Comments on: US Cozies Up to Saddamists in Yemen

By: Jane

Jane — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:57:40 +0000

I think they know it already.

By: William deB. Mills

William deB. Mills — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:17:46 +0000

Rameesh,
Your comments have grave implications for U.S. policy as Washington attempts to work with Saleh. If you can share any sources for this information, I would appreciate it.

By: Rameesh

Rameesh — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:42:16 +0000

I totally agree with William Deb Mils is comment. The Yemeni regime is dictatorial and very much similar to the former Bathist regime in Iraq if not an exact duplicate. Another thing I may add is that most of the suicide bombers who carried their terrorists acts in Iraq against western targets and against the Shii’ts Muslims were from Yemen and were trained in Yemen by Saddam former intelligence officers who have made Yemen their home base since the 1990′ and more profoundly after the collapse of Saddam regime . These terrorists were exported to Iraq in the days leading to invasion of Iraq and after the occupation of Iraq to carry their evil acts. There is not doubt that Al Qaeda in Yemen is trained by Yemeni intelligence and former Iraqi intelligence officers. The Yemeni regime uses Al qaeda to leverage its position internationally .

By: Jane Novak

Jane Novak — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:50:50 +0000

Exactly, the US is using the allies of al Qaeda to fight al Qaeda and the supporting Yemen’s efforts to destroy the ideological enemies of al Qaeda.

By: William deB. Mills

William deB. Mills — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:10:38 +0000

If the U.S. is working with both the Yemeni regime, which was allied with Saddam, and with Saddam’s expatriate intelligence officials now living in Yemen, that would seem to put the U.S. in bed with precisely the group it invaded Iraq to defeat. However, the last decade of Iraqi resistance to the invasion plus civil conflict pushed Saddam’s secularists into the arms of al Qua’ida, which entered occupied Iraq to take advantage of the opportunity to suck the U.S. into a quagmire.

Therefore, one might presume that Saddam’s former intelligence officers would both hold a big grudge against the U.S. and feel rather friendly toward al Qua’ida. One might also presume that they would be likely to favor their old Yemeni ally over the U.S. and happily work with him to deceive the U.S. concerning any domestic Yemeni political issue (e.g, differentiating domestic reformers from global jihadis).

These gentlemen sound like perfect allies for heating up another long and confusing conflict. I wonder how many contacts the U.S. has with the southern dissidents or the Houthi dissidents in Yemen? (Recall the shock in Washington at the fall of our man in Iran because under the Shah the U.S. avoided contacts with Iranian dissidents…)