Bush and Obama have been exterminating YEMEN CHILDREN for a year: NY Times

[bigron]

Good Morning, Yemen?

The Mouse That Roared Was Funnier

by Leon T. Hadar
Journalist and foreign affairs analyst
Posted: January 6, 2010 04:15 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-t-hadar/good-morning-yemen-the-mo_b_413690.html

Say what you want about the neoconservative-driven U.S. military adventures and democracy promotion in the Broader Middle East, but in theory -- again, the emphasis here is on theory or abstract thinking -- it reflected the expectations that the United States could and should follow in the footsteps of Great Britain and attain Pax Americana in a region that has major geo-strategic significance (Persian Gulf), a lot of oil (Iraq), and even notable religious sites (the Holy Land) and a few Christian communities (Lebanon).

And I suppose that applying the historical analogies of post-Germany and Japan, one could have fantasized about democratizing societies that are so unlike Germany and Japan. Moreover, doing empire can be quite romantic. Recall former President George W. Bush discussing Afghanistan with American military and civilian personnel via teleconference: "It must be exciting for you, in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger," he said. "You're really making history, and thanks."

We know how the British-made imperial Mideast production ended. I do not expect a happy ending to the current American remake. If anything, the notion that we are now about to expand our military involvement into Yemen by launching a new front in the "war on terror" in the poorest country in the Arab world, that is not a state but a collection of rival tribes and extended-families, that has proved to be beyond the control of global players (Britain; Russia) and regional players (Ottomans; Saudis; Egypt), and that has no strategic significance, no oil, no notable religious sites, not Christians, no nothing, is, well, mind-boggling.

And before you know, we are going to have experts on Yemen (hey, every dog has his day) showing up on television news shows, joined by lobbyists for foreign-aid, NGO types, human rights advocates, and let us not forget the "terrorism experts" and "military analysts" lecturing us that the time has come to shift our attention to Yemen -- "attention" aka U.S. dollars and military forces.

This is not a figment of my non-interventionist mind. See, for example, this recent news story in USA Today:



"Although American officials have been saying for years that Yemen's instability poses a terrorism threat, annual U.S. military and development aid to that country in the past decade has been less than $50 million, government records show, a fraction of the sums sent to its regional neighbors.


"It makes no sense," said Christopher Boucek, a Yemen expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Yemen has been on people's radar for a long time. Pakistan gets a billion a year. The commitment of resources to Yemen doesn't match the scope of the problem."


And this bipartisan Yemen, Mon Amour:



"Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who has pushed for more Yemen aid as chairman of the subcommittee that funds the State Department, added, "As long as Yemen wants our help in countering al-Qaeda, we should continue to make it a priority to find effective ways to support them."


"Although Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East, the United States was sending just a few million a year in development assistance before the 9/11 attacks, according to State Department budget records. In 2003, when the U.S. Agency for International Development re-opened its mission in the country after a seven-year absence, civilian aid to the country more than doubled, but remained a paltry $15 million, records show.

"This year, total State Department aid will be about $63 million, including $12.5 million to buy military equipment. Yemen got $67 million in military aid from the Defense Department last year, records show. This year's amount is undetermined.

"Even after the increases, aid to Yemen pales compared with the $2.8 billion the Obama administration will send to Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are at war, or even the $238 million slated for Lebanon, records show.

"The amount of aid going to Yemen is a rounding error," said Richard Fontaine, a former adviser to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is now at the Center for New American Security, a Washington think tank. The Yemeni government is facing a war in the north with Shiite rebels, separatist unrest in the south, and increasing poverty among the population of 24 million.
"The track record of U.S. civilian aid in Yemen is not good. In 2004, USAID awarded $13.5 million in agreements to two Washington-based contractors to improve Yemen's education system. The contractors collected $2 million each in overhead, but the program "did not achieve its intended results," a 2008 audit by the agency's inspector general found."


And all of this is because there is something called Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. And according to a report by the BBC, the group may have less members than the number of the residents in my apartment building, with "some experts say there are fewer than 50 fighters, while others believe there may be 200 to 300." And BTW, most experts also agree that the group was formed after 2003 in response to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. So expect even more use of the Al Qaeda brand following our intervention in Yemen.

