[hedgetrimmer]

Security forces arrested Ali Mohamed Omar Shorbajy

I'm very happy to hear this.

The Cole was vulnerable for 3 reasons, it was a interdiction ship capturing oil smugglers from Iraq,

Yemen was an enemy port, but General Zinni had this incredibly stupid idea that our sailors are diplomats so sending them into the hands of the enemy is good diplomacy.

They were not allowed to defend themselves in port, no weapons were allowed on the quarterdeck. When the boat came at them, they could not respond because their firearms were locked up by orders of the Central command (diplomats don't need guns you know).

In other words, our foreign policy made the USS Cole a sitting duck. The bombing was an act of war perpetrated on sovereign US territory (a navy ship) and this fact was artfully dodged by the press and the government officials responsible for those dead sailors.

[Magnum44]

Yemen was an enemy port, but General Zinni had this incredibly stupid idea that our sailors are diplomats so sending them into the hands of the enemy is good diplomacy.

Actually, it became policy during the Klinton admin to use foriegn ports for Navy ship refueling as an way to justify cutting defense spending and not buying the required number of undwerway replenishment ships. Risking high value assets like Cole was not necessary, it was just convenient to the then admin who balanced the books on the backs of our servicemen.