

[IrishWorker]

What interests does the US seek in Yemen?



Who?
Mr Obama the Capitalist Bastard.

[RedScare]

They'd have to enact the draft to have enough men to invade Yemen. It's more likely that they will just have a quiet covert ops war and give lots of money and material support to the current Yemeni government.

["Red Scum"]

For those who question US motives for the war as if none were given-


"As American investigators sought to corroborate the claims of a 23-year-old Nigerian man that Qaeda leaders in Yemen had trained and equipped him to blow up a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Day"

Sounds like a second 9/11 to me. Potentially this could be a perfectly legitimate assisted war against the (fascist and theistic let me remind you) Jihadists. Or it could be another Iraq. To be fair, as its not a full scale invasion (yet) and Yemen is a fairly small nation I can't see a huge amount of profit being made from ANOTHER unpopular war.

Think we may be jumping the gun here, seems like less of another unjust imperialistic attack and more of the US playing international police (which is also bad).

Bit of Deja Vu here, it reminds me of the Vietnam war- except against the islamists not the communists. I can live with that, just about.

[Revy]

Yemen? Wow, random!

All this bullshit Al-Qaeda talk too. I doubt Al-Qaeda has a real presence in Yemen. The article above talked about Shi'ite Houthi rebels.

[Canadian Red]

Yemen is a fairly small nation I can't see a huge amount of profit being made from ANOTHER unpopular war.


Yemen is actually quite a large nation. Its larger in geography than Germany and has 23 million people... Canada has somewhere around 30 million. I suppose they will be withdrawing from Iraq to fight this? If they dont I dont see how they could even dream of fighting a third war. They have their hands more than full with Afghanistan and Iraq. Even with a draft that would be difficult... remember they arnt fighting a government they're fighting a "civilian organization" of sorts. This is going nowhere FAST.

[Bitter Ashes]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6921403/Gordon-Brown-calls-crisis-meeting-over-Yemen.html

International crisis meeting about action to take regarding Yemmen...

They reckon there's 300 Al-Queda in Yemmen. Wonder how many will be left afterwards? 10,000? 100,000?

[ckaihatsu]

If the U.S. administration isn't going to say that this war is for *geostrategic positioning* (at the Strait of Hormuz, Red Sea), then *I will*.

[Bitter Ashes]

In case anyone's wodnering why war is profitable to the bourgois then take a look at how many North American and European contractors are working in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not just PMC's, but constuction firms and the like too. By destroying the infrastructure and killing skilled workers, they can charge whatever they like to repair it.

On top of that you have market forces to take into account. The forcable introduction of free trade means that supply rises, costs are driven down and proffits go up. Also, with the ending of the illegal drug trade means that depressed workers will seek legitmitate drugs like alchohol to try fill the void of losing illegal drugs.

[jake williams]

There's no way in hell there's gonna be an invasion. The fighting is in the north and that is really dangerously clost to Saudi Arabia, that could turn into a major shitfest. The US doesn't like invasions anyway, it's not any good at them, what it's good at is high tech bombing, which'll probably happen.

What it WILL be is an excuse to build up bases in Saudi and on the other side of the sea in probably Ethiopia, the whole Africom thing. I've been worried that Obama is going to go hard for Africom for a long time, and this is a great opportunity.

[Drace]

All this bullshit Al-Qaeda talk too. I doubt Al-Qaeda has a real presence in Yemen. The article above talked about Shi'ite Houthi rebels.

I read somewhere that there was about 250-300 Al-Qaeda members, hidden in a population of 23 million!
The US's bombings have already killed a few dozen civilians.

[Weezer]

WASHINGTON — In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/world/middleeast/28yemen.html
http://trueslant.com/nealungerleider/2009/12/29/the-united-states-secret-war-in-yemen/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/dec/29/obama-war-on-terror-yemen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lOYLtSEZA&feature=sub

You watch Maoist Rebel News too? Awesome! :thumbup1:

Oh, Bama...

[Luisrah]

I just heard on the news that the US accuse Yemen of working and supporting terrorist groups.

No doubt Yemen will be talked about. Something is gonna happen there

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

If a new war does break out at least its less likely to have European baking then the previous two, also i died inside when i saw that twat in the video.

[ComradeMan]

Nobel Peace Prize?

World gone mad.....

[革命者]

Al-qa'ida would have to relocate to another country. At least the Netherlands can still be used as a springboard; its like a naive little spoiled kid who sells robbed goods and thinks the rest of the world should follow its example of naivety mistaken for tolerance.

Its like the UK before they bombed the underground.

Strange how people with a history of exploitation can be so naive. Wonder whether it has to do anything with education:rolleyes:

[Labor Shall Rule]

It doesn't matter what Europe thinks.