Bottom Line: You want some American "attention." Circulate reports that there is an Al Qaeda in [fill the space] and before you know, Uncle Sam, who has been surviving thanks to the infusion of Chinese money, shows up with a nice economic stimulus package and American GI's.

It all reminds me of that wonderful 1959 film, The Mouse that Roared (which was based on a novel by the same name) about the imaginary Duchy of Grand Fenwick decides that the only way to get out of their economic woes is to declare war on the United States, lose it -- and then become a recipient of American foreign aid. A comedy repeating itself now as tragic history.

[bigron]

Middle East
Jan 9, 2010 
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LA09Ak02.html 
 
Obama's Yemeni odyssey targets China

By M K Bhadrakumar

A year ago, Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh made the startling revelation that his country's security forces apprehended a group of Islamists linked to the Israeli intelligence forces. "A terrorist cell was apprehended and will be referred to the courts for its links with the Israeli intelligence services," he promised.

Saleh added, "You will hear about the trial proceedings." Nothing was ever heard and the trail went cold. Welcome to the magical land of Yemen, where in the womb of time the Arabian Nights were played out.

Combine Yemen with the mystique of Islam, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Israeli intelligence and you get a heady mix. The head of the US Central Command, General David Petraeus, dropped in at the capital, Sana'a, on Saturday and vowed to Saleh increased American aid to fight al-Qaeda. United States President Barack Obama promptly echoed Petraeus' promise, assuring that the US would step up intelligence-sharing and training of Yemeni forces and perhaps carry out joint attacks against militants in the region.

Another Afghanistan?
Many accounts say that Obama, who is widely regarded as a gifted and intelligent politician, is blundering into a catastrophic mistake by starting another war that could turn out to be as bloody and chaotic and unwinnable as Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, on the face of it, Obama does seem erratic. The parallels with Afghanistan are striking. There has been an attempt to destroy a US plane by a Nigerian student who says he received training in Yemen. And America wants to go to war.

Yemen, too, is a land of wonderfully beautiful rugged mountains that could be a guerilla paradise. Yemenis are a hospitable lot, like Afghan tribesmen, but as Irish journalist Patrick Cockurn recollects, while they are generous to passing strangers, they "deem the laws of hospitality to lapse when the stranger leaves their tribal territory, at which time he becomes 'a good back to shoot at'." Surely, there is romance in the air - almost like in the Hindu Kush. Fiercely nationalistic, almost every Yemeni has a gun. Yemen is also, like Afghanistan, a land of conflicting authorities, and with foreign intervention, a little civil war is waiting to flare up.

                             

Is Obama so incredibly forgetful of his own December 1 speech outlining his Afghan strategy that he violated his own canons? Certainly not. Obama is a smart man. The intervention in Yemen will go down as one of the smartest moves that he ever made for perpetuating the US's global hegemony. It is America's answer to China's surge.

A cursory look at the map of region will show that Yemen is one of the most strategic lands adjoining waters of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. It flanks Saudi Arabia and Oman, which are vital American protectorates. In effect, Uncle Sam is "marking territory" - like a dog on a lamppost. Russia has been toying with the idea of reopening its Soviet-era base in Aden. Well, the US has pipped Moscow in the race.

The US has signaled that the odyssey doesn't end with Yemen. It is also moving into Somalia and Kenya. With that, the US establishes its military presence in an entire unbroken stretch of real estate all along the Indian Ocean's western rim. Chinese officials have of late spoken of their need to establish a naval base in the region. The US has now foreclosed China's options. The only country with a coastline that is available for China to set up a naval base in the region will be Iran. All other countries have a Western military presence.

The American intervention in Yemen is not going to be on the pattern of Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama will ensure he doesn't receive any body bags of American servicemen serving in Yemen. That is what the American public expects from him. He will only deploy drone aircraft and special forces and "focus on providing intelligence and training to help Yemen counter al-Qaeda militants", according to the US military. Obama's main core objective will be to establish an enduring military presence in Yemen. This serves many purposes.

A new great game begins
First, the US move has to be viewed against the historic backdrop of the Shi'ite awakening in the region. The Shi'ites (mostly of the Zaidi group) have been traditionally suppressed in Yemen. Shi'ite uprisings have been a recurring theme in Yemen's history. There has been a deliberate attempt to minimize the percentage of Shi'ites in Yemen, but they could be anywhere up to 45%.

