Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
May 20, 2012
Yemen As A Model – For What?

It is becoming clear what the U.S. plans for Syria are when Obama is citing Yemen as a “model” for what he wishes Syria to become.

President Barack Obama told G8 leaders meeting at Camp David that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must leave power, and pointed to Yemen as a model of how political transition could work there, the White House said on Saturday.

So Yemen is a model but for what?

For a fake election with only one person on the ballot and no way to vote against that person?

For persistent civil war with multiple parties:

On one side of Arhab’s conflict are tribesmen linked to Islah, the country’s most powerful Islamist party, and Ali Muhsin al Ahmar, a renegade general. On the other side are Republican Guard troops led by Saleh’s son, Ahmed Ali Saleh.

Muhsin — whose Islah party is now part of Hadi’s coalition government — and Ahmed Ali have each sent only one company of troops to the south, said a senior Yemeni official close to Hadi, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Muhsin’s troops in particular have abundant experience fighting insurrections, having fought six civil wars against Shiite Houthi rebels in the north.

“Al-Qaeda will get stronger if this situation continues in the capital,” said Sultan al-Barakani, a top ruling party official.

For seriously wounded U.S. soldiers who “helped train Yemeni coastguards”?

There are at least four parties fighting each other all over Yemen and in between the U.S. and its Forward Air Controllers are bombing these or those “signature” emitting humans. Why is that supposed to be a model for Syria?

Would the U.S. soldiers that already train to seize Syria’s chemical weapons really be welcomed with sweets and flowers? Isn’t there already another not-so-good model case for that?

No. I do not think that anyone sane in Syria or elsewhere would consider Yemen to be a good “model” for their country.

Only someone who wants to completely destroy the Syrian state could make that “model” case. But we already know that exactly this, like in Libya, is what the U.S. really wants.

Comments

The way that Germany is ripping Europe apart and immiserating millions of workers, I rather wish the US would completely destroy the German state.

Posted by: slothrop | May 20 2012 17:52 utc | 1

let france do it, they always fare well in any tussle with germany…

Posted by: ralphieboy | May 20 2012 20:12 utc | 2

Fuck off, slothrop.

Posted by: DM | May 20 2012 20:58 utc | 3

Nice response ralphieboy!
does america have a successful example (not including the effects of the Marshal plan)? has america improved a single country since the end of the cold war? and though what means?

Posted by: simon | May 20 2012 21:50 utc | 4

slothrop – I suppose you now regret the breakup of the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet Union would have kept Germany in its rightful place.

Posted by: blowback | May 20 2012 21:58 utc | 5

‘b’ makes good points about Yemen, but I think ‘b’ is mistaken or crass in his last sentence when he says his reading of USA policy towards Syria is that the USA really wants to destroy the Syrian State.
I’ve been paying a lot of attention to Syria for the last year. But I’ve been paying very little attention to USA policy talk about it. I don’t know what the USA people really think or want for Syria (excluding wishful thinking and wants they know are totally unrealistic, which cannot be “what they really want”). Still, I don’t think the USA people “really want” to destroy the Syrian State. Note that ‘b’ above is quoting from a report of Obama saying that Obama wants a “political transition” where Assad leaves power, and Obama pointed to Yemen as a model of the institutional mechanisms for this notional “political transition”. A week ago on this board I quoted the UK prime minister saying on 13 Mar 2012 he wants “a transition where Assad goes…. Transition at the top rather than revolution at the bottom.” I went on the say that the notion of a “transition at the top” is totally unrealistic. So it can’t be what they “really want”. Unless they’re so ill-informed they don’t think it’s totally unrealistic.
Anyway, one thing that’s clear to me is that the USA is not going to bomb Syria. At least not for the foreseeable future. Therefore what the USA people think is irrelevant for Syria. Therefore I, as someone who’s interested in Syria, don’t need to spend time on the disgusting job of trying to figure out what USA people are really thinking.

Posted by: Parviziyi | May 20 2012 22:00 utc | 6

BTW, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi was alleged to be responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which left 270 people dead has died.

Posted by: blowback | May 20 2012 22:12 utc | 7

In a reasonable regression of b’s insanely principled non-interventionism, Hitler would have already conquered Mars.
But there is no principle. The notion only applies to the US.

Posted by: slothrop | May 20 2012 22:12 utc | 8

“only applies to the US” Naturlich, they are the worst offenders; the most arrogant, the most vicious, the most sanctimonious.

Posted by: ruralito | May 20 2012 22:40 utc | 9

most Americans don’t know shit about foreign policy. we don’t really care what people in other countries think, and we don’t really care how many civilians in other countries get killed with our taxpayer money.

Posted by: lizard | May 21 2012 0:16 utc | 10

So tell me, Slothrop, did you get your welfare payment from the Israeli government thyis month so you could study Talmud? After all, better to be collecting welfare as a Talmud scholar than actually being in the IDF.

Posted by: Albertde | May 21 2012 0:33 utc | 11

This might reinforce the model case.
Suicide bomber kills 20 Yemeni soldiers in Sanaa

Yemeni officials say 20 soldiers died when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a military parade drill in the capital Sanaa.
Medical and military officials say the bomber was a soldier who was participating in the rehearsal on Monday at a main square near the presidential palace in Sanaa. It was a practice for the celebration of Yemen’s National Day on Tuesday.
Scores of others were also wounded in the attack.