Obama administration planners are perfectly aware that there is a national liberation movement with a popular base in the south, and they are orchestrating drone bombings on civilian targets as part of the strategy for breaking them. The Yemeni government is a puppet regime, and the president (i.e. dictator), Field Marshal Ali Abdullah Saleh, has just authorized the United States to enter Yemeni airspace with US hardware for that purpose.

In the end, the growth in anti-US violence and opinion shows that the imperial project in Yemen doesn't have much of a political future. If we fail, which we will, then the quisling government will too. The instability caused by the intervention could trigger a "domino effect" of regime-toppling if enough people get pissed from the combination of drone bombing and economic crisis.

[Atlanta]

the US and UK have shut there embassies in Yeman because of security concerns.

"They've had Yemen in their sights for a very long time ... at least as long as September 11."-director of center of terrorism studies....

[革命者]

They should change their name to "the moving base":)

[Communist]

What’s behind Detroit incident?

U.S. targets Yemen, harasses Nigeria (http://www.workers.org/2010/world/yemen_0114/)

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Detroit

Published Jan 6, 2010 7:22 PM


It appears from statements by Obama administration officials and U.S. intelligence sources that further military attacks are being planned against Yemen. This impoverished country on the Arabian Peninsula has been bombed several times in recent weeks. Reports indicate that the U.S. is behind these actions, in which dozens of people are reported to have been killed.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. military commander for Iraq and Afghanistan, visited Yemen on Jan. 2 and met with President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Around the same time, embassies of three leading imperialist states — the U.S., Britain and France — were closed, purportedly in response to threats from al-Qaida.

http://www.workers.org/2010/world/Yemen_map.png (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=yemen+map&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Yemen&gl=us&ei=yTZGS-riHoaGlAffi4GSAg&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CAoQ8gEwAA)


Yemen is now being described as dangerous in the same way that Afghanistan was labeled in 2001. The notion of a “failed state,” used against Afghanistan to justify the ongoing U.S. invasion and occupation there, is now being applied to Yemen.
Commentary by a constant flow of U.S. intelligence operatives and militarists is being put forward in the corporate media to condition the people for more aggressive military action against Yemen.
Over the last eight years hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia,
Yemen, Palestine, Pakistan and other countries targeted in the U.S. “war on terrorism.” The U.S. has the highest defense budget in its history, exceeding the combined military expenditures of all other nations in the world combined.
The latest “terrorist threat” dominating the corporate media is crowding out the economic crisis inflicted upon the people of the U.S. and the world.
Meanwhile, millions in the U.S. will lose their jobs, homes, health care and education over the next year while being told that the source of their problems is in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Nigeria. The Pentagon, through the corporate media, say that instability and terrorism require greater military expenditures.

Background to the present situation

On Dec. 25, U.S. authorities arrested a 23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, aboard Northwest/Delta Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam after it landed in Detroit. He is alleged to have tried to carry out a terrorist attack, resulting in a small fire aboard the plane. The authorities say Abdul Mutallab was either connected with al-Qaida or was sympathetic to its aims.
This incident raises a number of serious questions. Abdul Mutallab was reportedly granted a multiple-entry visa into the United States in June 2008, but this November his father, Alhaji Umaru Abdul Mutallab, a prominent and wealthy Nigerian banker, warned the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria about concerns related to his son’s behavior. The senior Mutallab had served as minister of economic development and reconstruction during the mid-1970s in the federal Nigerian government, then under military rule.
Why was Abdul Mutallab allowed to maintain his U.S. visa status and board a plane bound for the United States? There have been reports that he spent time in the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, implying a connection with al-Qaida. However, no specific evidence has emerged of such links.
Corporate media reports claim that Mutallab attempted to ignite substances that could have done substantial damage to the aircraft. What were they? What if these unidentified chemicals could not cause any real damage to the plane? After all, the suspect was the only person seriously injured. Could this incident have been something other than what is being widely reported by media outlets in the U.S. and internationally?
U.S. intelligence and media spokespersons have stated that Yemen is a base for al-Qaida. However, it is also a major field of operations for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon. The Yemeni government is in a military struggle with Islamic opposition groups; the country is divided politically and regionally.
On Dec. 24 — the day before the arrest of Mutallab — the Yemeni military carried out air strikes on what the Associated Press called “suspected al-Qaida hideouts,” killing at least 30 “militants” in a remote area of the country. The strikes “were carried out with U.S. and Saudi intelligence help. ... The newly aggressive Yemeni campaign against al-Qaida is being boosted by a dose of American aid, a reflection of Washington’s concerns about al-Qaida’s presence in a highly strategic location on the border with oil-rich ally Saudi Arabia.” (AP, Dec. 25)
This same article points out that “The Pentagon recently confirmed it has poured nearly $70 million in military aid into Yemen this year — compared with none in 2008. The U.S. military has boosted its counterterrorism training for Yemeni forces and is providing more intelligence, according to U.S. officials and analysts.”

