free water and electricity: Al Qaeda embraces civic duties and courts hearts and minds in South Yemen.
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aziz
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thabet
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thabet
A country, blighted by poverty, political strife and a weak corrupt government, being bombed by US drones which target ‘terrorists’ but killed civilians. ‘An army’ of young men ready take up arms for some global cause. Sound familiar?
The Guardian spent two months in the country, travelling to the tribal regions of Abyan and Shabwa, where al-Qaida has set up shop and where suspected US drone attacks have killed scores of civilians and few insurgents. Speaking to jihadis, security officials and tribesmen, it became clear how a combination of government alliances, bribes, broken promises and bungled crackdowns has allowed Islamists to flourish and led to the emergence of the country as a regional hub for al-Qaida.
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Dan
South Yemen should NEVER have reunited with North Yemen. It is hard to believe but South Yemen was a far more progressive place than it is now.
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Tec15
If you consider a corrupt Communist party fighting it’s internal politics literally with machine guns, executions of former overthrown leaders, collectivized fishing, an East German trained secret police, a safe haven for Marxist Euro terrorists, an anemic economy, mass emigration etc etc to be progressive….
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thabet
‘Al-Qaida in Yemen’:
Standing in the middle of the chaos is one of the jihadi gunmen for whom the town has become famous. Thin, short, with a well-groomed beard and shoulder-length hair, he is dressed in the Afghan style: shalwar kameez, camouflage vest and an old Kalashnikov. He is either a bandit imposing a protection racket on the merchants or a rebel protecting them from the corrupt regime – and most probably a bit of both.
Note the following quote:
“I agree with George Bush in one thing,” he said, pulling at his beard. “He gave us a really accurate wisdom: you are either with us or against us, you are either with Islam or with the crusaders. I tell the Muslim clerics in the whole world you are either with the flag of the mujahideen and God is great or you are with the flag of the cross … there is no other option.”
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abunoor
According to Marc Ambinder, the Obama Administration will send Mohammed Odaini back to Yemen, honoring the court ruling in which he won his habeas corpus petition, and in which the Obama Administration to the eternal shame of all involved in the case, argued that Odaini was being lawfully held, an argument which they knew to be false. They also knew at the time and continue to know that Odaini was no threat to anyone, and as Ambinder notes, would not have sent Odaini back to Yemen, regardless of the decisions of any courts, if the CIA and DIA had not signed off on this.
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abunoor
Amnesty International has released photographic evidence that Obama and his military used cluster bombs in the missiles they fired into a Yemeni village last December, killing 52 people including 21 children and 14 women.
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shams
when i see your petty hatred for Obama on display, Abu, it makes me want Sarah Palin to win, just so you could experience the christofascist rule of WEC retards, and get to see the US and Israel bomb the shit out of the Shi’a in Iran.
I guess you’re ok wid dat…bein’ a sunni and all.-
midwinterspring
When I see comments like this, it also makes me want Sarah Palin to win, so when she commits the exact same crimes as Obama liberals like you will do something useful for once and stand up against it.
The funny, and incredibly depressing thing, is that you are going to be saying the same thing when America and Israel do actually attack Iran, so long as your great bringer of hope and change happens to be in the White House at the time. Because obviously Obama must have some good reason for doing everything he does.
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shams
America won’t attack Iran as long as Obama is in the WH, but America would certainly be forced to defend Israel if Israel attacks Iran. Obama seems to be trying to neutralize Israel on that front.
I suppose you and Abu think Obama should STERNLY SCOLD the heck out of Israel.
Like scolding works with crazy people.
KVS said it best….Doesn’t this incident make it more likely that Israel will go rogue on Iran? Humiliation, isolation, stupidity, volatility, genuine domestic fear and loathing, international gridlock, a ticking clock, and a feeling that “even my friends don’t understand me anymore.” Doesn’t this lead to Netanyahu et al. telling themselves that it’s now or never, both existentially (for Israel) and politically (for them)?
Just what do you think Israel will do if it begins to seem America is disengaging from Israel?
My guess is hit a nuke enrichment site in Iran while they still can force America in on their side.
This is so bleeding obvious.
AND like I said….WE got our change. America elected a black man president after a half century of the southern strategy and the tyranny of the stupid.
You want WORLD change?
lawl, go whine to big white christian bwana.
that is going to take a while to unwind.
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abunoor
I guess Obama is like some kind of Super-Khidr…we should watch him murder our mothers and our children in front of us and we should applaud and say Thank you and something about 12 dimensional chess…is that it?
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abunoor
Pointing out the killing of children is petty hatred? Really don’t get it..AT ALL
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shams
you cannot change military culture without replacing the leadership.
nearly 2 years in, the repubs are still stonewalling 75% of Obamas appointments.
You think Obama is a “liberal”?
He is a machiavellian pragmatist that inherited two malignant cesspools, the legacy of America’s Israeli style psychotic break post 911.
He made a bargain with the devil (McChrystal and the mil commanders).
He gave them what they asked for, but for only 3 years.
Then we can gtfo.
That is what he said when he was running for office, that he would listen to the mil-commanders.And its 11D chess. 11D is one of the flavors of string theory.
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aziz
generally, Commaders in Chief dont sign off personally on every detail of every sortie, including what weapons to load on the aircraft.