More importantly, in the northern part of the country, they constitute the majority. What bothers the US and moderate Sunni Arab states - and Israel - is that the Believing Youth Organization led by Hussein Badr al-Houthi, which is entrenched in northern Yemen, is modeled after Hezbollah in Lebanon in all respects - politically, economically, socially and culturally.

Yemenis are an intelligent people and are famous in the Arabian Peninsula for their democratic temperament. The Yemeni Shi'ite empowerment on a Hezbollah-model would have far-reaching regional implications. Next-door Oman, which is a key American base, is predominantly Shi'ite. Even more sensitive is the likelihood of the dangerous idea of Shi'ite empowerment spreading to Saudi Arabia's highly restive Shi'ite regions adjoining Yemen, which on top of it all, also happen to be the reservoir of the country's fabulous oil wealth.

Saudi Arabia is entering a highly sensitive phase of political transition as a new generation is set to take over the leadership in Riyadh, and the palace intrigues and fault lines within the royal family are likely to get exacerbated. To put it mildly, given the vast scale of institutionalized Shi'ite persecution in Saudi Arabia by the Wahhabi establishment, Shi'ite empowerment is a veritable minefield that Riyadh is petrified about at this juncture. Its threshold of patience is wearing thin, as the recent uncharacteristic resort to military power against the north Yemeni Shi'ite communities bordering Saudi Arabia testifies.

The US faces a classic dilemma. It is all right for Obama to highlight the need of reform in Muslim societies - as he did eloquently in his Cairo speech last June. But democratization in the Yemeni context - ironically, in the Arab context - would involve Shi'ite empowerment. After the searing experience in Iraq, Washington is literally perched like a cat on a hot tin roof. It would much rather be aligned with the repressive, autocratic government of Saleh than let the genie of reform out of the bottle in the oil rich-region in which it has profound interests.

Obama has an erudite mind and he is not unaware that what Yemen desperately needs is reform, but he simply doesn't want to think about it. The paradox he faces is that with all its imperfections, Iran happens to be the only "democratic" system operating in that entire region.

Iran's shadow over the Yemeni Shi'ite consciousness worries the US to no end. Simply put, in the ideological struggle going on in the region, Obama finds himself with the ultra-conservative and brutally autocratic oligarchies that constitute the ruling class in the region. Conceivably, he isn't finding it easy. If his own memoirs are to be believed, there could be times when the vague recollections of his childhood in Indonesia and his precious memories of his own mother, who from all accounts was a free-wheeling intellectual and humanist, must be stalking him in the White House corridors.

Israel moves in
But Obama is first and foremost a realist. Emotions and personal beliefs drain away and strategic considerations weigh uppermost when he works in the Oval Office. With the military presence in Yemen, the US has tightened the cordon around Iran. In the event of a military attack on Iran, Yemen could be put to use as a springboard by the Israelis. These are weighty considerations for Obama.

The fact is that no one is in control as a Yemeni authority. It is a cakewalk for the formidable Israeli intelligence to carve out a niche in Yemen - just as it did in northern Iraq under somewhat comparable circumstances.

Islamism doesn't deter Israel at all. Saleh couldn't have been far off the mark when he alleged last year that Israeli intelligence had been exposed as having kept links with Yemeni Islamists. The point is, Yemeni Islamists are a highly fragmented lot and no one is sure who owes what sort of allegiance to whom. Israeli intelligence operates marvelously in such twilight zones when the horizon is lacerated with the blood of the vanishing sun.

Israel will find a toehold in Yemen to be a god-sent gift insofar as it registers its presence in the Arabian Peninsula. This is a dream come true for Israel, whose effectiveness as a regional power has always been seriously handicapped by its lack of access to the Persian Gulf region. The overarching US military presence helps


Israel politically to consolidate its Yemeni chapter. Without doubt, Petraeus is moving on Yemen in tandem with Israel (and Britain). But the "pro-West" Arab states with their rentier mentality have no choice except to remain as mute spectators on the sidelines.

Some among them may actually acquiesce with the Israeli security presence in the region as a safer bet than the spread of the dangerous ideas of Shi'ite empowerment emanating out of Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah. Also, at some stage, Israeli intelligence will begin to infiltrate the extremist Sunni outfits in Yemen, which are commonly known as affiliates of al-Qaeda. That is, if it hasn't done that already. Any such link makes Israel an invaluable ally for the US in its fight against al-Qaeda. In sum, infinite possibilities exist in the paradigm that is taking shape in the Muslim world abutting into the strategic Persian Gulf.

