The New York Times has the sad duty of informing us that President Obama is engaging in a “secret” war in Yemen:
The extent of America’s war in Yemen has been among the Obama administration’s most closely guarded secrets, as officials worried that news of unilateral American operations could undermine Mr. Saleh’s tenuous grip on power. Mr. Saleh authorized American missions in Yemen in 2009, but placed limits on their scope and has said publicly that all military operations had been conducted by his own troops.
Mr. Saleh fled the country last week to seek medical treatment in Saudi Arabia after rebel shelling of the presidential compound, and more government troops have been brought back to Sana to bolster the government’s defense.
“We’ve seen the regime move its assets away from counterterrorism and toward its own survival,” said Christopher Boucek, a Yemen expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But as things get more and more chaotic in Yemen, the space for the Americans to operate in gets bigger,” he said.
That’s four wars, for those keeping score at home, and if that doesn’t qualify as World War III then I’d like to know what the cut-off is. And I guess it’s not a closely guarded secret any more, is it? But at least it’s not framed as “President Obama’s mad rush to illegal war – for oil!” which is a kind of progress, albeit one that may or may not be affected by the outcome of the 2012 presidential election, depending upon the breaks.
The “space to operate” getting bigger language is a euphemism for “more bad guys to kill.” Which seems to be borne out by this headline in the LA Times: Militants said to gain ground in south Yemen
Hundreds of Yemeni and foreign fighters, including members of an Al Qaeda affiliate, are pouring into a provincial capital after government forces fled in chaos, according to a local official and a fighter who described himself as an Al Qaeda member.
The situation in Zinjibar, capital of the southern coastal province of Abyan, reflects the paralysis in Yemen’s security and political structure as President Ali Abdullah Saleh struggles to remain in power.
Our strategy seems to be the use of antiseptic drones to bomb the militants back to the stone age, uninformed by the fact that the militants are mostly already there.
I think the Cold War was WW III. The fight is expanding into WW IV.
Absolutely concur.
We could consider these 4 theaters in one war but that would require an admission that we are in a war with Islam/Radical Islam/Islamic Fundamentalists/terrorists or some other common element I haven’t thought of.
Since that won’t happen we’ll have to continue to ignore the growing military operations lest they tarnish our President’s reputation.
Best sentence I’ve read this week:
“Our strategy seems to be the use of antiseptic drones to bomb the militants back to the stone age, uninformed by the fact that the militants are mostly already there.”
Thanks!
+1
+1
Where are Zane & Curtis these days–all this should be right up their alley–Zane especially. Aren’t they both now stationed/living somewhere in NATO regions responsible for the MEAFSA?
So, that makes the US killing Muslims in 5 countries. Pretty good for a Nobel Laureate.
Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya. Must be Dubya’s fault.
You forgot Somalia, RP, and probably a few other places SOCOM’s been we don’t want to talk about.
+ a few other spots outside of SW Asia – putting the Global in GWOT.
It’s ALWAYS Dubya’s fault, don’tcha know……
But it’s not W’s ‘fault’ when the results are positive…then you never hear about the man.
+1
Where are the lefty dingbats screaming that the President of the United States is “shredding the Constitution” by engaging in these illegal “kinetic military actions”? I mean how come our New Messiah gets a pass on at least two of these? (The other two of course were Dubya’s fault and our poor dear New Messiah is simply working those old issues out.)
Inquiring minds want to know.
You know better than that.
One war – two or more theaters…depending upon Yemen’s mission. If its the GWOT – same war.
The other war – Libya. NOT the GWOT
A lot of people seem to be deploying to Egypt these days too…
The second link demonstrates why I place little faith in stories written by someone in big city in the Mid East, or in the US, away from the action, “aided” by locals who “contributed to” the story. We have no idea if these people are competent or even honest.
A rather different picture emerges from a recent post on StrategyPage about the same events.
Didn’t want to rip off the entire article; it’s worth the read. As I said, a different picture, indeed. Less radicalization, more demonstration, and a lot of back-alley deals while trying to balance tribal power relationships with democratic urges.