If this is true, its a colassol failure of not just Obama’s high-level strategic outlook for Afghanistan but also a low-level failure of Gen McChrystal’s own assessment.
I know that your view of Obama and the US military, Abu Noor, basically is a mirror image of shams’. Youre both wrong. the military is like any other gigantic red tap organization and it does have inertia. The question is, how will Obama react to this? (and he wont if the military tries to deny it, because it wont propagate to him as an issue. Being President means being essentially and functionally blind to 99% of the things that the government does.)
IF someone can challenge McChrstal on this, then theres a chance it can go further. And then, it matters what the reaction from us is too.f we grab the righteousness spoon, we miss an opportunity to make this a claer case for advocating the abolishment of not just cluster munitions but aerial bombing and collateral damage (as I have argued at my blog).
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shams
Abu Muqawama is on board.
He counts, since he’s CNAS.
And im not wrong.
Obama gave McChrystal what he ax for in return for the 3 year timetable.
Obama knows there is no “win” in the Graveyard of Empires. -
shams
do you understand the systems analysis principle of graceful degradation?
Obama is gracefully degrading America out the SuperAwesome Judeo-xian World Police.
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thabet
An official of the Yemeni opposition party says attempts to ban child marriage are part of a ‘Western agenda’.
The official, Sheik Mohammed Hamzi, is quoted as saying:
“I am against the child marriage law because it restrains the freedom of others. When a certain age [for marriage] is set, it violates the rights of others. For example, imagine a young man of 13 or 14 years of age who wants to have sex. … This is a violation of his rights…”
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razib, murtad fitri
i guess there is a libertarian streak in yemen! all those guns should have made you suspicious….
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AA
The Yemenization of Theo
Do the Yemeni newspaper’s revelation make Padnos uneasy? “Slightly. Yes,” he says with a nervous chuckle on a recent phone interview from Paris. “But not totally. I want to have a civilized debate with these [Salafists]. I feel that what they’re doing is not correct, and it’s bad.”
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/100308/al-qaeda-yemen-islam-convert
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johnpi
In the wake of threats by al Shabaab to send fighters to Yemen to assist Al Qaeda there, the Yemeni government is cracking down on Somali refugees and keeping them locked in camps.
This follows reports earlier this week in Kenya that authorities there swept through Somali neighborhoods and rounded people up by the hundreds after protests on behalf of Abdullah al Faisal.
Apparently, Somali refugees are being unfairly tainted with the reputation of al Shabaab and viewed more widely in Africa with suspicion and mistrust. Consequently, they are being targeted for greater persecution.
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johnpi
One of the bloggers at Waq al-Waq has been testifying at a US Senate hearing about Yemen. His co-blogger has been live-blogging it. A sample:
Daniel Benjamin, Coordinator for Counterterrorism US state dept: we have very specific conditions on the end use of whatever [military aid] we give them [Yemen], with mechanisms to check how they do so. I like this, and it seems that we learned from Musharraf. If US bombs or bullets are used against the Huthis or in the south, we might as well just depose Salih ourselves and say “have at it, Qaeda!”
To be clear, that would be a bad idea.
No doubt.
Arwi, and 
thabet are discussing. 
Tec15 and 
Dan are discussing. 
shams, 
aziz 7:06 am on May 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
of course, it isn’t doing them much good: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/01/poll-many-muslims-in-mideast-pakistan-have-poor-view-of-al-qaeda/
thabet 4:47 pm on May 1, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Also according to Pew, al-Q seems about as popular in the regions polled as the US…
That should tell you something.
aziz 6:33 am on May 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
not really. Love/hate of the US is basically irrelevant – its driven by perception towards the IP conflict, towards imperial legacies, western history, and of course local islamist propaganda. AlQ’s declining popularity is relevant because it is declining – as purveyors of the propaanda themselves, its quite significant that they have squandered all their good will. Their claim to legitimacy was accepted at face value when it was theoretical, but now that people have had a chance to tase their actual rule they are repulsed.
Arwi 9:22 am on May 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Love/hate of the US is driven by “perceptions” of the IP conflict, imperial legacies, western history and Islamist propaganda. So drones killing civilians, tellig lies to make war on Iraq, shock and awe, Guantanamo, torture in Abu Ghraib, the presence of US troops,, etc. are not factors.
Strange that attitudes towards the US are driven by “perceptions” rather than experiences, when any number of places in West Asia have experienced US actions directly.
aziz 7:13 am on May 3, 2012 Permalink
I didnt say that attitudes were driven by perceptions of the US, I said they were driven by perceptions of the IP conflict.
I dont think its accurate to lump all US actions into one category either. Afghans and Iraqis alike will are not unanimous in their judgement of our actions there (as evidenced by eth very real angst in both places amongst the public about our impending withdrawal).
Arwi 9:24 am on May 2, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
The popularity of Islamist groups has been in based in the provision of social services. The strange thing to me is that the US doesn’t draw the support away by providing better services. The aftermath of the Pakistani earthquake was an ideal opportunity.
aziz 7:15 am on May 3, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I dont think its that simple. Providing “services” isnt as easy as dropping off a load of supplies here and there – it requires building an infrastructure and then active governance. As much as lefty critics compllain about the cost of war, the cost of such services would be massively greater (especially because unlike soldiers, the civilian workforce required would be much more vulnerable and tempting an effective a target).