Yemen's Unfinished Business

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Jan.. 6, 2010
All Rights Reserved.                    

              When al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula struck the guided missile frigate U.S.S. Cole Oct. 12, 2000 in Yemen’s Port of Aden, the war against Osama bin Laden was already two years old.  Former CIA Director George J. Tenet acknowledged the U.S. was under attack since two U.S. embassies in East Africa were bombed August 7, 1998, prompting former President Bill Clinton to order Cruise Missile strikes against Bin Laden’s terrorist camps 120 kilometers south of Kabul.  While hindsight is always 20/20, failing to go after al-Qaida in East Africa and Yemen paved the way for Sept. 11.  Following 9/11, former President George W. Bush promptly launched Operation Enduring Freedom Oct. 7, 2001, toppling the Taliban and driving Bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar into hiding in the mountainous ungoverned lands between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

            Instead of relentlessly pursuing Bin Laden and Omar, Bush detoured to Iraq March 20, 2003, diverting U.S. military resources to a new front, which, until Obama switched gears, was considered by the Bush administration as the “central front in the war on terror.”  While there’s no doubt that al-Qaida moved into Iraq to fight U.S. occupation, there were no al-Qaida operations under Saddam Hussein.  Toppling Saddam caused, as once feared by former President George H.W. Bush, a power vacuum that radicalized the region.  Effective U.S. military operations after “W’s” troop surge drove al-Qaida out of Iraq and back to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.  Unfinished business now forces Obama to pivot from his commitment to escalate the Afghan War, a battlefield that, like Iraq, no longer contains the same al-Qaida threat as it did in the days, weeks and months before Sept 11.

            Because Clinton dropped the ball in Somalia, East Africa and Yemen and Bush detoured to Iraq, Obama must not make the same mistake in Afghanistan.  After deliberating for three months, Obama announced Dec. 2, 2009 that he was, adding 30,000 more troops to, ignoring the gathering threats in Yemen and Pakistan.  Spending $70 million in direct military aid to Yemen is a good first step but doesn’t deal with hundreds of al-Qaida terrorists based in southern Yemen Abyan province, where an al-Qaida affiliate called the Abyan Islamic Army runs amok since the days of the U.S.S. Cole.  While U.S. and British officials reopened embassies Yemen’s capital of Sana’a, the threat of a growing al-Qaida-sponsored secessionist movement grows daily.  Even with added U.S. aid, the shaky Yemen government doesn’t have the resources or personnel to battle al-Qaida or insurgent forces.

            Christmas Day 2009 provided a rude awakening to U.S. homeland security, where 24-year-old Nigerian-born al-Qaida operative Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab tried to blow up a Northwest airliner en route from Amsterdam to Detroit.  Calling it a “screw up,” Barack harshly criticized U.S. intelligence agencies for not heeding warnings, especially the Transportation Security Agency that let a terrorist-aged man travel on a one-way ticket without a passport or luggage, ignoring warnings from the boy’s father to the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria.  Finding out why U.S. intelligence agencies don’t communicate with each other is a good first step.  But once that’s figured out, Obama must urgently form a Blue Ribbon Commission to combat al-Qaida’s brainwashing techniques, a far more dangerous threat to U.S. national security than Bin Laden’s attempt to attack the West.

             Walking into Forward Base Chapman near the Afghan city of Khost on the frontier with Pakistan, 36-year-old al-Qaida operative, Jordanian double-agent Dr. Humam Khalil Mohammed detonated his suicide vest Dec. 30, 2009, killing seven CIA officers and one Jordanian intelligence official.  Like the terrorists that flew jetliners in the World Trade Center and Pentagon Sept. 11, Mohammed was programmed by his al-Qaida handlers to commit suicide for Islam.  He joins 39-year-old U.S. Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan who massacred 13 U.S. soldiers Nov. 5, 2009, another Manchurian candidate—psychotic or not—who was brainwashed by U.S.-born al-Qaida affiliated radical Yemen cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.  Instead of getting bogged down in Afghanistan, Obama must dedicate more effort to targeting al-Qaida terrorists and counteracting the group’s brainwashing methods.

            Swarming waves of Bin Laden’s suicide bombers are now hitting the U.S. or carefully selected targets.  Obama can no longer make the same mistakes as Clinton and Bush without risking another terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland.  Ignoring Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and other al-Qaida nests increases the chances of another Sept. 11-like attack on U.S. soil.  Obama must commission a more in-depth study into al-Qaida’s brainwashing techniques used to recruit, convert and transform highly educated individuals into human bombs.  While the U.S. must battle extremists around the globe, it must also win the propaganda war and confront the pernicious brainwashing that converts intelligent followers into programmed assassins.  Only by a better understanding of the enemy’s mind control methods can the U.S. find a long-term solution for today’s shadowy war on terror.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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