Implications for Nigeria

In Nigeria some months ago the military and police killed several hundred people in a crackdown against an Islamic group, Boko Haram, whose leader was killed by the police. There is also a flareup in fighting in the Niger Delta region between groups fighting the Western-based oil firms that dominate the area and the federal government’s joint terrorism task force.
In a significant development, several Western-based transnational oil firms are threatening the Nigerian economy because of a deal to export oil to the People’s Republic of China that will bring Nigeria $50 billion in revenue. (Nigerian Daily Trust, Dec. 21)
As a result of the Dec. 25 incident, Nigerian nationals, along with people from a number of other states, have been targeted for special scrutiny at U.S. airports and flights bound for the country. The Transportation Security Administration also targets people from Cuba, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Somalia.
A Jan. 4 editorial in the Nigerian Vanguard newspaper angrily lashed out at the discriminatory policies instituted by the U.S. against Nigerian nationals. It challenged the Nigerian government to reject these new security measures imposed by the Obama administration.
This editorial says in part that “Nigerian authorities must stand up against the American posture of trying to label us a country of terrorists after the Christmas Day incident in which 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab tried to blow up a passenger aircraft as it was in landing in Detroit. Details of the case as they evolve have not shown any complicity on the part of Nigerian authorities or security lapses at the Murtala Muhammad Airport (Lagos) from which Mutallab’s flight originated.” (Vanguard, Jan. 4)
The editorial continues by pointing out that “As is their usual practice, American agencies find it convenient to blame others for everything. If they had taken the concerns on Farouk serious, the incident could have been avoided. Their first reaction was to heap the blame on Nigerians and they carried on as if the attack had the support of all Nigerians.”

Stepped up intervention and repression

These developments cannot be separated from the recent escalation of the U.S. war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. President Barack Obama announced at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Dec. 1 that his administration would be sending another 30,000 occupation troops into Afghanistan. This act is being carried out despite the overwhelming popular opposition in the United States to escalation of the Afghan war.
In Detroit, the FBI assassinated an African-American imam on Oct. 28. Investigation into the incident is being obstructed on several levels, including the refusal of authorities to release the autopsy of the slain Islamic leader, Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who had worked with the poor for decades on the city’s west side. The assassination has drawn protests and calls for an independent investigation.
Could Abdul Mutallab be a pawn in a scenario of international intelligence intrigue controlled and manipulated by the United States? Such threats of terrorism have been used in the past to deflect the attention of the people in the U.S. away from the worsening economic and political crisis facing the country.
Since 2001 the people of the United States have been subjected to reports of one foreign plot and conspiracy after another. At the same time, trillions of dollars have been literally stolen from them through real estate, insurance and bank fraud schemes, which the taxpayers have been forced to absorb. Unemployment rates are the highest since the Great Depression and a new upsurge in home foreclosures and evictions is forecast for 2010.
The plane incident, besides being used to intensify police presence at airports and throughout U.S. society, can also be utilized to justify and sway public opinion towards supporting the wars of occupation in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq and the extension of these imperialist efforts into the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean and Yemen.
One thing is certain. The United States government and ruling class have nothing to offer the people other than war, intensified domestic surveillance and economic austerity. If they can bombard the airwaves with threats of terrorism, it will block any real discussion about the economic crisis in the corporate-controlled media, which is heavily biased towards the Pentagon and Wall Street.
The question of “security” will take priority over the economic crisis, which has resulted in 34 million people out of work, the foreclosure of millions of homes, the closing of hundreds of schools and the forcing of tens of thousands of university students away from their studies due to the monumental escalation of fees and cutbacks in financial assistance.

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Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World (http://www.workersworld.net/wwp/pmwiki.php/Main/Background). Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

[Dimentio]

I have this sense that the USA soon won't be able to continue waging the war against terror. Or afford anything at all for that matter. The US economy seems to be in shreds.

[GPDP]

Anyone check out Obama's conference right now?

Predictably, he said what you'd expect: it was an intelligence failure, we need to step up security, and the US needs to stay steadfast in its fight against al-Qaeda, a fight between terror and hate, and liberty and justice. Blah blah blah American imperial-exceptionalist bullshit.

