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Meanwhile, In Yemen

It’s not that we are all ignoring Yemen, it’s more a matter of how many times can you say “Saleh refuses to leave, violence is everywhere”? It’s been eleven months since the first protests against the 21-year dictatorship of Ali Abdullah Saleh. Hundreds, if not thousands have died. The factions are warring against each other as they have for decades. In June, Saleh survived an assassination attempt, and while he was being treated in Saudi Arabia, people thought he would abdicate and stay away, but he came back and he is refusing to permanently leave. Again. He has been promising to leave for months, and never does. He keeps agreeing to the brokered peace, and then reneges. Where Yemen is concerned, we could copy and paste the stories, month after month.

This time, Saleh is claiming he will visit the United States for a few days of medical tests, but he will return “…because I won’t leave my people and comrades who have been steadfast for 11 months. I’ll withdraw from political work and go into the street as part of the opposition.” And we though Qaddafi was delusional. At least he never thought he’d be welcomed among the protesters.

Yemen is a huge problem for the region and the United States. Al Qaida is very deeply entrenched there. It is economically depressed, has been more or less in a state of civil war forever because the two halves don’t want to be one country and is situated strategically for transportation of oil from the Middle East. Not the best possible situation, and for some insane reason, the countries that need stability in Yemen have done too little to help that happen.

For us, Yemen is another case of making a deal with the devil. To prevent the spread of al Qaida, we supported Saleh, just as we have supported other dictators to prevent the spread of communism. Now, all the United States can do is sit back and watch the chaos and try to protect our ships in their harbors and our personnel. It was in the Yemeni port of Aden that the U. S. S. Cole was attacked and seventeen Americans killed.

There is no official word from Washington about Saleh’s plans.

 

Related articles

• Yemeni president Saleh to go to US (guardian.co.uk)
• Yemen kills brother of country’s al-Qaida leader (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Doctors: 8 killed in attack on Yemen protests (washingtonpost.com)
• Troops hit protesters marching into Yemen capital (boston.com)
• Anti-Saleh Protests Leave Nine Dead In Yemen (news.sky.com)