Politics as Usual

Here's the Gloucester Daily Times printing a story about that city's mayor using Yemen as a false pretext to get more money for her community: Kirk seeks more fed security $$$.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony

A great piece of testimony on Yemen and Al-Qa’ida presented by Dr. Emile Nakhleh to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 20, 2010. The only problem I have is with his contention that there is “non-existent rule of law” in Yemen (for a great explanation of this assertion's falsity, see Gregory Johnsen’s post at Waq al-Waq).

Of interest is Nakhleh’s belief that the Islah party should be engaged to effect change, something I believe as well: “Although we would continue to engage regimes for national security reasons, the broader engagement should involve indigenous, credible and legitimate religious and political civil society communities that are committed to the welfare of their societies and the well being of their citizens. In Yemen, the Islah Party and private associations in the San’a and Aden regions should be involved. The strategic goal of this engagement is to present Yemeni and other Muslim youth with a more hopeful future vision than the empty promises of al-Qa’ida.”

Yemen's biggest port offers gleam of economic hope

Here's a story that speaks to the potential for overcoming the obstacles that contribute to the economic quagmire Yemen finds itself in.

Yemen Natural Gas

As most of you know, Stephanie and I have returned from Arabia Felix as a result of unfortunate news stories in the West that were (and continue to be), to put it fairly, jingoistic.

Earlier in the month there was a news story about the shipment of natural gas from Yemen into Boston Harbor. Unfortunately, local officials like Boston's Mayor Menino made claims of being "unnerved." Anyone who knows anything about Yemen knows that the oil is running out there (they hit "peak oil" in 2002), and that their highest income from natural gas will only approximate 25% of what they received for their oil back in 2002. Put another way, the country is slipping deeper and deeper into poverty, and the only exportable commodity they have is their natural gas. And because there is sufficient natural gas from other markets in the world, most people who took just a moment to think would realize that if just one LNG tanker from Yemen were to be sabotaged, it would have catastrophic consequences on the economy of Yemen.

For every Predator missile we fire at an Al Qaeda target here, we should help Yemen build 50 new modern schools...

Thomas Friedman is not my favorite, but here is a great op/ed piece.

Yemen: Qaeda Affiliate Urges Joint Blockade of Red Sea

A glaring omission in this article is that The Yemen-based wing of Al-Qaeda doesn't control the Arabian side of the strait either. Another example of poor reporting by the NYT.

"Unveiled"

Came across this slideshow/article in the New York Times today. Click here!