He did say, however, that if the security of the American people is compromised, it's ultimately his responsibility (read: his fault). That I agree with. This terror plot is very likely a direct result of American imperialist aggression, which Obama has chosen to escalate, and thus had it succeeded, the blood would have been on his hands. Shame that he, being the good little bourgeois shithead he is, would never admit that such would've been the case not because he wasn't paying enough attention to homeland security, but because his actions compromised it in the first place.

[Bitter Ashes]

I have this sense that the USA soon won't be able to continue waging the war against terror. Or afford anything at all for that matter. The US economy seems to be in shreds.
War is viewed as an investment. Thier buddies make more from war, than they spend on funding it. There's always money for war in Capitalism.

[Kléber]

That story from "MaoistRebelNews" is actually just him reading this story:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/yemn-d29.shtml

Most of "MaoistRebelNews'" stories are actually censored, unsourced versions of WSWS stories.

[#FF0000]

That story from "MaoistRebelNews" is actually just him reading this story:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/yemn-d29.shtml

Most of "MaoistRebelNews'" stories are actually censored, unsourced versions of WSWS stories.

If by most you mean "all" then yes.

[Communist]

----------------------------------

Left Margin

The Wars in Yemen: More Complex than We're Being Told

By Carl Bloice, BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
Black Commentator
January 7, 2010

http://www.blackcommentator.com/357/357_lm_yemen.php

It was one of those strange coincidences. First, there
are news reports about the involvement of Saudi Arabia
in attacking tribal rebels along the Saudi-Yemen
border. Then, a young Nigerian somewhat mysteriously
eludes security and tries to blow up and airliner
heading into Detroit and it is said he was trained and
equipped in Yemen. Next, the U.S. is bombing elements
of Al Qaeda in Yemen. Undeniably it was a fortunate
turn of events for the regime in Sana'a faced as it has
been for some time with a separatist campaign in the
south of the country and a growing insurgency in the
north, both of which are domestic movements and not
directed at the U.S. or any other foreign country.

One thing is clear. With Al Qaeda now in the picture
and linked to an attempted physical attack on the U.S.,
the Obama Administration, obsessively carrying on the
"war against terrorism," has suddenly become enmeshed
in still another civil war. That entanglement could
last a long time and involve all kinds of consequences.
And, don't think the U.S. just suddenly stumbled into
the situation. Back in May, New York Times
correspondent Robert Worth reported that the unrest in
the country had "prompted an unusual statement of
concern" (unrelated to any threat from Al Qaeda) by the
U.S "affirming American support for a unified Yemen and
urging all parties to "engage in dialogue to identify
and address legitimate grievances." That message was
delivered last Saturday in person by Gen. David
Petraeus, the U.S. military commander responsible for
the Middle East, following which the Times noted that
the Yemeni regime "is battling separatist movements and
is eager to have the use of American technology."

Now the people at the Times apparently aren't reading
their own back issues and go on blithely reporting as
if that history has only just begun and it's pretty
much all about Al Qaeda.

"The most recent round of violence began last Tuesday,
when government troops established an additional
checkpoint in the town of Radfan, in the southern Lahij
Province," Worth wrote May 4, 2009. "Angry local men
attacked the checkpoint, killing two soldiers and
injuring others. In the days since, demonstrations and
violence have broken out in other towns, with three
people killed in gun battles on Sunday.

"In recent weeks, a number of political figures have
begun openly demanding independence for the formerly
socialist south, which was autonomous until the two
Yemen's unified in 1990. A brief civil war in 1994 left
many southerners resentful of the north, and in the
past three years grievances have steadily grown. These
have been fueled mostly by economic disparities and the
demands of retired southern soldiers who said they had
not been paid their pensions."

"Yemen has all the explosive ingredients of Lebanon,
Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan," Patrick Coburn wrote in
The Independent (UK) last week. "But the arch-hawk
Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Committee
on Homeland Security, was happily confirming this week
that the Green Berets and the US Special Forces are
already there. He cited with approval an American
official in Sana'a as telling him that, `Iraq was
yesterday's war. Afghanistan is today's war. If you
don't act pre-emptively Yemen will be tomorrow's war.'
In practice pre-emptive strikes are likely to bring a
US military entanglement in Yemen even closer."

"The US will get entangled because the Yemeni
government will want to manipulate US action in its own
interests and to preserve its wilting authority,"
Coburn went on. "It has long been trying to portray
the Shia rebels in north Yemen as Iranian cats-paws in
order to secure American and Saudi support. Al Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) probably only has a few
hundred activists in Yemen, but the government of long
time Yemeni President Ali Abdulah Salih will portray
his diverse opponents as somehow linked to Al Qaeda.

