January 4, 2010

Yemen

In yet another example of the workings of the bipartisan wisdom that “Because we must invite the world (it’s unthinkable not to), we therefore must invade the world to be safe,” Washington has responded to Nigerian Underwear Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s fizzled attempt to blow up a plane headed to Detroit on Christmas by escalating American involvement in Yemen.

Senator Joe Lieberman declaimed, “Iraq was yesterday's war, Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war.”

President Barack Obama sent General David Petraeus to Sana, the medieval capital city of Yemen, more than 7,000 feet up in the densely populated but isolated highlands of that remote country, to help coordinate America’s role in the Yemeni government’s war on its rebels.

The logic of invite the world, invade the world is simple: Because we are so helplessly vulnerable to Muslim terrorists flying to the U.S. and blowing stuff up, we must tighten American hegemony over the entire Muslim world, even unto the highlands of Yemen, until they learn to stop resenting us.

The bombings of Muslim countries will continue until Muslim morale improves!

Yet, before getting bogged down in another high altitude, tribal Muslim country, one of even more negligible strategic significance than Afghanistan, perhaps we could step back for a moment and ask: Do we really have to invite the world? Did we have to wave Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab onto that Detroit-bound plane with a friendly, non-discriminatory smile?

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

24 comments:

eccentriclibertarian said...

What's a few billion (or trillion) more? On top of the pointless Iraq war, poorly-executed and now pointless Afghanistan war, the billions we dole out annually in 'international aid' that benefits us little or none...it's an embarrassment of riches.

It's hard to think of any comparable set of expenditures from any other time in human history that has gained nothing (and arguably lost more) for those who funded them.

sj071 said...

Lemme help you with the subtitle: Omaha sends Jesuit enforcer to Sana

This false flag business is becoming more tedious by the day.

Old Rebel said...

The sad truth is that with DC, solutions are never the answer. Protecting the safety and jobs of Americans is not the priority here; expanding DC's power and client base is. That's why our handlers will continue to impose multiculturalism on us and DC's hegemony on the rest of the world.

Anonymous said...

Watching the in-hock, invite and invade spectacle of the US moving closer to their day of reckoning, I remind myself of World War I. It always pained me: why did the European powers voluntarily self-destruct by killing each other to the death, when they could have had, literally, the whole world?

It just had to be.

Anonymous said...

Whiskey - that's your cue!!

Truth said...

"Do we really have to invite the world?"

Yes.


"Did we have to wave Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab onto that Detroit-bound plane with a friendly, non-discriminatory smile?"

Yes. What are you, some kind of racist?

It would be racist to not allow everyone into the USA.

John Seiler said...

Chickenhawk Lieberman weaseled out of serving in Nam. But now is his chance to play Audie Murphy. Give him an M-16, a helmet, some MREs and parachute him into Sana.

TGGP said...

Obama isn't taking the obvious step, but this is a start.

none of the above said...

That's the saddest part of this whole decade long misadventure. We did the expensive, almost impossible part (trying to fix the Arab world atgunpoint) and neglected obvious stuff like being really careful whom we issue visas to. And we continue that pattern under Obama.

It's sobering sometimes to realize just how broken our political decisionmaking processes are.

Anonymous said...

All for the delusion of "democracy" "human rights" "nondiscrimination" etc.

The West has gone mad. Or maybe there's some material interest (untold gold or oil buried somewhere). Nah, it's just Israel, and we know it. Notice it's Lieberman shrieking about what wars "we" will fight, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Whatever Mel Gibson was drinking, I'll have some.

PS: When will China pull the plug?

Anonymous said...

That's the saddest part of this whole decade long misadventure.

The saddest part of this whole decade long misadventure is Chapter 1 of the "new" Afghanistan Constitution - the Constitution whose drafting we oversaw:

Article 1 [Islamic Republic]

Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.

Article 2 [Religions]

(1) The religion of the state of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam.

(2) Followers of other religions are free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the provisions of law.


Article 3 [Law and Religion]

In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam...


Once we allowed Islam to be the supreme law of Afghanistan, the murders of Bae Hyeong-gyu and Shim Seong-min as well as the [threatened] execution of Abdul Rahman were not only legal acts, but they were acts which were in fact REQUIRED by the Constitution itself.

I.e. once we allowed Islam to be the supreme law of Afghanistan, any further presence in Afghanistan on our part was not only purposeless, but was in direct violation of the Constitution of Afghanistan.

And now when the Afghan citizens murder us, they are not acting anti-consitutionally, but rather they are acting entirely constitutionally!!!

What I don't understand is why so few people anymore seem to understand Rush Limbaugh's dictum about these matters - that words mean things.

What the hell were we thinking when we mounted all of these assaults on our enemies, only to turn right around and re-institute the very same poisonous ideology as the supreme law of their lands?

Where the hell was the de-Nazification and de-Shintoization of Afghanistan & Iraq as regarded the Koran and the Hadith?

Ann Coulter was the only major commentator who spoke at all honestly about this intellectual and moral travesty.

untroof said...

