Yemen, the template for strategy in ME collapses
A scant few months, the President touted his strategy in Yemen as a model for future operations in the war against Islamic extremism. Millions of US dollars in equipment has since been lost, the Yemeni president is out-of-office, and the parliament has been dissolved. The US embassy has been evacuated and the last US troops have been withdrawn. al Qaeda-backed Shiite rebels run the failed government. From Fox News;
The shift has left Obama open to criticism that he failed to anticipate the risks of a light footprint strategy that aims to put fragile governments and beleaguered local security forces, not the U.S. military, at the forefront.
Barbara Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, said even the most optimistic regional experts did not share Obama’s view that the Yemen campaign was a model of success.
“It was being defined in terms of what we were doing to develop local forces and use drones and counter the immediate and real security threat,” said Bodine, now director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. “But what we hadn’t done, certainly had not done visibly enough, was get at the economic and governance issues that were driving the problem.”
Again with the economic BS. There is an entirely military solution – fight these scum unrelentingly until so many of the die horrible, painful deaths that the others decide that it’s not worth it to fight. You know, the whole purpose of fighting wars.
Category: Terror War
The group leading the charge to take over the country is an Iranian-backed group. Although they’re destined for (continued) endless internal conflict, Yemen appears on the path of being yet another Iranian proxy to surround Saudi Arabia.
Whatever, Jonn.
They just needed jobs. we should send them the jobs we don’t want to do.
I hope my sarcasm came through.
But really. Build them more McDonalds. Those there are good paying jobs.
Serving bacon-burgers
oooo
with lots of cheese.
damn…Im hungry now.
They are good paying jobs in Seattle WA.
Good thing Yemen was a resounding success, otherwise it might descend into civil war. Wait, never mind.
Obummer fancies himself a General…and fails.
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/03/23/wh-still-says-yemen-is-a-model-for
-success/
‘Earnest said, “The case that we have made is Yemen did serve as a template for the kind of strategy that we would employ, and did employ, to mitigate the threat from extremists around the world.”‘
Right up until it blew up. How the reporters in the pressroom keep a straight face is beyond me.
“How the reporters in the pressroom keep a straight face is beyond me.”
They were still swallowing.
Damn it, that was good coffee, too. Nice one, Casey.
“Mitigate”?
What happened to “degrade and destroy”?
I guess words DON’T matter, after all.
The economic concern is valid – these lads need something productive to fill their time – after having the living dogsnot kicked out of them so badly they would cringe at seeing an ad for a war movie.
What were any of you expecting? You can’t even get a Spanish Inquisition out of this.
This is only one more pathetic example of bodaprez’s failure to understand or care about the job he was hired to do. And I truly do not believe that he gives a crap about anything.
I could give a year long college course on all the things that the administration missed in Yemen. Economics is minor compared to the tribal, political, and religious dynamics going on there. Yemen is the closest thing in the Middle East to what the region was like pre WW I. Outside the major cities you do not deal with the central govt, you deal with tribal chiefs and warlords. I would wager that the former president Saleh has been working with the Shia houthis behind the scenes as well. He and his family never really accepted the transition to Hadi no matter what the administration thought. My educated prediction is Yemen will either go back to two states (north and South Yemen); or it will fragment into multiple mini states around whatever each faction or warlord can hold through force, bribery, or negotiation.
“The shift has left Obama open to criticism that he failed to anticipate the risks of….(Name of Obama Policy or Decision Here)” What is new? Nothing!
Obama once again, in keeping with his strategy of never having a strategy, except to assist Muslim terrorists, has allowed another Mid East country to fall into the hands of murderers who want America and Israel, (we two are first on their list), dead and gone from the face of the earth. Why? Because as I have said before, I firmly believe Obama is a closet Quran reading, Muslim as well as an anti-Semite. I have little doubt that in the time remaining before he is out of office, his greatest feat of failure and legacy of future turmoil, murder and war to America, the Mid East and the world will be to abrogate our treaties with Israel. If he doesn’t it will not be for the lack of trying with all the poison power of his Executive pen. YMMV
The Left swooned and some got tingles up their legs when he said Pock-e-stan. Gosh. What a guy, an internationalist. Fook him.
“What difference, at this point, does it make?”
I remember how the left had so much hate for Sarah Palin in 2008. One of the claims that they made back then was that she had no experience and would make a mess out of the US foreign affairs.
Now I don’t know what kind of POTUS she would have made, but I know for a fact that she could not have been worse.
I’ve said it before – if I was as bad at my job as he is at his, I would have been:
A. Killed
B. Got my Soldiers killed
C. Been brought up on charges for crimes, dereliction, etc.
I have to feel sorry for Pres. Obozo. he has the Caca touch. Everything he touches turns to shit. He can’t even talk about a situation without it turning to shit. You can’t even attach his name to anything without it turning to shit.
There was a strategy in Yemen?
I mean we all heard this horseshit:
“This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”
“That’s how America leads — not with bluster, but with persistent, steady resolve.”