"In Yemen the US will be intervening on one side in a
country which is always in danger of sliding into a
civil war. This has happened before. In Iraq the US was
the supporter of the Shia Arabs and Kurds against the
Sunni Arabs. In Afghanistan it is the ally of the
Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara against the Pashtun
community. Whatever the intentions of Washington, its
participation in these civil conflicts destabilizes the
country because one side becomes labeled as the
quisling supporter of a foreign invader. Communal and
nationalist antipathies combine to create a lethal
blend."

Coburn didn't delve into the long history and U.S.
involvement in Yemen and its collusion with Saudi
Arabia in trying to shape events in that country.
Actually, it's only the latest in the on-going saga
that began during the Cold War. Washington and Riyadh
team up to crush any left, secular or socialist
movement or government, the Saudis provide the money,
the U.S. comes through with arms, military training and
logistical support and desperate or religiously driven
young men are recruited for what they are told is holy
war.

In the late 1980 I was in South Yemen, then known of as
the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. It is
stunningly beautiful territory, home of warm and
engaging people. The leaders of the young socialist
regime faced some of the same problems faced by the
leaders in pre-Taliban Afghanistan and committed some
similar colossal blunders, including violent intericine
conflicts that set back the revolution. They were
secularists in their orientation and knew well what
they were up against. The same forces that gave rise to
groups like Al Qaeda actively sought to undermine the
PDRY.

In 1990, President Ali Abdullah Salish presided over
the Arab League arranged union of North Yemen and the
PDRY. At the time the latter faced a situation similar
to that of Cuba following the collapse of the Communist
USSR. Salih "also welcomed tens of thousands of Arab
fighters returning from the jihad against the Soviet
Union in Afghanistan, many of whom had been barred from
returning to their home countries," wrote Worth. "Four
years later, when a brief civil war broke out, Mr. Sale
sent those Islamist warriors to fight against the more
secular south."

For the mujahedeen returning from Afghanistan in the
early 1990s, the suppression of the godless South
Yemeni was a logical continuation of their victorious
war against the Soviets in the Hindu Kush," wrote
Yassin Musharbash, Volker Windfuhr and Bernhard this
week in Spiegel (Germany). "Even today, Afghanistan
veterans have ties that reach as far as President
Saleh's innermost circle. Sheik Abdulmajid al-Zindani,
known as the "red sheik," is a former associate of bin
Laden and is one of the most powerful people in Yemen."

"That was the start of a pragmatic relationship with
the militants that would come to trouble Mr. Salih's
alliance with the United States." wrote Worth in the
Times. "After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, fearing
that Yemen could become the target of an American
invasion, he flew to Washington and promised President
Bush that he would cooperate in the fight against
terrorism. He rounded up thousands of jihadists who had
fought in Afghanistan, and since then Yemen's new elite
American-trained counterterrorism forces have captured
and killed a number of militants."

At the same time, the Yemeni president angered his U.S.
benefactors by refusing to go after, or pardoning,
individuals deemed terrorists with who we had political
ties. Like Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai he would
resort to charging interference if pressed to hard from
Washington.

The Shiite Houthi rebellion in the north of country
grew stronger last year "and reached the margins of the
capital." wrote Worth. "Now that policy of divide and
rule appears to have run beyond his control. Some
current and former government officials say the rebels
have struck humiliating blows," he continued. "They
have gained support among Yemeni tribes, and have
bought weapons from the Yemeni military, which is said
to have suffered desertions.

Enter al-Qaeda

We often see Yemen - like Afghanistan - referred to as
"a desperately poor country."

That's a bit of an understatement. For a long time simply proving
sufficient food for the population has been a problem,
there is severe water shortage and the current global
financial crisis has only worsened the situation. The
unemployment rate last year was 35 percent. Nearly half
of its 22 million people (median age: 16.5) live on $2
a day. To make matters worse in 1990 when Yemen refused
to join the war against Iraq, Saudi Arabia expelled
850,000 Yemeni workers in response.

According to the Observer (UK), the alleged underwear
bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is said to have
received Al-Qaida training at a camp run by Al Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula, which has claimed responsibility
for the failed attack, saying it was in retaliation for
the US military support to the Yemen government. "But
disentangling a hostile local population from the Al
Qaeda fighters and leaders who have infiltrated the
region will be a hugely difficult task," said the
newspaper. "Senior Yemeni officials told the Observer
that Al Qaeda had been successful at buying the loyalty
of local people." "No one gets recruited free of
charge. Al-Qaida come with resources to pay people,'
said Abdel Karim Aryani, an adviser to President Ali
Abdullah Saleh. "The religious appeal helps, but
poverty is at the root of all Yemen's problems,
including Al Qaeda."

