What could possibly go wrong? Poorly focused largesse only encourages unfocused spending. We may yet end up simply building a better jihadist "bus station." A really, really expensive one. "Schanzer: $150 million for Yemeni 'encouragement'," by Jonathan Schanzer for the Washington Times, March 2:
''Yemen's willingness... to confront the serious threat al Qaeda poses to the nation's stability has been inconsistent in the past, but our recent intensive engagement appears to have had positive results."
That was the State Department's assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey D. Feltman, at congressional hearings on Yemen earlier this month. He repeatedly assured the House Foreign Affairs Committee that he was "encouraged" by Yemen's new attitude.
This encouragement convinced international donors in late January to pledge $5.2 billion in aid to Yemen. It also prompted Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates this week to more than double U.S. military aid to Yemen. Taxpayers will now fork over $150 million, up from last year's $67 million.
This is a mistake. Mr. Gates and his advisers ignore Yemen's terrible track record. If our aid was based on Yemeni performance, Yemen wouldn't get a dime.
Think back to the bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Aden in October 2000. Despite clear evidence of al Qaeda involvement, Yemeni security cooperation was begrudging. Some U.S. officials were stymied to the point that they openly wondered whether Yemeni security was penetrated by al Qaeda.
Tensions between Washington and San'a continued through 2001. The State Department reported that Yemen was a safe haven for several of al Qaeda's affiliate groups, as well as members of al Qaeda's core. Meanwhile, Yemen suffered a series of local attacks. None of them prompted Yemeni cooperation.
The game-changer was the Oct. 6, 2002, al Qaeda attack on the Limburg, a French tanker. That attack led to a sharp decline in companies wishing to do business in Yemen's ports, along with skyrocketing shipping insurance rates. After initially denying its terrorism problem, Yemen faced up to its harsh financial realities.
San'a soon upped its cooperation with U.S. Special Forces, the CIA and the FBI. In Nov. 2002, the CIA and Yemeni intelligence tracked al Qaeda operatives driving in the desert region of Marib. The CIA launched a Hellfire missile on them from a Predator drone, killing six people, including a high-level al Qaeda operative. The Hellfire also killed Kamal Derwish, the leader of the "Lackawanna Six,'' a Yemeni al Qaeda cell discovered in upstate New York in 2002. U.S.-Yemeni cooperation also yielded a number of high-profile arrests.
However, San'a's efforts were short-lived. In April 2003, 10 USS Cole suspects somehow escaped from a Yemeni jail. The incident again raised questions of whether elements in the security services had switched sides. Then, in autumn 2003, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced he would release dozens of al Qaeda militants if they "pledged to respect the rights of non-Muslim foreigners living in Yemen or visiting it." Officials insisted the prisoners would not be released entirely on their own recognizance; their families would sign for them. However, they also admitted that Yemen never had plans (or the resources) to track those they released.
While Yemen was quiet for a while, Yemeni jihadis soon arrived in Iraq in disproportionate numbers as the insurgency began to gain momentum in 2004. According to one report, up to 17 percent of the foreign insurgents hailed from Yemen.
Still, Yemen itself was quiet. Then, in 2006, more than 20 accused terrorists escaped from a San'a jail. Analysts again wondered whether the government looked the other way. Nasir Wahishi, a former close associate of bin Laden, was one of the escapees. He went on to lead the Yemeni branch of al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula. [...]
There are, of course, those who argue that Washington has little choice in aiding Yemen. We cannot afford to allow the country to become a terrorist haven. This is undoubtedly true. Yemen is a critical front in the global confrontation against jihadist forces.
However, the Yemenis must earn our $150 million. U.S. aid should not come cheap. We must set milestones for the Yemenis. If they fail to meet them, we should withhold aid. Indeed, Yemen must now demonstrate though both word and deed that it is serious about combating terrorism again.