Posted by: b | May 21 2012 8:48 utc | 12

@Parviziyi
I agree that a political transition at the top would not really work. Any sane analyst of Syria will know that. That the U.S. and its poodle demand that only shows that they want something different. A Syria that is no longer with the resistance and powerless enough to be pushed around by Israel however it wants.
To achieve that the Syrian state has to be destructed as much as possible. Support of the gangs of radical fanatics is -for now- supposed to achieve just that.

Posted by: b | May 21 2012 8:53 utc | 13

“Friends of slothrop”
Militant group claims suicide bombing in Syria

DUBAI (Reuters) – A militant group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in eastern Syria last week that killed nine people and said attacks would continue, in a statement posted on the Internet on Monday.
The al-Nusra Front said it was behind the attack on Saturday which targeted military installations in Deir al-Zor. The authenticity of the statement could not immediately be verified.
“There was a limit to the ferocity of the dogs of the regime in Deir al-Zor at which they had to be punished, so the soldiers of the al-Nusra front undertook this mission,” read the statement on an Islamist web forum.
“The blessed operations will continue until the land of Syria is purified from the filth of the Nusayris (Alawites) and the Sunnis are relieved from their oppression.”

Posted by: b | May 21 2012 9:14 utc | 14

On the latest bombing in Yemen:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/at-least-63-killed-in-yemen-suicide-bombing-1.431708

Posted by: ben | May 21 2012 14:18 utc | 15

slothrop at 1 is right in a way.. Yet, only in the sense that Germany is the most powerful EU country and seems to be (the wind is turning a little) leading the pack.
One – repeat one, not the most important one – of the causes of the present EU mess – was the 3% of GDP to gvmt. deficit ratio, which was completely nonsensical. A kind of nutty rule of thumb which served as a hypocritical blanket. (Maastricht, 92.)
This was, iirc, a German inspired thing, the others all signed on, and it perhaps indirectly lead to, certainly contributed to, the situation in e.g. Greece today. Details for the historians.
Certainly ‘austerity’ measures have been pushed by Germany in first place.
——
Obama was obviously hard put to come up with some example of ‘smooth’ transition, and just picked a country where the leaders were not ousted, banished, etc./ killed outright.
Yemen, most USers won’t know anything about it.
Yemen might be this lovely orientalist garden with quaint customs, chewing quat, jewelled knives as status symbols, lovely traditional buildings in Sanaa…

Posted by: Noirette | May 21 2012 15:16 utc | 16

100 soldiers killed by yemen sucide bomber
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/05/21/suicide_bombing_kills_nearly_100_people_in_yemen_s_capital

Posted by: nikon | May 21 2012 16:08 utc | 17

@nikon – yes the number reported goes up by the hour.
Amazing that this is supposed to have been one suicide bomber. 100 killed and several hundred wounded by one suicide bomber? My guess is that it was something else but as it is Yemen it is hard to know who, how and why.
Sure the so called AlQaeda folks in the south don’t like the drone and ground war on them and might have set a stop sign with this operations.
But there is another version for conspiracy theory lovers: – president Hadi today fired some four high ranking security officials who were all connected to or relatives of former president Saleh. Also today Saleh was said to again go into medical treatment probably in the U.S. Hadi and his GCC/US backers would of course love to get Saleh and his folks out if the way. A big bomb on the right military unit might have been a good way to achieve that.
It would be interesting to know what military unit was hit. Was it loyal to Saleh or to someone else?

Posted by: b | May 21 2012 16:54 utc | 18

It was the armys 1. batalion, in a rehersal to tomorrows parade celebrating the union of the two Yemeni states.

Posted by: Alexander | May 21 2012 17:08 utc | 19

1. division I mean.

Posted by: Alexander | May 21 2012 17:09 utc | 20

After al-Qaida claimed responsibility for Monday’s deadly suicide bombing on a military parade in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, some citizens and analysts blamed the division in the armed forces and remnants of the former regime

Wahid Ghalib, a 32-year-old man, said the former regime has been part of all problems after the 2011 protests forced ex- president Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign.
“It is true al-Qaida can manage suicide attacks anywhere in the country, but it is not that easy to do it in al-Sabeen Square,” he said, “This square is heavily guarded by the forces loyal to the ex-president.”
The Republican Guard and the Central Security are guarding this closed area since the unrest escalated in mid-2011.
“Anyway, the attack sent a message that the remnants of the former regime, mainly military commanders and forces, are determined to obstruct the power transfer deal and wanted to tell the people and the international community that they are still able to take the country into internal conflicts,” he said.

Posted by: Alexander | May 21 2012 17:24 utc | 21

Just for the record a tweet by the reliable Yemen411: #Ansar alSharia an #alQaeda affiliated group claims responsibly for today’s attack that was suppose to assassinate the minister of defense

Posted by: b | May 21 2012 18:09 utc | 22

deathtoll risen to 120
http://yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=3&SubID=5413&MainCat=3

Posted by: Nikon | May 21 2012 21:02 utc | 23

not all suicide bombers are suicide bombers…some are bombs planted in cars and markets and made to look like suicide bombers….esp true in the case of market bombnigs in iraq

Posted by: brian | May 21 2012 21:41 utc | 24