Speaking to the Observer, the commander of Yemen's
British- and US-trained counter-terrorism forces warned
of the difficulties of attacking al-Qaida where it is
hosted by local tribes. "Al Qaeda touch on very
sensitive issues in tribal areas. They come in the name
of God and religion and talk about Palestine and the
occupation of Iraq and people sympathize with them,"

"What we are seeing is a pattern of franchises for Al
Qaeda opening up," Riad Kahwaji, a Gulf security
analyst in Dubai, told Aljazeera.

"These groups are emerging in these countries,
operating on a common strategy which is: to engage the
US and its allies in Europe and in the region, to open
various fronts simultaneously - or one after the other
- in a way to keep the US and their allies off
balance," he said.

"It's a war of attrition."

"It is extraordinary to see the US begin to make the
same mistakes in Yemen as it previously made in
Afghanistan and Iraq," wrote Coburn. "What it is doing
is much to Al Qaeda advantage. The real strength of Al
Qaeda is not that it can `train' a fanatical Nigerian
student to sew explosives into his underpants, but that
it can provoke an exaggerated US response to every
botched attack. Al Qaeda leaders openly admitted at the
time of 9/11 that the aim of such operations is to
provoke the US into direct military intervention in
Muslim countries.

"In Yemen the US is walking into the Al Qaeda trap.
Once there it will face the same dilemma it faces in
Iraq and Afghanistan. It became impossible to exit
these conflicts because the loss of face would be too
great. Just as Washington saved banks and insurance
giants from bankruptcy in 2008 because they were "too
big to fail," so these wars become too important to
lose because to do so would damage the US claim to be
the sole superpower.

"In Iraq the US is getting out more easily than seemed
likely at one stage because Washington has persuaded
Americans that they won a non-existent success. The
ultimate US exit from Afghanistan may eventually be
along very similar lines. But the danger of claiming
spurious victories is that such distortions of history
make it impossible for the US to learn from past
mistakes and instead it repeats them by fresh
interventions in countries like Yemen."

"Preventing terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland has
nothing to do with occupying vast tracts of land or
winning the hearts and minds of backward villagers whom
we falsely depict as surrogates of an evil empire, as
we did in Vietnam and are now doing in Afghanistan,"
wrote Robert Scheer in truthdig.com last week. "What is
needed is smart police work to catch these highly
mobile fanatics, and that begins with actually reading
and then acting on the readily available intelligence
data. It requires detectives with brains and not
generals with firepower.

"The ballooning of the defense budget after 9/11 has
proved a great boondoggle for the military-industrial
complex, which suddenly found an excuse to build
weapons and deploy conventional forces against a
superpower enemy that no longer exists. But our stealth
fighters and bombers designed to defeat Soviet defenses
that were never built are a poor match against a
terrorist's stealth underwear."

________________________

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Carl Bloice
is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National
Coordinating Committee of the Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly
worked for a healthcare union.

_____________________________________________





Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.

[Chambered Word]

Nobel Peace Prize?

World gone mad.....

Look, after reactionary bastards like Woodrow Wilson and Henry Kissinger get the prize, it really doesn't mean jack anymore does it? :rolleyes:

[Comrade B]

Anyone remember when everyone on here was talking about how the US is going to war with Iran?...

The US will shout and shake their fist, but they aren't going into another war soon. Do you really think Obama would risk his reelection on invading Yemen?
The US is evil, not stupid.

It wouldn't surprise me if the US started giving weapons to Yemen, or started drone strikes, but I really don't expect the US to enter another war within the next 4 years.

[Communist]

-----------------------

Dispatches From The Edge

Yemen: Terrorist Haven, or Chess Piece? (http://www.portside.org/?q=showpost&i=7164)

By Conn Hallinan (http://www.alternet.org/authors/1180)

"The instability in Yemen is a threat to
regional stability and even global stability"

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"Yemen is a regional and global threat"

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown

"Yemen could be the ground of America's
next overseas war if Washington does not
take preemptive action to root out al-Qaeda there"

U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn)

A few facts:

Yemen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemen)-a country slightly smaller than France with a
population of 22 million-perches on the southern tip of
the Arabian Peninsula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabian_Peninsula). It is the poorest country in the
region, with one of the most explosive birthrates in
the world. Unemployment hovers above 40 percent and
projections are that its oil-which makes up 70 percent
of its GDP-will run out in 2017, as will water for the
capital (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sana%27a), Sana'a (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=MX7&q=Sana+yemen&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Sana%27a,+Yemen&gl=us&ei=4NtSS8C3KcPJlAf1tJmmCg&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CA4Q8gEwAA), in 2015.

http://www.jepeterson.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/Arabian_Peninsula_Map.jpg (http://lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/arab_pennisula.gif)
Arabian Peninsula (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/31551/Arabia)


It is a bit of a patchwork nation. It was formerly two
countries- North Yemen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Yemen) and the Democratic People's
Republic of Yemen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Yemen) (south), which merged in 1990 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemenite_unification) and
fought a nasty civil war in 1994 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_civil_war_in_Yemen).