It's all about China
Most important, however, for US global strategies will be the massive gain of control of the port of Aden in Yemen. Britain can vouchsafe that Aden is the gateway to Asia. Control of Aden and the Malacca Strait will put the US in an unassailable position in the "great game" of the Indian Ocean. The sea lanes of the Indian Ocean are literally the jugular veins of China's economy. By controlling them, Washington sends a strong message to Beijing that any notions by the latter that the US is a declining power in Asia would be nothing more than an extravagant indulgence in fantasy.

In the Indian Ocean region, China is increasingly coming under pressure. India is a natural ally of the US in the Indian Ocean region. Both disfavor any significant Chinese naval presence. India is mediating a rapprochement between Washington and Colombo that would help roll back Chinese influence in Sri Lanka. The US has taken a u-turn in its Myanmar policy and is engaging the regime there with the primary intent of eroding China's influence with the military rulers. The Chinese strategy aimed at strengthening influence in Sri Lanka and Myanmar so as to open a new transportation route towards the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and Africa, where it has begun contesting traditional Western economic dominance.

China is keen to whittle down its dependence on the Malacca Strait for its commerce with Europe and West Asia. The US, on the contrary, is determined that China remains vulnerable to the choke point between Indonesia and Malaysia.

An engrossing struggle is breaking out. The US 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 US and China. This will put those elites in an unenviable dilemma. Like their Indian counterparts, they are inherently "pro-Western" (even when they are "anti-American") and if the Chinese connection is important for Islamabad, that is primarily because it balances perceived Indian hegemony.

The existential questions with which the Pakistani elites are grappling are apparent. They are seeking answers from Obama. Can Obama maintain a balanced relationship vis-a-vis Pakistan and India? Or, will Obama lapse back to the George W Bush era strategy of building up India as the pre-eminent power in the Indian Ocean under whose shadow Pakistan will have to learn to live?

US-India-Israel axis
On the other hand, the Indian elites are in no compromising mood. Delhi was on a roll during the Bush days. Now, after the initial misgivings about Obama's political philosophy, Delhi is concluding that he is all but a clone of his illustrious predecessor as regards the broad contours of the US's global strategy - of which containment of China is a core template.

The comfort level is palpably rising in Delhi with regard to the Obama presidency. Delhi takes the surge of the Israeli lobby in Washington as the litmus test for the Obama presidency. The surge suits Delhi, since the Jewish lobby was always a helpful ally in cultivating influence in the US Congress, media and the rabble-rousing think-tankers as well as successive administrations. And all this is happening at a time when the India-Israel security relationship is gaining greater momentum.

United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is due to visit Delhi in the coming days. The Obama administration is reportedly adopting an increasingly accommodative attitude toward India's longstanding quest for "dual-use" technology from the US. If so, a massive avenue of military cooperation is about to open between the two countries, which will make India a serious challenger to China's growing military prowess. It is a win-win situation as the great Indian arms bazaar offers highly lucrative business for American companies.

Clearly, a cozy three-way US-Israel-India alliance provides the underpinning for all the maneuvering that is going on. It will have significance for the security of the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. Last year, India formalized a naval presence in Oman.

All-in-all, terrorism experts are counting the trees and missing the wood when they analyze the US foray into Yemen in the limited terms of hunting down al-Qaeda. The hard reality is that Obama, whose main plank used to be "change", has careened away and increasingly defaults to the global strategies of the Bush era. The freshness of the Obama magic is dissipating. Traces of the "revisionism" in his foreign policy orientation are beginning to surface. We can see them already with regard to Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East and the Israel-Palestine problem, Central Asia and towards China and Russia.

Arguably, this sort of "return of the native" by Obama was inevitable. For one thing, he is but a creature of his circumstances. As someone put it brilliantly, Obama's presidency is like driving a train rather than a car: a train cannot be "steered", the driver can at best set its speed, but ultimately, it must run on its tracks.

Besides, history has no instances of a declining world power meekly accepting its destiny and walking into the sunset. The US cannot give up on its global dominance without putting up a real fight. And the reality of all such momentous struggles is that they cannot be fought piece-meal. You cannot fight China without occupying Yemen.


Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
 
 
 

[bigron]

Middle East
Jan 9, 2010 
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LA09Ak04.html 
 
US hand stayed - for now

By Ian Williams

WASHINGTON - From Mexico to Iraq, we can see the practical consequences of "wars" against abstractions, whether drugs or terror. In Yemen, there are signs that both President Ali Abdallah Saleh's government and the Barack Obama administration are drawing back from repeating the mistakes of Afghanistan, and perhaps even of Somalia.

Indeed, it is worth comparing Somalia with Yemen. In traditional Western terms, Somalia should have been almost the most successful state in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its population was homogenous in religion, language and culture, with a strong sense of identity. But what outsiders did not realize was how much clan diversity there was beneath that seeming unity. What looked like strong central government under Siad Barre, the last effective national president, looked like a monopolization of resources by one group to all the other clans. Since then, no putative national government has been able to come up with an offer that the various parties cannot easily refuse.

Just across the mouth of the Red Sea, in Yemen, there are even more crosscutting fault lines. There is a Zaidi/Sunni divide, there are the divisions between the north and the former Marxist People's Democratic Republic in the south, which are not so much ideological as based on Saleh's government cutting the former leadership down there from the access to power and wealth that they thought the reunification of 1990 entitled them.

In the north, in Saada province, the Houthi tribe used to provide the emirs for the thousand-year dynasty in what is now the capital, Sana'a, and now feel excluded. Because they are Zaidi, and therefore technically Shi'ite, opportunistic Yemeni officials linked them with Iran, thereby encouraging Saudi and American support for the central government. Yet they are no closer to Iranian Shi'ites than Anglicans in Britain are to American Pentecostalists, even if both are technically Protestants. But since they are Shi'ite, they are anathema to the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia and their al-Qaeda offshoot.

In the mountains, the various clans happily ignore the central government, and some of them seem to be tolerating, at least, al-Qaeda, quite likely for a mixture of financial and theological reasons.

The Yemeni government has always been weak and decentralized, dependent on mediating the demands of the clans and localities whose physical isolation is reinforced by the national habit of weapon-bearing. Yemen is the National Rifle Association's paradise on Earth, and most men would consider themselves naked without their jambiyas, the knife stuck in the belt.

Much of the recent internal conflict is about distribution of scarce resources. Yemen is a desperately poor country, whose poverty has not been helped by frequent civil wars and which was enhanced even more when Yemen's envoy voted in the United Nations Security Council against resolutions authorizing the 1990-1991 Desert Storm after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

United States diplomats told the Yemeni envoy at the time that this was the most expensive vote he'd ever cast, and for once, an American prediction came true. Saudi Arabia expelled hundreds of thousands of Yemeni workers whose remittances had kept the economy afloat, and foreign aid shrank even more. Needless to say, Saddam Hussein's gratitude was strictly limited.

Things have improved now. Saudi Arabia and Yemen finally broadly agreed their long-disputed frontier in 2000, even though it did not restore the former privileged position of Yemeni workers in the kingdom.

However, the oil revenue which provided much of the central government's funding has been declining, and foreign aid has not been expanding, even if the post-1991 boycott is no longer in effect. However, the nepotism and corruption of the Saleh government, now in power for three decades, has taken a visibly disproportionate share of what there is left, and has provoked widespread agitation from those left out.

The main industry and commerce is the growth, distribution and mastication of qat, which takes a huge amount of land and water and anything up to a third of personal income. (Qat is a tropical evergreen plant whose leaves are used as a stimulant.)

On its positive side, the cultivation of a cash crop so lucrative that fields have armed guards has also, according to some economists, been a means of transferring wealth to the countryside and absorbing the deported workers from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

At first, when the government faced widespread dissent, it seemed to have seen an opportunity. By characterizing all the dissident groups as Iranian or al-Qaeda-influenced, they effectively rang the right bells in Riyadh and Washington, and hoped for military and financial aid.

Since the abortive Christmas Day bombing of the North West Airlines flight by a Nigerian linked to al-Qaeda and Yemen, both sides seem to have drawn back. The Yemenis who had been canvassing for heavy weaponry that would allow them to defeat all their various rebels seem to have realized that if they wanted to put truth in the rumors about al-Qaeda being behind them, all they had to do was get too close to the US and West - as in fact they had already shown signs of doing with bombing raids.