Troof,
coz then maybe u would have had to stay outside?

Whiskey said...

Steve, that's a dumb comment. How do you like paying $10 a gallon for gas?

Yemen is right next to Saudi Arabia, which sets the market price for oil (currently OPEC set the price band for oil to be $70-$80). Saudis claim (it may or may not be true) that Iran is behind some of the cross-border raids and attacks on Saudi oil installations and Shiite revolt in Saudi's oil-rich Eastern Provinces. Certainly Iran has a built-in reason (along with Russia) to forment that destabilization, since Iran NEEDS oil at $150 a barrel (which it was briefly during 2008 when the world tipped into recession due to oil shocks). Right now Iran is having problems paying the IRGC and the Basij thugs. Examples of what happens when regimes cannot pay thugs (Romania, Soviet Union, East Germany) give them pretty clear incentives.

Even Somalia, lacking oil or nearness to oil market makers, is a threat, and China has sent naval squadrons to the area to deal with piracy (and hostage taking of Chinese merchant vessels). The US faced something similar with the Barbary Coast pirates, with nearly 25% of the federal budget at one point for payoffs before Madison simply built and used the Navy to make examples of them.

Your argument Steve would make sense if the world did not depend on cheap oil. Do you like running your car? If you do you better support keeping the oil flowing from the Gulf, and a whacking great US military commitment there.

We need to keep Muslims out of the US, and profile those in the US (Major Hassan's "sudden Jihad syndrome" makes that clear). PC, Multiculturalism, and Diversity are the enemies of any nation-state.

But lets get real. Yemen is not about AQ (which exists in London, Hamburg, and Pakistan, and Abdulmutallab likely got radicalized and recruited in London).

It is about OIL. And until we get "unobtanium" and flying cars, the US military will be in the fragile and chaotic Gulf propping up loathsome regimes to make sure something WORSE doesn't come along and oil does not rise to $200 or $300 a barrel, in a "shock."

[Yemen is no real threat to Israel, the biggest threat being Iran's regime which has promised to wipe them out with nukes, likely launched from Gaza and Lebanon. Israel is obviously hoping for regime change, and preparing to strike likely with nukes if not. The OPEC oil price band of course is provocative since Iran's regime can't really survive with oil at that level.]

Vain Saints said...

LOL @ "War to prevent $10/gal. gas" Whiskey.

This is a treat:

Yemen is right next to Saudi Arabia, which sets the market price for oil (currently OPEC set the price band for oil to be $70-$80). Saudis claim (it may or may not be true) that Iran is behind some of the cross-border raids and attacks on Saudi oil installations and Shiite revolt in Saudi's oil-rich Eastern Provinces. Certainly Iran has a built-in reason (along with Russia) to forment [sic] that destabilization, since Iran NEEDS oil at $150 a barrel (which it was briefly during 2008 when the world tipped into recession due to oil shocks). Right now Iran is having problems paying the IRGC and the Basij thugs. Examples of what happens when regimes cannot pay thugs (Romania, Soviet Union, East Germany) give them pretty clear incentives.

But far more ominous is the Greenland Threat:

Greenland is right next to Canada, which is right next to Earth's magnetic field, which sets compasses and radiation belts around the world. It may or may not be true (this is a gift) that Canada is behind a dastardly plot to harness this radiation so as to create a race of super-freak Canadians that will be able to communicate telepathically with nuclear devices. Combined with their obvious machinations behind the global arming swindle, the implications couldn't be any more clear. Chewbacca, you understand, lives in Endor, but he is a Wookie from the planet Kitsch. Why would Chewbacca choose to live on Endor? More importantly, given the classic susceptibility of the Scotch-Irish to the machinations of the Greenlanders, Canada cannot be trusted with its proximity to the Canadian border. Thankfully, Canada also has its proximity to Alaska as a weakness. If the U.S. can destabalize the Alaskan pipeline, we can create a small window of opportunity to grab Canada where they would least expect it, on the unpopulated Eastern front, and grab the crucial Ewoks responsible for the code of the samartians.

kudzu bob said...

>Your argument Steve would make sense if the world did not depend on cheap oil.<

Cheap oil for China, maybe. They're not the ones bankrupting themselves to fight Neocon-inspired wars.

PS. "Avatar" has raked in over a billion dollars worldwide, genius.

Anonymous said...

Reply to Whiskey;

In fact the USA gets only a small amount of its oil from the middle east.

TGGP said...

There was never a "de-Shintoization" of Japan. That's why their politicians still sometimes pay their respects at shrines to the Japanese war dead, causing a hubbub among weenies abroad.

It's silly to mess with Yemen for oil, since Yemen doesn't produce much. Invading Iraq actually increased the price of oil (evidence for the War Nerd's Iranian mole theory), which is what wars tend to do. As for militants in Saudi Arabia, Wikipedia lists no incidents for the last two years and just one in 2007, maybe Iran has had other concerns since then. Nor did the communist bloc collapse when the government was unable to pay thugs, even North Korea can still pay its thugs! As with Chechnya, you're too quick in opinionating to do the bare minimum of google-research to disguise your lack of domain competency. I share that lack, but I'm not as lazy and rash.