The current government of President Ali Abd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Abdullah_Saleh)u (http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/s/ali_abdullah_saleh/index.html)llah Saleh (http://www.presidentsaleh.gov.ye/index.php?lng=en)
is corrupt, despotic, and presently fighting a two-
front war against northern Shiites, called "Houthis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthis),"
and separatist-minded southerners. Based in the north,
Saleh's government has limited influence outside of the
capital. Whoever runs the place, according to The
Independent's Middle East reporter Patrick Cockburn (http://www.alternet.org/authors/8038),
has to contend with "tribal confederations, tribes,
clans, and powerful families. Almost everybody has a
gun, usually at least an AK-47 assault rifle, but
tribesmen often own heavier armament."

To make things even more complex, Yemen's northern
neighbor, Saudi Arabia, has sent troops and warplanes
to back up Saleh. According to Reuters, "The conflict
in Yemen's northern mountains has killed hundreds and
displaced tens of thousands." Aid groups put the number
of refugees at 150,000. The Saleh government and the
Saudis claim the Shiia uprising is being directed by
Iran- there is no evidence to back up the charge-thus
escalating a local civil war to a regional face off
between Riyadh and Teheran.

And this is a place that Hillary, Gordon and Joe think
we need to intervene?

In a sense, of course, the U.S. is already in Yemen,
and was so even before the attempted bombing Christmas
Day (http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:9PaX_PNWcSoJ:www.pvtr.org/pdf/GlobalAnalysis/SpotReportOnChristmasDayAirlineBombPlot2009.pdf+Ch ristmas+Day+of+a+Northwest+Airlines+flight+workers +world&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AHIEtbTuBOcgy6tuMxF1A-qtjdheEFtYqg) of a Northwest Airlines flight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Airlines_Flight_253) by a young Nigerian.
For most Americans, Yemen first appeared on their radar
screens when the USS Cole was attacked (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing) in the port of
Aden by al-Qaeda in 2000, killing 17 sailors. It
reappeared this past November when a U.S. Army officer
linked to a Muslim cleric in Yemen killed 13 people at
Fort Hood, Colorado. The Christmas Day attacker said he
was trained by al-Qaeda, and the group took credit for
the failed operation.

But U.S. involvement in Yemen goes back almost 40
years. In 1979, the Carter Administration blew a minor
border incident between north and south Yemen into a
full-blown (http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:a5uoDh8QEuQJ:www.fpif.org/articles/yemen_latest_us_battleground+Carter+Administration +north+south+yemen&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a) East- West crisis, accusing the Soviets of
aggression. The White House dispatched an aircraft
carrier and several warships to the Arabian Sea, and
sent tanks, armored personal carriers and warplanes to
the North Yemen government.

The tension between the two Yemens was hardly
accidental. According to UPI, the CIA funneled $4
million a year to Jordan's King Hussein to help brew up
a civil war between the conservative North and the
wealthier and socialist south.

The merger between the two countries never quite took.
Southern Yemenis complain that the north plunders its
oil and wealth and discriminates against southerners.
Demonstrations and general strikes by the Southern
Movement (http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:Gxm0GV5S97oJ:www.isim.nl/files/review_22/review_22-50.pdf+Southern+Movement+yemen&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AHIEtbT6NNPKHX0uS6Kedv7j7enxT0RFMA) demanding independence have increased over the
past year. The Saleh government has generally responded
with clubs, tear gas and guns.

When Yemen refused to back the 1991 Gulf War to expel
Iraq from Kuwait, the U.S. cancelled $70 million in
foreign aid to Sana and supported a decision by Saudi
Arabia to expel 850,000 Yemeni workers. Both moves had
a catastrophic impact on the Yemeni economy that played
a major role in initiating the current instability
gripping the country.

In 2002 the Bush administration used armed drones to
assassinate several Yemenis it accused of being al-
Qaeda members. The New York Times reported that the
Obama administration launched a cruise missile attack
Dec. 17 (http://www.wrp.org.uk/news/4895) at suspected al-Qaeda members that, according
to Agence France Presse (http://www.afp.com/afpcom/en), killed 49 civilians, including
23 children and 17 women. The attack has sparked
widespread anger throughout Yemen that al-Qaeda
organizers have heavily exploited.

