Tuesday, December 29, 2009

GWOT - A Moveable Feast

Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan ... next stop - Yemen?

Since that guy who detonated his underwear on a plane on Christmas Day claimed to have been sent by the al-Qaeda network in Yemen in retaliation for US/Saudi bombing raids inside Yemen, Saudi policy analysts are popping up in the Globe and Mail to report that Yemen is now more dangerous to the West than Afghanistan:
The botched attack on the U.S. plane came a day after Yemeni forces, with the help of U.S. intelligence, launched the second of two major air and ground assaults on major al-Qaeda hideouts in Yemen. [Ed : Odd coincidence, that]

Anwar Eshki, the head of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies based in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, said al-Qaeda in Yemen “is stronger than it was a year ago and is turning Yemen into its base for operations against the West."

Yemen is al-Qaeda's last resort,” Mr. Eshki said. “There's no doubt that al-Qaeda's presence in Yemen is more dangerous than its presence in Afghanistan.”

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, home to 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hi-jackers, has been helping the US-backed Yemeni president with his Operation Scorched Earth assault against the minority Shiite Huthis, using "fighter-bombers, helicopters, heavy artillery and special forces" and shelling well into Yemen.

Once again the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies was on hand to explain :

"From the Saudi point of view the existence of a Huthi 'state' with the support of Iran is intolerable. They are going to squeeze the Huthis, to shut them down," he said.

The Saudis seek to create a permanent 20-kilometre (12 mile) wide no-go zone straddling the border, and has vacated scores of villages on the Saudi side to that end, according to regional security expert Anwar Eshki.

"The problem in Yemen gave us a good chance to fix our border problem," said the former Saudi general, head of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies in Jeddah.

And right on schedule, from The Times, today:
Hundreds of al-Qaeda militants are planning terror attacks from Yemen, the country’s Foreign Minister said today.
“They may actually plan attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit.
There are maybe hundreds of them — 200, 300.”
The Global War On Terror moves on ...
.

5 comments:

TS said...

my neighbour is sometimes noisy and makes it hard to sleep, so wink wink nudge nudge i think he's a big terrorist and should probably be carpet bombed

opit said...

Like you, I smell a scam. I noticed this on the feed
Video: Was the Christmas Flight 253 Bombing Attempt Staged?
http://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2009/12/video-was-christmas-bombing-attempt.html

TS said...

not exactly saying it's staged, but seems to promote that possibility for the future, which feels like it would be a playground

"hey, that kid said your mom's hot"

"you said my mom's hot?"

"no"

"so you're saying my mom's ugly?"

kind of situation

Anonymous said...

"Saudi Arabia, home to 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hi-jackers"

They were also known to US intelligence as Al Qaeda before being issued visas and allowed to board their respective planes.

Ted Kennedy couldn't get off the no-fly list but this guy couldn't get on it even after his father the prominent banker told the CIA he was up to something?

I would always rather put down to incompetence what might at first appear to be a conspiracy but as Alison says - the GWOT has to be moved on to fresh ground.

Tim

opit said...

That's hardly a problem. I found a Texan with a taste for highbrow literature and the stage following my news a few years back. He had quite the following and so I investigated. Ever since I blog updates of his posts. He goes into 9/11 interminably and compulsively, hate for the Texas Mafia warring with despair. He is one of many. Without making judgments, I simply started following posts. Eventually I came to the conclusion the 'Conspiracy Theorists' had to be at least as credible as known paid public liars and treated them with at least as much deference as the UFO crowd. There are even related concepts between them and aliens and Nazi superweapons. The whole thing is soured for one at first by the concept of dealing with occasional antiSemites. After enough geopolitics one realizes that is a crock too, Israel being one of the prime offenders against Semites : said so by Palestinians and Israelis and Jews elsewhere also.
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2009/09/not-pc-nwo.html should get one started. Links index at my.opera.com/oldephartte/links
Len Hart - the fellow I was talking about - has a blog called The Existentialist Cowboy on Blogger, does guest posts at Bluebloggin, and is featured on OpEd News.

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