Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
With the attempt on Christmas Day to blow up an airliner in Detroit, Americans are now facing another question. Early reports are that the attempted bomber was trained and equipped in Yemen to carry out the attacks. This has led some "hawks" to immediately call for military action in Yemen, but is this the best course?? If America has learned anything in the past decade it should be that immediate, knee-jerk reactions most likely will fail.
Which brings us to the first order of business that this attempted attack proves. We need to immediately repeal the Patriot Act and the FISA law. These measures which were sold to the American people on the premise of "keeping us safe" proved on Christmas Day that they simply do not. Despite being law they were completely impotent in preventing an attack. All they do is steal away Constitutional protections won by Americans since the creation of our country. Is that not what they were designed to do from day one??
Which brings us back to the Yemeni question. What do we do about this country that seems to be a new hotbed for Al-Queda?? Yemen had seemingly brought this problem upon itself by taking in many displaced jihadists in the past:
The country has long been a refuge for jihadists, in part because Yemen’s government welcomed returning Islamist fighters who had fought in Afghanistan during the 1980s. The Yemen port of Aden was the site of the audacious bombing of the American destroyer Cole in October 2000 by Qaeda militants, which killed 17 sailors.
But Qaeda militants have made much more focused efforts to build a base in Yemen in recent years, drawing recruits from throughout the region and mounting attacks more frequently on foreign embassies and other targets. The White House is seeking to nurture enduring ties with the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and prod him to combat the local Qaeda affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, even as his impoverished country grapples with seemingly intractable internal turmoil.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Widespread poverty in Yemen also must be a huge contributor to any problems there. As many in America are finding out poverty can cause folks to resort to desperate measures they normally would not consider and make them succeptible to radical messages. However, I am afraid in the coming days and weeks the poverty of the Yemeni people will take a backseat to other more sinister solutions.
To their credit, it appears as if the Obama Administration had acted early on intelligence of a growing problem in Yemen:
American and Yemeni officials said that a pivotal point in the relationship was reached in late summer after separate secret visits to Yemen by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American regional commander, and John O. Brennan, President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser.
President Saleh agreed to expanded overt and covert assistance in response to growing pressure from the United States and Yemen’s neighbors, notably Saudi Arabia, from which many Qaeda operatives had fled to Yemen, as well as a rising threat against the country’s political inner circle, the officials said.
Yemen’s foreign minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, said Sunday that Yemeni military cooperation with the United States and Saudi Arabia had increased in recent months as fresh intelligence confirmed Al Qaeda’s greater assertiveness in the country.
However, many of the problems that are besetting that nation stem from the poverty, and great unrest within:
Yemen’s remote areas are notoriously lawless, but the country’s chaos has worsened in the past two years, as the government struggles with an armed rebellion in the northwest and a rising secessionist movement in the south. Yemen is running out of oil, and the government’s dwindling finances have affected its ability to strike at Al Qaeda.
Despite the delicate nature of the situation, already some are calling to bring back the disasterous Bush Administration policy of pre-emptive strike, including two within the "Democratic" caucus:
Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) were on FOX News Sunday describing Yemen as an emerging hotbed of terrorist threats -- and calling for preemptive action against the failing Islamic state on the Saudi peninsula if necessary.
http://www.politico.com/...
Of course, these are two men that should not even be within the Democratic caucus. They are not Democrats and both have sold their souls as party switchers to try and stay in power. They ignore the fact that our country is already working with the Yemeni government and other regional governments appear to be trying to help them combat the rising Al-Queda prescense there:
Although the most important intelligence came from the United States and Saudi Arabia, other countries in the region have increased their financial assistance in recent months to help Yemen, said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. "There was a fear inside and outside Yemen that Al Qaeda was taking new ground, establishing training centers, making some parts of Yemen no-go areas," Mr. Alani said. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait in particular provided assistance, he said, because "they feel that sooner or later they will become targets too."
This seems to be the best course of action for the moment. It is particularly important to engage countries within the region to help with the problem. Pre-emptive strike or an increase American prescense there is probably the very worst thing we can do, despite the idiocy reminiscent of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, spewed by Lieberman and Specter:
The airstrikes of the past two weeks have been successful but have come at a price, Yemeni officials said. "They have been hit hard, but they have not yet been disabled," said one high-ranking Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic issues involved. "The problem is that the involvement of the United States creates sympathy for Al Qaeda. The cooperation is necessary — but there is no doubt that it has an effect for the common man. He sympathizes with Al Qaeda."
So why would we want to go into Yemen with pre-emptive strikes when all that will do is increase sympathy for Al-Queda in Yemen?? If there is one lesson we hopefully have learned from the last decade is that the policy of pre-emptive strike is an utter failure, as is the Patriot Act and FISA law which was borne of clueless, disgraced leaders whose every move both foreign and domestic were dismal failures. America is still paying a huge price at home and abroad for the failures brought about by the policies of the Bush Administration.
There are no easy answers in Yemen. It is much easier to point out what will not work than what will. America is walking a tightrope in this region as our very prescense agitates many of the people there. It appears to me that unlike their predecessors the Obama Administration was actually out in front of this problem. Their policy of helping the impoverished Yemeni government combat Al-Queda while engaging regional countries that have more respect than America to help too seems to be the best alternative.
As with the rest of this region, I believe there is no quick fix with American bombs and troops. I think that our country needs to show more patience and choose a much more level-headed approach to the problem which it appears the current administration had already begun. We need to work with regional countries with interests at stake to combat Al-Queda and to try and find measures that will alleviate the crushing poverty that drives desperate people to radical measures. A truly long-term policy that seeks to solve problems instead of throwing bombs at them as a short-term solution seems the much better course to take.