So is the current uproar over Yemen a case of a U.S.
administration overreacting and stumbling into yet
another quagmire in the Middle East? Or is this talk
about a "global danger" just a smokescreen to allow the
Americans to prop up the increasingly isolated and
unpopular regime in Saudi Arabia?

Maybe both, but at least one respected analyst suggests
that the game in play is considerably larger than the
Arabian Peninsula and may have more to do with the
control of the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea
than with hunting down al-Qaeda in the Yemeni
wilderness.

The Asia Times' M.K. Bhadrakumar (http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/_dsp/dsp_authorBio3.cfm?authID=1081), a career Indian
diplomat who served in Afghanistan, Kuwait, Pakistan,
and Turkey, argues that the current U.S. concern with
Yemen is actually about the strategic port of Aden.
"Control of Aden and the Malacca Straits (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Aden%20and%20the%20Malacca%20Straits&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl) will put the
U.S. in an unassailable position in the `great game' of
the Indian Ocean," he writes.

Aden controls the strait of Bab el-Mandab, the entrance
to the Red Sea though which passes 3.5 million barrels
of oil a day. The Malacca Straits, between the southern
Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra,
is one of the key passages that link the Indian Ocean
with the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

Bhadrakumar says the Indian Ocean and the Malacca
Straits (http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Indian%20Ocean%20and%20the%20Malacca%20Stra its&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl) are "literally the jugular veins of the Chinese
economy." Indeed, a quarter of the world's sea-borne
trade passes through the area, including 80 percent of
China's oil and gas.

In 2005 the Bush Administration pressed India to
counter the rise of China by joining an alliance with
South Korea, Japan, and Australia. As a quid pro quo
for coming aboard, Washington agreed to sell uranium to
India, in spite of New Delhi's refusal to sign the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement (http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/). Only countries
that sign the Treaty can purchase uranium in the
international market. The Bush administration also
agreed to sell India the latest in military technology.
The Obama administration has continued the same
policies.

China and India have indeed beefed up their naval
forces in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea.
Beijing is also developing a "string of pearls"- ports
that will run from East Africa to Southeast Asia. India
has just established a formal naval presence in Oman at
the entrance to the strategic Persian Gulf.

According to Bhadrakumar, the growing U.S.
rapprochement with Myanmar and Sri Lanka is aimed at
checkmating China's influence in both nations, and
cutting off efforts by Beijing to reduce its reliance
on ocean-borne energy transportation by constructing
land-based pipelines. China just opened such a pipeline
to Central Asia.

"The U.S., on the contrary, is determined that China
remain vulnerable to the choke points between Indonesia
and Malaysia," writes the former Indian diplomat.

Checkmating China would also explain some of the
pressure that the Obama administration is exerting on
Pakistan.

"The U.S. is unhappy with China's efforts to reach the
warm waters of the Persian Gulf through the Central
Asian region and Pakistan. Slowly but steadily,
Washington is tightening the noose around the neck of
the Pakistani elites-civilian and military-and forcing
them to make a strategic choice between the U.S. and
China," writes Bhadrakumar.

This would help explain the increasing tension between
China and India over a Himalayan border region that has
sparked a military buildup in Chinese-occupied Tibet
and India's Arunachai Pradesh state. Former Indian Air
Marshall Fali Homi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fali_Homi_Major) told the Hindustan Times that China
was now a bigger threat than Pakistan, and former
Indian National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra
predicts an India-China war within five years.

"Energy security" has been at the heart of U.S. foreign
policy for decades. The 1980's "Carter Doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Doctrine)" made
it explicit that the U.S. would use military if its
energy supplies were ever threatened. Whether the
administration was Republican or Democratic made little
difference when it came to controlling gas and oil
supplies, and the greatest concentration of U.S.
military forces is in the Middle East, where 60 percent
of the world's energy supplies lie.

Except for using Special Forces and supplying weapons,
it is unlikely that the U.S. will intervene in a major
way in Yemen. But through military aid it can exert a
good deal of influence over the Sana government,
including extracting basing rights.

The White House has elevated the 200 or so "al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula" members in Yemen into what the
President calls a "serious problem," and there are dark
hints that the country is on its way to becoming a
"failed state," the green light for a more robust
intervention.

However, as Jon Alterman, Middle East Director of the
Center for Strategic and International Studies (http://csis.org/program/middle-east-program), argues,
"The problems in Yemen are not fundamentally problems
that military operations can solve."

But then the "problems" of Yemen may be simply a
prelude for a much wider and potentially dangerous
strategy focused on China.

"The U.S. cannot give up on its global dominance
without putting up a real fight," says Bhadrakumar.
"And the reality of all such momentous struggles is
that they cannot be fought piecemeal. You cannot fight
China without occupying Yemen."

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Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.
-