Except there was no leading nothing persistent or steady nor containing resolve. A proxy presence in Yemen was never going to work even though our president believed this concept would work:
“Instead of sending large ground forces overseas, we’re partnering with nations . . . to deny safe haven to terrorists who threaten America.”
The only person who maybe believed that crap is the president, anyone with a modicum of knowledge of the Middle East knew this to be a false narrative at best and grand delusion at worst.
Delusion is how we’ve approached the foreign policy issues of the day for about 6 years now.
Blaming Bush is getting really tired, and pretending that leaving these nations to fend for themselves is an effective policy tool is the position of fools and amateurs, and frankly beneath the office of POTUS in 2015.
No one knows what his actual foreign policy is but we now have about eight years of practical application and results so we no longer need a formal pronouncement. Under the Obama Administration, through the Clinton/Kerry Dept of State, American foreign policy in the ME and N Africa is to foment rebellion, chaos, disruption, and confusion. It is also to alienate our traditional friends and ingratiate ourselves to those who would contribute to the continued destabilization of those regions. Questions?
But we only supplied weapons and materiel to the good guys, right? (Psst…Anyone want to buy a Huey? Maybe a HMMWV? NVG’s?)
Well, as I understand it, we delivered a great many weapons and ammo to the then-good guys, ostensibly for use against the then-bad guys. The stuff took a strange and circuitous route, sort of like the DOJ’s Fast and Furious gun-running op, but on steroids, and w/o bills of lading. Shockingly, the millions in weapons got lost, misdirected, or hijacked along the way and are now in the hands of either the good guys who turned bad or the bad guys who turned worse.
Yeah. I agree w/ Netanyahu on this one. The enemy of your enemy is your enemy. Every weapon we put over there should have a remote det module of some sort.
The world is at a tipping point between peace and war, with the center of focus in the Middle East.
The indications are that we are moving from financial war to the threat of military war.
The current administration has made so many amateurish blunders in not recognizing or understanding (or refusing to do both of those) the very real threat of extremism that this becomes almost inevitable. And frankly, this threat of extremism echoes the threat of the Nazis in the 1930s.
I just hope that we do not have another episode of ‘peace in our time’ (Neville Chamberlain), because that will completely creep me out.
Or did I miss that part already and none of the news services reported it?
I think we’re past the ‘peace’ now. With every nation on earth either actively hunting terrorists or being attacked by terrorists, I think we’re long past any appearance or practice of ‘peace.’
We’re post-racism too! Bonus.
PN, I think you’re right, but I try to remain optimistic.
I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
We may be treated to “peace in our time” part deux, if sKerry comes back from Tehran with the “agreement” on their nukes, waving the agreement in the air.
Regarding sKerry and the negotiations with Iran, this comes today from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/world/middleeast/israel-denies-spying-on-iran-nuclear-talks.html?_r=0
It says the US refutes the Wall Street Journal report (Monday) that Israeli spying on the US was ongoing, and also denies those reports the Israeli government published back in January.
Who you gonna believe?
Ex-PH2, I’m convinced that none of this is by accident or blunder or incompetence. It’s not a matter of “not recognizing or understanding the very real threat of extremism”, but actively and intentionally welcoming and encouraging it. It’s that “fundamentally changing America” stuff again.
It does seem that way. At first I kept telling myself that it must be coincidence, I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist.
BUT, there sure has been a lot of coincidence.
If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s pobably,,,,,,,we’ll have to call it something else because it needs to play into our plan for the future of what we think is right. I say this only half joking. It’s sounds like what I have been watching on the news for the last couple of years.
Eden, you have voiced my suspicions, too.
Someone I know who is a self-declared pacifist has said the following about ISIS:
I see very little difference between them and the Nazis – the unlimited territorial ambitions, the powerful sense of belonging, the extreme brutality, the genocide. They do not at this stage need to be ‘understood’, they need to be opposed and eliminated. And, as with the Nazis, the world is largely standing by while they expand.
Now, understand that he is NOT the kind of person to advocate warfare or violence as a solution to the Middle East or anything else, so for him to say something like is startling. If he says this, I am more concerned than I would normally be.
How’s this sound? Let’s take him at his word and give him that his template did indeed work exactly as he intended. The resulting chaos and further deterioration of any chance of world peace in the near future may be precisely what he wanted.
If that sounds a bit harsh, well, that’s the sort of thing true believers aspire to accomplish.
Exactly!
It does not sound harsh to me.
Someone should inform this WH Admin that getting down on your elbows and and knees and blowing your advesary is not a military strategy. It may work in getting you recommended for the Democratic Paryt’s Presidential candidacy but not for real world situations.
It seems that the Saudis are taking matters into their own hands by launching airstrikes against the Houthis.
http://rt.com/news/244185-yemen-conflict-gulf-rebels/
Also, note in the sidebar the link to a story that says the Saudi government is giving Israel permission to use its airspace to strike Iran. That was back in February.
http://rt.com/news/235923-saudis-airspace-israel-iran/
Where was bodaprez when this announcement was made? Does anyone know what his tea time was then?