Charlie Rose

SharkswithfrikingLazers  05/20/2012 04:03 PM Report

KHAT and YEMEN!

The most operational franchise of al-Qaida today is the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, according to John Brennan, President Obama's counterterrorism advisor. He describes the group as very, very dangerous. Several terrorist plots originated there, including the recent underwear bomb plot, which was just exposed by a double agent.

Khat is a narcotic-like leaf that is chewed throughout the horn of Africa and in parts of the Arabian Peninsula and almost every Yemeni chews it.

And the reason that I'm so struck by that experience is because the United States bans its employees in Yemen from chewing Khat. Every other government allows its ambassadors and other diplomatic figures to go to khat chews. That's where you learn everything in Yemen, is at a khat chew. No one's going to send you an email telling you anything. You have to go to a khat chew, sit on the floor, and chew with people into the night.

And that's how you get intelligence. That's how you get permission. That's how you get anything done.

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=152854335

seylulleyl  07/16/2010 12:48 PM Report

And revolution does not guarantee amelioration. It is just as likely to produce more chaos.

seylulleyl  07/16/2010 12:21 PM Report

Strange comment on “failed state.”

A state fails when it ceases to govern. When governance applies to only 10 or 20% of the population and 5 to 6% of the territory then the state is mostly failed. It may survive as a raider or terrorizer.

For 70 years, Yemen has been sinking into a Hobsian world; at first slowly but at an accelerating rate.

Amelioration of the situation is beyond the government, and beyond the set of interests that constitute the “state.” Yemen needs a new leadership or a leadership that is repentant and “born again.” It also needs the established interests (military leaders, tribal leaders, land owners, merchants, industrialists and opinion dispensers) that are repentant and “born again.”

Otherwise the only alternative is revolution.

REMant  07/14/2010 02:18 PM Report

So-called terrorists are in many respects fighting the last of the colonial wars, against globalization and the social system that is part of it. Like the American Indians most of them will not be able to find a place in our world and in the end either we leave them alone or fight them, but the latter is self-defeating and the former may not be an option if our economic system continues to impoverish and isolate them.

robdverity  07/13/2010 03:05 PM Report

PBS's Nova or Frontline expose' showed the actual 'safehouse' in Yemen used by terrorist and al Qaeda operatives; while our ever-vigilant MI oligarchie-fed soldiers of fortune and war-for-profit children continue to screw up the effort in Af-Pak with drone-killing civilians and other military missteps. Whatever enmity we have now will be increased many times over by the time we leave, whether a declared victory or a strategic withdrawal. Prob more US hatred and planning outside of Af-Pak than within. But with due diligence we will assure Af-Pak is in the mix by the time we leave.

Our values are so skewered and conflicted Gates (Obama) et al assigns a General-in-overall-charge (replacing Petraeus) that admits getting-off on killing, while Patraeus supposedly is trying to minimize civilian casualties - to win hearts and minds. What a mixed-message to the troops.

You don't have to be dumber-than-dirt, but it seems to trump all else.

And why el Aryani? Why not Bibi? He too was in town. Hamas, Syria, Turkey, now Yemen - but no Israel, Bibi? Charlie rebuffed? Bibi miffed?

Course it was a (mercenary) $3 billion handshake with O. So hypocrisy comes easy at that price. Even Charlie can't match that.