Any visible intervention by the US could unify Yemen like nothing else - against the invader. The same thought seems to be occurring in Washington, despite the apocalyptic language from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the Yemeni situation being a regional and global threat. Support for police units has already been announced, and the international meeting that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has convened (with American and Saudi support) for the end of the month seems based on the premise that economic, social and political development are crucial to hold the country together and dampen the various conflicts.

It is not so much that Yemen is a failed state, but as Indian pacifist Mahatma Gandhi one said when asked what he thought about Western civilization, a functioning state would be a good idea. There are unlikely to be any quick and easy answers, but it could be that the right questions are being asked this time. If there is to be a war in Yemen against abstractions, it should be against tangible and real abstractions: poverty and one of its causes, corruption.

Ian Williams is the author of Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans and His Past, Nation Books, New York.

 
 
 

[Eschatonic]

Middle East
Jan 9, 2010 
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LA09Ak02.html 
 
Obama's Yemeni odyssey targets China

By M K Bhadrakumar

Nice find bigron. I have been thinking along similar lines also; the relationship between the U.S. and China is an important part of the Yemeni conflict. I wrote a very brief piece along these lines back in September when it was clear that the Yemen situation between Iran and Saudi Arabia was hotting up and was essentially part of the struggle between the U.S. and Russia/China. Back then I imagined something like each side ramping up the proxy sectarian war and did not think that Obama would actually intervene by attacking the country with the US military! (In terms of warmongering Obama always exceeds expectations!). http://eschatonic.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/the-grand-chessboard-iran-vs-saudi-arabia-and-the-second-cold-war/

I think the author of the article you posted is correct that the U.S. move in Yemen is partly related to restricting the expansion of Chinese foreign policy because it massively increases U.S. deployment near the Gulf of Aden, which could be used to control critical Chinese sea transport routes in the future. Also because the Yemeni incursion directly seeks to dampen Iranian regional ambitions, it is essentially an attack on China by proxy insofar as it interferes with Chinese foreign policy in the Great Game, of which, Iran is very useful piece.

Back to Chinese sea lanes - that China is unable to get energy resources from overland sources means that almost all the oil they get from Africa and the mid-east must be shipped by sea through places like the Gulf of Aden. The U.S. is well aware that China has a massive vulnerability here. One good document that I recently read about this was a 2006 report called ‘String of Pearls: Meeting the Challenge of China’s Rising Power across the Asian Littoral’ published by the Strategic Studies Institute of the United States Army War College (SSI).  The full text of this publication can be found at: http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB721.pdf. For anyone who does not want to read the whole thing, last week I wrote a summary of this paper and how it predicts recent discussions in China regarding building a naval base in Somalia. http://eschatonic.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/principles-of-chinas-foreign-policy/.

People here might be interested to read this as it seems to relate to what is happening in Yemen, but from the Chinese side.

[bigron]

Friday, January 08, 2010
21:01 Mecca time, 18:01 GMT 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/01/201018171220871889.html
 
News Middle East 
 
US accused of plot to occupy Yemen 
 
WATCH :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBnUNOj4Boo&feature=player_embedded

The United States has classified Abdul Majeed Zandani, a prominent Yemeni religious leader, as a "specially designate global terrorist" for alleged ties to al-Qaeda.

Others accuse Zandani of stoking anti-American feeling and inspiring a new generation of suicide bombers.

But Zandani says the growing interest in activities in Yemen is part of a plot to occupy the country.

Al Jazeera's Mohammed Vall reports from Yemen.
 
 
 Source: Al Jazeera 
 
 

[bigron]

Is Anyone Telling Us The Truth?

By Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24352.htm

January 08, 2010 "ICH" -- What are we to make of the failed Underwear Bomber plot, the Toothpaste, Shampoo, and Bottled Water Bomber plot, and the Shoe Bomber plot? These blundering and implausible plots to bring down an airliner seem far removed from al-Qaida’s expertise in pulling off 9/11.

