Yemen?

[ThomWV]

"At this moment, for example, in 1984, (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any tie been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia" ... " Officially the change had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: The enemy of the moment always represented pure evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible"

Last week there weren't a half a dozen American news casters who could find Yemen on a map. Today it is the world's greatest threat - it has always been the world's greatest threat - it will aways be the world's greatest threat and let there be no public or private utterance to the contrary.

We live in an insane world. War is insanity. I can not support it.

[NightWatcher]

1. I'm taking a step back from the whole damn thing

we were once worried about the government spying on us, reading our emails, and seeing what we do online.
we were scared of this Big Brother
we were victims of a version of Shock and Awe

<breathe<

take a step back and realize that the things we have been seeing in the news are make believe. Big Brother misses obvious dangers (ie the Ft Hood shooting)
we are safe as long as we dont let the military industrial M$M machine scare us.

I'm gonna read a book, practice my homebrewing techniques, and wait for the weather to turn warmer and head outside.

Peace

(on edit)

so now we are to be scared of Yemen? to add to the list of the Axis of Evil?
I dont buy any of it.

[G_j]

2. a corrupt dictatorship in a failed state w/ an ongoing civil war

from what I've been reading

[dkf]

10. Al qaedas goal is to drive us broke by nation building every failed state there is

I'd say they are succeeding

[thenooch]

3. If I were a bettin' man...

which I am. I would wager a few more drone attacks on the Yemeni.

Won't solve any issues, yet some brown folks die, and the people say, "meh"

This whole WOT BS is a scam.

p.s. how's that WOD's working out?

Obama has disappointed me, and will continue to do so.

But he knows I won't vote for Sarah.

Bummer

[unkachuck]

4. K&R....

....someday they're going cry war and no one will come....

[Kutjara]

5. I think it's a bet.

A decade or two ago, somewhere in the halls of power, two shadowy yet immensely powerful bureaucrats decided to have a bet about just how pathetic and feeble an enemy they could cook up and present to the the public before we all saw the joke.

They started with Iraq and sent us into a meltdown of fear. "The fourth largest army in the world!?!?! WMDs?!?! OMG! OMG! We're doooomed!"
Then it was North Korea. "They've got missiles that mostly go up when launched!! And they could conceivably put nukes on them, if they worked!!!! Mommeeeee!"
Then it was Iran. "They're spinning uranium in converted tumble-dryers! Hold me, I'm scared!!!"
Then it was Afghanistan. "They'll make AK-47s out of soup cans and kill us all! Helllllp!"


Now it's Yemen. Surely even the most jelly-legged coward can see that a country of subsistence level goat farmers is no conceivable threat to the most powerful country the world has ever seen. But no, apparently there is no country so tiny, no economy so impoverished, no regime so ineffectual, that we can't be terrified of it.

If the Turks & Caicos Islands declared war, we'd shit ourselves.

And somewhere, a gray figure is chuckling to himself and saying, "double or nothing?"

[ThomWV]

7. By God! You have hit the nail right on its fucking head.

"If the Turks & Caicos Islands declared war, we'd shit ourselves."

[Subdivisions]

13. +1000!!! n/t

[Sebastian Doyle]

6. Yeah, Yemen is every bit as "connected" to that bullshit underpants non-event.

As either Afghanistan or Iraq were to the PNAC Perle Harbor exercises of 9-11-2001.

[lunatica]

8. Trust your instincts until they're proven wrong by you

I feel the same way. Wow! Suddenly Yemen is the dark force that needs to be bombed and demonized. Always an enemy that lurks and threatens from the shadows of Evil itself. It 's beginning to get downright predictable isn't it?

[LooseWilly]

9. I mentioned Yemen and Somalia both, a couple of weeks ago, when the Afghan escalation hit the news.

Less than 100 al Qaeda in Afghanistan... yet we send in another 30-40K soldiers? I asked what sense that made, with a corrupt government in Afghanistan, while al Qa'eda consolidates in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen (from which they organized the USS Cole bombing, I believe)...

I seem to recall the threat of Afghanistan being railed about... while mention of Yemen and Somalia were largely ignored... here on DU.

The notion of addressing all al Qa'eda &/or other "terrorist" threats with US Military escalations is ridiculous. The notion that this solution in Afghanistan is less ridiculous than the employment of the same solution in Yemen... let alone Somalia... is apparently "common wisdom"... which makes common wisdom ridiculous in my opinion.

Apparently though, the sarcastic wisdom of my sig line is still "common wisdom"...

[G_j]

11. it's very frustrating

and goes against all logic.

[Kid Dynamite]

12. So if we just left Yemen alone

you would be ok with Imperialism? What I am not at all clear on is how anyone can write something like what you have and NOT extend that to be a radical critique against the system as a whole. Which makes all of the kvetching about Obama or any of the other politcal figureheads of either party so much grousing in the wind.

The things that are written here often seem to belie the conclusions that then get drawn. For instance, if the problem is systemic, of how much use is it to debate which agents of the system the sytem appoints to carry out its bidding (ie Republican/Democrat)? Does it really matter to us? If it does, how does that possibly reconcile with what is written here?

[ThomWV]

14. What makes you think the problem is systemic?

I see nothing in our system of Government that causes war to be an inevitable end nor do I see anything in our economic system that leads to that end of necessity.

It is all optional.