Monday January 26, 2015

I've Been Thinking:

Yemen is a real mess. The government resigned - and that is the least of their problems. Yemen is a country of 24 million people.
It is one of the poorest countries in the Middle East with an annual average income of about $1400.

Yemen is also the major base of al Qaeda in the Middle East. One of the al Qaeda groups working out of Yemen is al Qaeda of the Arab Peninsula. It is probably more potent, more powerful, more organized and has more members than any al Qaeda group anywhere in the world.

Another of the al Qaeda groups in Yemen goes by the name Houthi.
They have taken over Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, a city of nearly two and a half million people.

The United States has been trying to prevent al Qaeda from taking over Yemen. They have been training Yemeni military forces and using unmanned drones to strike al Qaeda and its leadership.
Unfortunately, the intelligence that the US has relied upon for their drones has been almost totally infiltrated by al Qaeda.

The military training and the use of drones simply falls shy of what is necessary to protect and save Yemen.

The day after the government resigned tens of thousands of people marched in the capital demanding a government and asking for order in an attempt to say "no" to al Qaeda. There was some violence.

The people of the capital city Sana'a do not want al Qaeda to take over. So what can be done?

Yemenis must create a group of loyal, dependable and trustworthy fighters who are capable of attacking al Qaeda directly. They need to seek out and strike at al Qaeda everywhere they live. These forces will need air support from the United States. They may also need to get support from their neighbor Saudi Arabia who abhors and detests al Qaeda.

The United States needs to immediately identify and support this group. They need to ply them with weapons and money and set them loose. This is the only way to stymie and defeat al Qaeda. Right now al Qaeda has the advantage of momentum. That energy must be reversed.

Time is of the essence. And right now time is not on the side of Yemen.

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