If we are to believe the U.S. government, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged al-Qaida "mastermind" behind 9/11, outwitted the CIA, the NSA, indeed all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies as well as those of all U.S. allies including Mossad, the National Security Council, NORAD, Air Traffic Control, Airport Security four times on one morning, and Dick Cheney, and with untrained and inexperienced pilots pulled off skilled piloting feats of crashing hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center towers, and the Pentagon, where a battery of state of the art air defenses somehow failed to function.

After such amazing success, al-Qaida would have attracted the best minds in the business, but, instead, it has been reduced to amateur stunts.

The Underwear Bomb plot is being played to the hilt on the TV media and especially on Fox "news." After reading recently that The Washington Post allowed a lobbyist to write a news story that preached the lobbyist’s interest, I wondered if the manufacturers of full body scanners were behind the heavy coverage of the Underwear Bomber, if not behind the plot itself. In America, everything is for sale. Integrity is gone with the wind.

Recently I read a column by an author who has a "convenience theory" about the Underwear Bomber being a Nigerian allegedly trained by al-Qaida in Yemen. As the U.S. is involved in an undeclared war in Yemen, about which neither the American public nor Congress were informed or consulted, the Underwear Bomb plot provided a convenient excuse for Washington’s new war, regardless of whether it was a real attack or a put-up job.

Once you start to ask yourself about whose agenda is served by events and their news spin, other things come to mind. For example, last July there was a news report that the government in Yemen had disbanded a terrorist cell, which was operating under the supervision of Israeli intelligence services. According to the news report, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told Saba news agency that a terrorist cell was arrested and that the case was referred to judicial authorities "for its links with the Israeli intelligence services."

Could the Underwear Bomber have been one of the Israeli terrorist recruits? Certainly Israel has an interest in keeping the US fully engaged militarily against all potential foes of Israel’s territorial expansion.

The thought brought back memory of my Russian studies at Oxford University where I learned that the Tsar’s secret police set off bombs so that they could blame those whom they wanted to arrest.

I next remembered that Francesco Cossiga, the president of Italy from 1985-1992, revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, a false flag operation under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The bombings were blamed on communists and were used to discredit communist parties in elections.

An Italian parliamentary investigation unearthed the fact that the attacks were overseen by the CIA. Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated in sworn testimony that the attacks targeted innocent civilians, including women and children, in order "to force the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security."

What a coincidence. That is exactly what 9/11 succeeded in accomplishing in the U.S.

Among the well-meaning and the gullible in the West, the supposition still exists that government represents the public interest. Political parties keep this myth alive by fighting over which party best represents the public’s interest. In truth, government represents private interests, those of the office holders themselves and those of the lobby groups that finance their political campaigns. The public is in the dark as to the real agendas.

The U.S. and its puppet state allies were led to war in the Middle East and Afghanistan entirely on the basis of lies and deception. Iraqi weapons of mass destruction did not exist and were known by the U.S. and British governments not to exist. Forged documents, such as the "yellowcake documents," were leaked to newspapers in order to create news reporting that would bring the public along with the government’s war agenda.

Now the same thing is happening in regard to the nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons program. Forged documents leaked to The Times (London) that indicated Iran was developing a "nuclear trigger" mechanism have been revealed as forgeries.

Who benefits? Clearly, attacking Iran is on the Israeli-U.S. agenda, and someone is creating the "evidence" to support the case, just as the leaked secret “Downing Street Memo” to the British cabinet informed Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government that President Bush had already made the decision to invade Iraq and "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The willingness of people to believe their rulers and the propaganda ministries that serve the rulers is astonishing. Many Americans believe Iran has a nuclear weapons program despite the unanimous conclusion of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies to the contrary.

Vice President Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives fought hard with limited success to change the CIA’s role from intelligence agency to a political agency that manufactures facts in support of the neoconservative agenda. For the Bush Regime creating “new realities” was more important than knowing the facts.

Recently I read a proposal from a person purporting to favor an independent media that stated that we must save the print media from financial failure with government subsidies. Such a subsidy would complete the subservience of the media to government.

Even in Stalinist Russia, a totalitarian political system where everyone knew that there was no free press, a gullible or intimidated public and Communist Party enabled Joseph Stalin to put the heroes of the Bolshevik Revolution on show trial and execute them as capitalist spies.

In the U.S. we are developing our own show trials. Sheikh Mohammed’s will be a big one. As Chris Hedges recently pointed out, once government uses demonized Muslims to get the new justice (sic) system going, the rest of us will be next.