The regime most threatened by Al Qaeda in Yemen -- whose size and importance is being deliberately exaggerated by the Yemeni government, in order that the Americans (who may not always realize that neither the permanent rebellion in the north, nor the new rebellion in the south, in the former British protectorate of Aden, have little to do with Al Qaeda and everything to do with the contempt and indifference displayed by the Yemeni government toward the inhabitants of both regions) will deliver, and for free, large supplies of weapons -- is that of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis, who promise much but deliver so little, in the case of Yemen actually may come through with a few billion dollars, because Yemen is the place that they worry about the most. But why, in such a case, should the Americans be asked to, or agree to, contribute anything at all? Why should not the Saudis, who have a trillion dollars stashed away, not be asked to foot the whole bill? It is an error, both financial and psychological, for the American government to keep paying and paying for various Muslim regimes and peoples, when the Saudis and other rich Arabs have fabulous sums and are the ones most immediately threatened. The two trillion spent, or committed, in Iraq, the hundreds of billions to be spent in Afghanistan, the tens of billions that hae gone to Pakistan and to Egypt, the billions that have gone to Jordan and the "Palestinians," this all adds up -- adds up to a policy that is bankrupt, or bankrupting, corrupt and corrupting, in every sense, in every direction. And it's a policy based on a misunderstanding of the enemy, which is not "Al Qaeda" alone, nor Al Qaeda and a dozen or a hundred other groups that, local in their scope, collectively contribute to the world-wide Jihad (like politics, all Jihad is local, against this or that group of Infidels or those deemed to have interests that overlap with those of Infidels), but all those who support Jihad, even if the means chosen do not include terrorism. It's the goals that need to be considered, and not the means chosen to promote those goals.
This is just jizya, pure and simple. "Millions for defense, not a penny for tribute."
However, the Yemenis must earn our $150 million.
Notice the 'our' $150 million...Giving 'our' money away to foreign despots comes easy to appeasing politicians...If Rasool Obama and company had to give 'their' money to Yemen, it would be a different story...2010/2012 or sooner...
Yemen claims it needs $49 billion in aid. Whatever it needs, or claims to need, none of it should come from the Infidel West. Almost all of it should come from Saudi Arabia. And if the Saudis don't deliver -- they still haven't fulfilled the pledge they made four years ago -- then let Yemen collapse into chaos, a chaos that threatens the Al-Saud and Saudi Arabia. Do not let the Saudis trick the Americans into thinking, again, that it is America's responsiblity to shell out money for the oil-less Muslim states, enduring the poverty that is the natural condition of Muslims without the oil manna, for in Islam, innovation, or bid'a, is hated, and that hatred for the new, and the inshallah-fatalism of the people, together explain the poverty and economic paralysis that will continue as long as Islam continues without being constrained.
$150 million ~ that is just about enough for three more grand mosques ~ or one luxury villa and two grand mosques !!
Or what about ~ a 2nd Islamic university !!
Terrorists ~ what terrorists !!
Oh, good: $150 million to Yemen to "encourage" fight against jihadists
...................
Suckers!
WT?!
We are already on the fast track to hell financially, and now this ....
Let's do this:
Tell the Yemenis to look after themselves.
Use the $150 million to open the new Flight 93 Memorial Waterboarding Wing at Guantanamo.
With luck, the new GTMO addition will be finished in time to accommodate...dozens of YEMENIS!
Who says we don't want to do our part?
dont worry about the millions given out, soon with Obamacare and other borrowed money, the US dollar will be worthless and Obama donations will not be taken by even the lowly yemeni. oh 2012 is not far away and perhaps with 2010 Nov. you can cripple Obama enough to stop this hemorrage.
So how is this Jizyah deal gonna work? If the Yemeni leaders sit back and let Islam take its natural course as they did during the Cole attack, do we get a refund? And if yes would that be a full or partial refund?
Yet another front in which the Muslims bleed America dry.
If al-Qaeda are trying to take over Yemen, let the Saudis deal with it, since that's the ultimate target. Western leaders don't want to affect the 'stability' of the oil trade so step in early like this, only for nothing to be done.
Yemen also has hundreds of miles of coastline along the Arabian peninsula, along which oil tankers travel. I just finished reading Dore Gold's The Rise of Nuclear Iran, and he shows how Iran has been meddling in Yemen.
Walid Phares also has an interesting talk about Yemen on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4VoUxesuyM