As IF Times

link Yemen Poverty Breeds Terror as West Targets Security (Update1) – BusinessWeek

Following the last post, we can pretty much view this whole idea that “poverty breeds extremism” is misguided at best, epic and willfully stupid at worst. Without obfuscating the issue with debates about the complexities of the middle east, the historic dynamics yada,yada,yada, let’s just look at this objectively.

The story states that Yemen’s oil reserves that fund 70 percent of the budget will run out in 10 years. Somehow, this will be the ingredients for breeding terrorism.

“…Several hundred al-Qaeda members in remote tribal areas of Yemen may be preparing for attacks similar to the Detroit plane plot in the U.S. and elsewhere, President Barack Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, John Brennan, said on Jan. 3…”

Now, logically if you only live on $2 a day as the story claims, it’s pretty hard to access explosives, get plane tickets, passports etc unless you have RICH contacts and buddies willing to fund your hobbies. It’s more likely that people with more dough and savvy than to blow themselves up are recruiting these poor people as fuse mules. It must be noted however, that the undie bomber was from a wealthy family who went to the best schools in the U.K. Perhaps he felt poor next to the bankers he met in London, but who wouldn’t be.

It’s hard to swallow the notion that Yemenis by themselves ascribe their state of poverty to the Great Satan without some prodding by some external influence. Given the choice, I think most people would choose to feed themselves and their families rather than self immolation against the U.S. in the name of Allah.

The article documents the amounts of aid sent to Yemen by the U.S., the U.K. and the world bank amounting to hundreds of millions or billions of dollars over the years with more to come. It is illogical to bomb the guy giving you money. Of course, there are eerie similarities with regard to the unions in our part of the world, but that’s for another piece.

With reference to an upcoming aid meeting, Selva Ramachandran, UN development program director for Yemen said;

“…The London conference should focus on Yemen’s development needs, estimated by the government at $11 billion, as well as anti-terrorism assistance…”

Notice again how this again boils down to money. Sounds entirely reasonable; give us more money or we’ll blow you up. Now if someone can explain why the impoverished in China, Tibet and India aren’t blowing up planes, we’ll put this poverty breeds extremism crap to rest. History has shown that it’s seldom the poor that cause trouble, it’s the wealthy ones that go off the rails we have to worry about.

link BBC News – Newsnight – Yemen al-Qaeda link to Guantanamo Bay prison

Not sure of the point of this story. We are informed that some ex-residents of Guantanamo prison were released a couple of years ago. They were sent to Saudi Arabia for rehab, only to fall off the wagon. They slipped into Yemen and got back with the boys in the hood, er the dunes.

In fact, two of these guys, Mohammed al-Awfi and Said al-Shihri were ambitious enough to found their own Al Qaeda chapter, even getting their own acronym, AQAP. Apparently, they were none too impressed with the rehab stint in Saudi Arabia, so they set about returning to their unsociable ways even making a recruiting video. This impressed numerous conscripts to their cause including the now famous undie bomber this past Christmas.

Oddly, al-Awfi returned to Saudi Arabia and gave it all up because according to him,

“…it was because he had received a phone call from his wife telling him to return to look after her and the children…”

!!!! That’s it???!! The wife says, “you get your sorry butt back here and look after us or I’ll send you to 20 virgins myself” and he returns??

As the writer suspects, there’s probably more to this story than is being revealed by al-Awfi, though of course, we’ve never met his wife. We’re not sure if the idea is to convince us that rehab actually works, or that prisoners should not be released in the first place.

The descriptions of ‘enhanced interrogation’ are not for the squeamish as anyone who has watched the recent Casino Royale James Bond movie will attest, for it sounds like the techniques were lifted straight from the movie. It should be pointed out that this allegedly occurred in Afghanistan, not Gitmo. It should also be pointed out that to expect to be treated otherwise is pretty naive considering they were in the blowing up innocent people business. I would say he’s pretty fortunate to be now living in relative luxury and comfort given the escapades he’s been involved with.

Maybe he’s being sincere. If so, he should maybe star in a video telling others in the fuse business that it’s all wrong, that no religion should be offing disbelievers, even if they are infidels. Of course, the video would be more convincing without his wife hovering nearby with a rolling pin in hand.

As for fighting the war on terror, how about researching the idea of marrying off all the single guys in that part of the world, it seems pretty effective.