To find out more about Paul Craig Roberts, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com .

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM
 

 

 

[ekimdrachir]

Fighting Al Qaeda in Yemen - Yemen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiW4t-5IlTo

January 2010

On Christmas Day, Al Qaeda in Yemen almost carried out the worst terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11. All eyes have turned to this 'little known' Arab country, asking: who is fighting Al Qaeda in Yemen?

GuitaristontheFloor (8 minutes ago) Show Hide
To me this is what appears to be the situation.
A corrupt leadership. This boils up rebels to try and topple the government. Al-Qaeda just takes advantage of it, and exploits some of the youths who think that life is slowly dwindling down due to their conditions. Typical terrorism at its peak.

troglodyte3344 (17 minutes ago) Show Hide
Yeah, I have to agree with SZCZ. You cannot fool the people with this dribble propaganda. we are war weary and not interested. People are getting smarter. information travels too quickly now. The truth is not in the media we are shown.

szcz (35 minutes ago) Show Hide
fu, journeyman NWO propaganda, unsubscribing!

News results for war in yemen

Times Online   Yemen using war on al-Qaeda to bolster regime‎ - 1 day ago
Faced with an armed revolt in the north and a separatist movement in the south, Yemen's president is using the Western-backed war against al-Qaeda to ...

Telegraph.co.uk - 2330 related articles »

War risk menaces Yemen's wild south‎ - Financial Times - 357 related articles »

Yemen: A Country Still At War With Itself‎ - Sky News - 426 related articles »

[ekimdrachir]

If US troops go to Yemen, it will spill over into Oman, it has to, its just a fricken desert, with no real border.

[agentbluescreen]

FYI information the world headquarters of Al MI6/Mossad/CIAduh is to the north - in the British noble Tory religion's dictatorship-supported noble Sunni religious dictatorship of Saudi Arabia

[bigron]

3.4mn Yemenis on verge of starvation
 
 
05/05/2010 11:19:33 AM GMT     
 
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/34/34mn-Yemenis-on-verge-of-starvation.html

 
The UN food aid agency has appealed to international donors to cover up for a massive shortfall in funding for some 3.4 million starving Yemenis.

If the current situation continues some 500,000 hungry Yemenis, whose food rations have already decreased to half, will face a virtually complete exhaustion of stocks by August, UN World Food Program (WFP) warned on Wednesday.

Some 7.2 million people, one third of Yemen's population, suffer from chronic hunger, about 3.4 million of who depend on food aid, said the UN agency. More than one in 10 children suffers from acute malnutrition and more than half of those under five are underweight, it added.

Briefing reporters in Geneva on the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, WFP spokesperson Emilia Casella said the agency is currently only able to reach 475,000 people.

The WFP had to half its food ration due to a $75.3-million shortfall out of a total $103 million needed for 2010, focusing the shrunken aid on some 270,000 people displaced by clashes between government forces and Houthi fighters in and around the northern Sa'ada province, as well as a limited number of children under five and pregnant and lactating mothers.

"People have three other options after that -- revolt, migrate or die. A cut in rations is not a first step, it's a last resort," Casella said.

Half-rations provide 1,050 calories per person per day compared to the 2,100 standard amount, and by August WFP will run out of food almost completely, including nutritional support for 50,000 internally displaced children under five, she noted.

Oil-rich Yemen remains the poorest nation in the Arab world as the Sunni-dominated central government is struggling to weed out alleged al-Qaeda forces operating in the region while facing widespread protests from secessionists in the south.

The Sana'a government and Houthi fighters agreed to a ceasefire in February, months after the army launched a massive offensive in August 2009 in an attempt to crush the fighters in the northern province of Sa'ada.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the displaced avoid returning to their homes, fearing the mines and unexploded ordnance.

MRS/MMA
Source: Press TV
 

[ImmortalTRUTH]

I feel sorry for my brothers and sisters in Yemen.. 

[citizenx]

FYI information the world headquarters of Al MI6/Mossad/CIAduh is to the north - in the British noble Tory religion's dictatorship-supported noble Sunni religious dictatorship of Saudi Arabia

I think this poor country's proximity to Saudi Arabia has a lot to do with this.

Saudi Arabia is the NWO poster child state for the Middle East, the intended center of that region, doubtless (excluding Israel).