Yemen, the joke is on you ...

[IndianaGreen]

Yemen, the joke is on you ...

By Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst

UPDATED ON:
Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Marginalised by regional developments and intimidated by Washington's Cold War and Gulf War victories, two Yemenis - so goes the joke - wondered if their country should declare war on the US, force it to occupy Yemen and care for it.

"But what if we won?" wondered one. "We would have to care for America!"

As the US and Britain prepare for covert war on Yemen, and following on their failures in Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan, Yemenis might wonder if the joke is becoming a reality.

Over the last few days, London has called for an international conference on Yemen (after it called for another on Afghanistan) under US-British auspices to see how best to support the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, against al-Qaeda.

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By offering more military training, arms, naval patrolling, intelligence sharing and possibly shared offensive operations, the West might help prolong and sustain an autocratic regime that faces secessionist movements in the North and South.

Mostly, though, it will aggravate a fragile state of Yemen into a failing state.

Even if estimates are exaggerated (Yemen's interior minister in 2002 put the number of guns at 60 million), Yemeni tribes are better armed than any other in the region and will not surrender their weapons quietly to the central government, especially in light of the declared foreign intrusion into their country's affairs.

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/imperium/2010/01/201014122549187202.html