Posted on 03/26/2015 9:57:39 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
Airstrikes by Saudi Arabia against Iran-backed Shiite rebels in turbulent Yemen have added a regional dimension to the conflict in the Arab world’s poorest country. Five reasons why the world should care about what is happening there:
Yemen is home to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, which Washington has viewed as the most lethal branch of the global network founded by Osama bin Laden. AQAP has been linked to several attempted attacks on the U.S., including the underwear bomb plot of December 2009, and it claimed the January killings at the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi was a close U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaida, but he fled Yemen on Wednesday as his forces were routed by the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, and loyalists of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The Houthis, who control the capital Sanaa and nine of Yemen’s 21 provinces, are sworn enemies of al-Qaida, but they are also hostile to the U.S. Their slogan is “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, damnation to the Jews, victory for Islam.”'
The U.S. drone campaign against AQAP is now in disarray. About 100 U.S. military advisers withdrew last weekend from al-Annad air base, where they had been leading the campaign. The Houthis have overrun the base, which was hit in Thursday’s air raids.
For more than a decade, the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command have carried out parallel targeted killings in Yemen, and the U.S. military has trained elite Yemeni counterterrorism units. In September, President Barack Obama cited Yemen as a success story when he detailed his strategy against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, which involves targeted U.S. strikes on militants with the cooperation of friendly ground forces.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
You know... I think so too. I think those guys (the ragheads) have to fight it out until they find unity.... then it is look out world.
When was the last time the Saudis and Egyptian armies were involved?
The Saudi leaders have got to be looking at all of these other basically secular governments being over run. They have to take action before they get swallowed up as well.
So! What else is new?
We have the wrong Prez at the wrong time.
I’m just a dumb redneck, but I think I can end this war within a week without firing a shot. I think as an added benefit I can get Russia out of Ukraine.
President Obama goes to the podium and says the following: “I have authorized the expedited construction of the Keystone pipeline. In addition, I am relaxing EPA standards for the refining of oil as well as coal extraction and finally I am authorizing the leasing of federal lands to oil companies for the purpose of exploring and extracting oil from the ground using fracking practices.”
Every war will end tomorrow.
The Saudis aren't non-crazy! The 911 attackers were Saudis. A lot of the problems in the ME are US misdeeds at the behest of Saudis, who do seem to own much of DC.
I gave your question some serious thought, and I'm sorry to report that I couldn't come up with anything.
Yes, he has. As opposed to his usual half-a$$ screw-ups.
Who did you back in the Iran Iraq war? Sunni or later Shiite is gonna happen!
Not yet, but we are very close. The next move will be made by Iran. I believe Iraq will be absorbed by Iran, the. move on Kuwait and move south to SA. It’s all about controlling oil. With SA conquered, you cannot manuver warships in either the Red Sea or the straits. That was Sadamns biggest mistake in the first gulf war. Had he taken SA, the worlds economies would have collapsed.
Translation, his perfect record is still in tact.
Saudi Arabia goes to war
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/nov/23/saudi-arabia-yemen-houthi-war
23 November 2009
A crucially important conflict, woefully under-reported in the west, has now come to a head in the Middle East. In response to an ongoing fight that could spill out beyond the Arabian peninsula, Saudi Arabia has entered into direct war with the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen.
Saudi military intervention marks the first time in the kingdom’s history that its army has crossed its borders without an ally. Previously, the kingdom engaged only in proxy wars. The Saudis used royalist Yemenis to fight Nasser’s Egypt in the 1960s, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to fight Iran in the 1980s, and the US to fight Iraq in the 1990s.
Indeed, Saudi Arabia has fought every “ism” that has sought to dominate the Middle East, including Nasser’s pan-Arabism, communism, and today’s Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, the terrorism of al-Qaida and the Shi’ism of Iran. The tools it relied upon were oil money and Wahhabi Islam. During the 1980s, Saudi Arabia spent more than $75bn on the propagation of Wahhabi doctrine, funding schools, mosques, and charities across the Islamic world in an effort to bolster its influence.
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Fighting between these nations is hardly a new thing.
Yemen has been dangerous to U.S. for decades, take the USS Cole DDG67 for example.
Putin advocating for a cease-fire. Now that’s a hoot.
Watch as more events happen—ISIS will hit Baghdad—new Attacks on Egypt from ISIS backed attackers. The Gulf States will back saudi Arabia. Its 1914—August==The guns are just starting to fire.
I did not know that. Thank you.
I used to live in Yemen.
From my point of view, this current action is much smaller than many of the past multination conflicts in that region over the past few decades.
Well, it is. Just not one of ours.
I note cynically that this is an "intervention" in the eyes of the Post - perhaps they'll apply those standards to Bush in Iraq? Didn't think so.
The deal we made with the Saudis after Nixon took us off the gold standard was that they would price their oil in dollars and we would guarantee their defense. The new king doesn’t think we are capable or willing to hold up our end of the bargain.
What comes next is the Saudis cut a deal with China to price oil in yuan, uncoupling it from the dollar and destroying the US economy.
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