Some new Yemen things going on...

First off, the American military has finally gotten around to charging one of its Gitmo prisoners with mastermining the Cole attack in 2000. It has only taken them 8 years to get to this point... It should be an interesting trial, the guy says that he admitted things under torture. It sounds like they can probably get him for helping with the Cole, the other stuff might get dicy for the prosecution because of the whole torture thing... Oh, and one more thing, why oh why do they say he's a Saudi of Yemeni descent? Why don't they just say that he's a Saudi? Why drag Yemen into it whenever they get a chance? It's just like how the western media always, always says that Yemen is Osama Bin Laeden's ancestral homeland even though he was born in Saudi Arabia. Why does no one over here just say that they are Saudis? Why do we care where his father is from?

Along those lines, there was a letter sent to congress and the Canadian parliament by a large group of Americans and Canadians of Yemeni descent. You can read it here.In it, they outline the case that the Yemeni government, headed by Ali Abdulla Salah is in league with Al-queda and blame the Whahabi nation of Saudi Arabia for fostering terrorism. It's a theory I've heard before from several people that should know about these sorts of things. The basic gist is that the government of Yemen uses the threat of Al-queda to extort money from various governments. Whenever something goes badly in Yemen, the government inevitably blames al-queda even though there is usually a better explanation. More than several people have theorized that the government is behind these newer, incompetent attacks in order to make sure the foreign aid keeps coming in. Al-queda also makes a convenient scapegoat for any civil unrest that goes on. The Yemeni government is loath to admit that it doesn't have control of the country...

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al-queda, cole, gitmo, middle east, terrorism, torture, violence, Saudi arabia, whahabi