Yemeni snipers open fire on protesters, kill 46

[tsetsefly]

Re: Yemeni snipers open fire on protesters, kill 46

Wrong.

The US Fifth Fleet headquarters are INSIDE the Persian Gulf, in the Kingdom of Bahrain...

Oh I guess that is why the US doesn't mind the saudis taking out protestors in Bahrain, I guess they dont care about "pro-democratic" protesters in other countries...

[Slimprofits]

Re: Yemeni snipers open fire on protesters, kill 46

Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the middle east, because their oil reserves are small. What little oil there is has been projected to run out in 2017. So as far as oil goes, there is little to draw the attention of the US government. They do have natural gas, so maybe after we drink up our domestic natural gas milkshake, Yemen will seem more important.

Thanks for that Zoog

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Yemeni snipers open fire on protesters, kill 46

So why is the US not talking intervention in Yemen?

Who says the US hasn't already "intervened" in some way in Yemen?

If Iran has anything to do with the undermining of Yemen and chipping away at the periphery of Saudi, damn skippy the US would have some sort of quiet presence....especially in light of the Saudis poor showing in it's border spat a year or two ago.

Have a look at Somalia in recent years.....the US has assets located in several locations on the periphery of Somalia(Djibouti/Ethiopia/Kenya to a certain extent)......no need to have a permanent overt presence in an unstable "country" when it can intervene temporarily, quietly, and often if necessary.

Somalia is a tough environment for media to work in, Yemen less so(but still not easy).

I could easily imagine a US foreign policy viewpoint of Yemen being that of an unfortunate bit of energy poor dirt that, if allowed to become gangrenous, could fester and put Saudi at risk of the gangrene spreading.

I wonder if the efforts of the past decade to attempt to defend against and aggressively eradicate clusters of AQ and their havens have been strategically out of step fighting the "last war" again?

Deals with devils appear to have been done to achieve cooperation in the hunt for AQ, because of events from 1998(Tanzania/Kenya) and 2000(Cole) and 2001(9/11)....10-12+ years ago.

Maybe efforts could have been better spent in pushing harder for REAL reform to boost indigenous quality of life and standard of living......jobs, housing, education, opportunity.....under a velvet gloved fist of course.

We spent the last 10-12 years realigning politically and militarily from a conventional warfighting deterrence stance to an aggressive counter-terrorism/COIN stance....now do we need to realign AGAIN to counter a MLK of Gandhi like threat in a regional form and flavour?

Is it just me or are we appear to be in a perpetually reactive foreign policy OODA loop?

If we continue to be on the defensive(big picture wise), how the hell are we going to be able to seize the initiative and proactively attempt to shape regional developments in a direction that is positively(or at least not necessarily negatively) aligned with the west?

[Jay]

Re: Yemeni snipers open fire on protesters, kill 46

If we continue to be on the defensive(big picture wise), how the hell are we going to be able to seize the initiative and proactively attempt to shape regional developments in a direction that is positively(or at least not necessarily negatively) aligned with the west?

That's what it looks like as Empires go bankrupt.

[flintlock]

Re: Yemeni snipers open fire on protesters, kill 46

That's what it looks like as Empires go bankrupt.

That's a different issue (though I tend to agree with you). Should the US be playing this type of game at all? Perhaps we have to and its naive to think we don't? I personally think its gotten out of hand and I'd like to see that region ultimately not even be a concern to the US. But until we formulate some sort of strategy in terms of energy, that ain't happening. LD is correct in that until we don't need thay region's oil, we will either play this disgusting game or get left behind. I blame the lack of leadership for decades that has led the US down a blind alley that ultimately leads to a dead end.