Tuesday, December 29, 2009

A New (somewhat) arena of Terror:

So now Yemen has become a new theater of terror (if you want to say so). Yemen can be defined as a failed state (not yet) but they are more poorer and more poorly equipment to take on the terrorists’ haven there. If you want to make a comparison between Pakistan and Yemen, you will find more differences than similarities. Pakistan is not a failed state (as some people have alleged) just because the government cannot handle the situation does not mean every thing is broken down there. If the Pakistan Army wants it, it can take on their home grown terrorists hands down. It has enough soldiers on the ground and enough weapons to take on the Islamic militants if it wants to get serious.

But Yemen is a whole different story. They are trying to fight the separatists in the south and the Houthis rebels in the north and now they are trying to battle Al-Qaeda in Yemen, apart from a failing economy and drought and they are also at the border with Saudi Arabia. So the mixture is very toxic.

There can be very varied solutions to how to deal with Yemen but one of those is definitely not to invade that poor country. We can’t eliminate terrorism just by invading the countries that harbor them intentionally or unintentionally. We will have to be very discrete in helping the Yemeni Government. Covert operations will be a start and lots of economic aid. Covert operations should include small American forces training side by side with Yemeni forces and also providing intelligence and other help without incurring the wrath of the Yemeni people (like they are now experiencing in Pakistan). Economic aid must include aid for the Yemeni people which should be separate from the Military aid and also help Saudi Arabia as they are not yet equipped to handle a full blown border war in that area.

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