Tag: Yemen

There wasn’t much reporting on last weeks testimonies especially concerning any bits and pieces as to what counterparts here in the States were either saying or doing, except for this testimony from fridays session, as it seemed to follow what previously had already been testified too.:

Iraq military coup a possibility, ambassador tells Chilcot inquiry

The establishment of democracy in Iraq is “not a done deal”, Britain’s ambassador to the country warned today. A military coup was “a real possibility”, he said.

Snip

“There is clearly a balance to be drawn between using the professional competence and experience of former army officers under Saddam to provide the backbone of the modern Iraqi security forces, and dealing with the suspicions and fears of others that this is the reintroduction of irreconcilable elements of the Ba’ath party,” Jenkins said…..>>>>>

Al-Qaeda shifts into dangerous new territory

UK Telegraph, January 04, 2009

The key to success against the jihadists will always be good intelligence.

President Barack Obama’s statement on Saturday linking the failed airline bomb attack over Detroit on Christmas Day to an al-Qaeda group based in Yemen will have surprised no one. It confirmed, if confirmation were needed, that the coming decade will be as dominated as the last by the threat posed to the West by Islamist terrorism. The focus of the battle is, however, shifting. Significant successes by the United States and its allies in both Afghanistan and Pakistan have forced al-Qaeda largely to re-locate to Yemen and Somalia.

It’s a goddamn good thing he’s keeping you “safe” by upping the number of troops in AfPak to 100,000 or more and shooting handcuffed children, right?

In yet another example of unbelievable douchebaggery, our favorite Senator Joe Lieberman has decided, based on some guy trying to set his underwear on fire on a flight to Detroit, that we need to go to war with Yemen.

“Somebody in our government said to me in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, Iraq was yesterday’s war,” Lieberman explained. “Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war. That’s the danger we face.”

Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA), also appearing on the program, seemed to agree, calling an attack against Yemen “something we should consider.”

What these two double-douchebags fail to mention is that we’ve already attacked Yemen.

Do they really think we’re that stupid?   I guess if you’re appearing on Fox, you can assume your audience IS that stupid, but c’mon.    Just a few days ago we sent Tomahawk missiles into Yemen, slaughtering dozens of civilians.  We also signed off on Saudi air strikes that had the same result — a slaughtering of civilians.

So yeah, let’s just ignore that for the time being, and maybe we can somehow retroactively justify something we’ve actually already done, based on some extremely flimsy evidence about this guy who tried to set his nutsack on fire on an airplane.   Flimsy evidence?  How can that be?   Why would CNN be reporting on this 24/7 with it’s “Fear! Fear! Fear!” tactics if the evidence was flimy?   Yemen is the enemy damnit!    I heard it on TV!

Well, check this out from Chris Floyd:

Wow, that didn’t take long at all. Scant days after the American war machine took the cloaking device off its direct military involvement in Yemen, we have an alleged attempted terrorist attack by an alleged attempted terrorist who, just scant hours after his capture, has allegedly confessed to getting his alleged attempted terrorist material from … wait for it … Yemen!

Yemen-trained terrorists on the loose in American airplanes! At Christmas! Great googily moogily! It’s a good thing our boys are on the case over there right now, pounding the holy hell outta some of them Al Qaeder ragheads! And to think, a few pipsqueaky fifth columnists had been starting to wonder why we were killing dozens of innocent civilians on behalf of an authoritarian regime embroiled in a three-way civil war on the other side of the world.

(snip)

And it must be true, right? I mean, just look at how well-sourced the NYT story is. “A law enforcement official” — Police captain? State trooper? G-Man? Traffic cop? — said that the alleged attempted terrorist said he’d got his “explosive chemicals” from Yemen. (Elsewhere in the paper, other unnamed officials told NYT reporters that the alleged material strapped to the alleged attempted terrorist was “incendiary,” not explosive. But who cares? “Bomb, Terror, Yemen!”)

Of course, the NYT noted that “authorities have not independently corroborated the Yemen connection claimed by the suspect” (nor, they could have added, have they independently corroborated that the claim was actually made), but still, the completely anonymous “law enforcement official” said that the suspect’s claim “was plausible,” and even added: “I see no reason to discount it.”

Well, it doesn’t get more solid than that, does it? They nailed that story down so tight you couldn’t pry it open with God’s own crowbar. An anonymous source confirmed the plausibility of his own claim.   Man, that’s ironclad. It’s certainly good enough to light up the media firmament with headlines linking “terror in the Heartland” with the empire’s newest killing field in a volatile foreign land.

So yeah, with that kind of evidence, let’s go bomb a new country!   Oh, wait, we already have.   Shhh!