Captain Jack Aubrey said...

From Wikipedia, on Yemen:

The population of Yemen was about 28 million according to July 2005 estimates, with 46% of the population being under 15 years old and 2.7% above 65 years. In 1950, it was 4.3 million. By 2050, the population is estimated to increase to about 60 million. Yemen has one of the world's highest birth rates; the average Yemeni woman bears six children.

From 4.3 million to 28 million in 60 years. If we bring these people and their backwards culture here they'll outbreed us here, too.

What enabled this amazing growth rate? Western technology grafted onto a primitive culture. And, whenever possible, we're supposed to enable that primitive way of life with even more technology. In Great Britain over half of Paistanis marry their first cousins - this is well known on iSteve. But this fact has resulted in over 30% of Pakistani-British children being born with some recessive genetic disease. The answer? Rather than "stop marrying your damn cousins, you crazy loons," the answer is to provide state-funded genetic testing for Pakistani cousin-couples.

Anonymous said...

Fred Reed has a classic column that is somewhat related to this topic.

http://fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm

Mr. Anon said...

"AmericanGoy said...

Nothing wrong with a Nigerian guy flying into USA from Europe or wherever."

Sure there is. What benefit do Nigerians confer on this country? What possible benefit could they confer. We got by just fine for nearly 400 years without them. We don't need them. I don't want them. And they should stay out.

Mr. Anon said...

"Whiskey said...

Steve, that's a dumb comment. How do you like paying $10 a gallon for gas?"

How would you like paying for gas with your limbs - or your life? Oh, that's right, you can't be bothered to put your hide where your mouth is, and volunteer to fight the whole world as you advocate for America's young men. Let THEM die, so that YOU can have cheap gas.

Chickens**t.

By the way, what's the imperialism-adjusted price for gas - the price when you factor in all the carrier groups, military bases, forward deployment of soldiers, air and sea transport, and bribe money to maintain our empire, ostensibly for cheap gas?

Anonymous said...

There was never a "de-Shintoization" of Japan.

Do they even teach children history anymore?

God in Heaven, I am embarrassed for the pseudo-Paleocon community.

TGGP said...

De-Nazification was a process of purging people thought to be too loyal to the old regime and ensuring that Germany would be characterizing by goodthink (so successful that there is now an Anti-German movement in Germany!). Having the Emperor renounce his position is not the same as de-Shintoizing the country. There are still plenty of Shinto shrines & rites that nobody thinks twice about participating in. Iraq actually did undergo de-Ba'athifiation. However, Ba'athism is a secular ideology (which had many Arab Christians among its founders) and the main victor at its expense has been Shi'ite sectarianism.

Anonymous said...

"Since September 11, 2001, whenever somebody with a name like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab commits terrorism, I’ve been writing virtually the same article about the American ruling class’s pathological prejudice against profiling." (From “No Smoking Gun?”)

So how many times are you going to write the same article before reality hits?

"It’s increasingly obvious that neither Bush nor Obama has wanted an effective airport security system…. Has any official ever been held accountable for security lapses?"

Of course not. This whole incident is so stupid and could so obviously have been prevented that you just can’t ignore the fact that it was (yet another) staged “attack” in the service of various agendas.

Agenda #1: Give Obama the chance to look tough.

Agenda #2: Sell full-body scanners.

"The media is instead debating whether every passenger should be given a full body X-ray scan at each airline gate—because scanning only people with names like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would be worse than airliners falling out of the sky." (From “Smoking Gun?”)

Or because scanning only a few suspicious types would require far fewer scanners than scanning every passenger would. The full-body scanners were first pushed years ago (after the shoe-bomber?), but they’ve been a hard sell. At $100k each, they’d be hugely expensive for airlines/airports - and hugely profitable to whoever sells them. Which may explain the otherwise ridiculous placement of the explosive material in Abdul-etc.’s underwear. Shoes can be removed and put through the carry-on scanner – crotch-bombs demand full-body scanners!

Agenda #3: Make Yemen a target

"In yet another example of the workings of the bipartisan wisdom that “Because we must invite the world (it’s unthinkable not to), we therefore must invade the world to be safe,” Washington has responded to… Abdulmutallab’s fizzled attempt to blow up a plane … by escalating American involvement in Yemen.

"Do we really have to invite the world?" (From “Yemen”)

Of course we don’t have to invite the world – if by “we” you mean actual Americans rather than the corrupt and co-opted US government. For the latter, the equation is reversed: Because we plan to invade the world, we must invite the world to make sure we have a ready supply of “terrorists” to create the incidents we need to justify the invasions.

Agenda #4: Destroy yet another Muslim country

"The bombings of Muslim countries will continue until Muslim morale improves!"

A pretty good statement of the motto of the Zionist psychopaths running the Israeli/US war machine. But you consistently ignore the AIPAC/Israel dimension – and your infatuation with the “security” tactics of the Israeli police state is pretty disturbing.