reflectivepundit

A Spineless President’s Harmful Surrender

By Brigitte L. Nacos

At the heights of the staged Republican-Tea Party protests against a less than modest health care reform, I became convinced that this was the first phase of a one-term presidency. The president would not be reelected, I thought, because he tried to do and fought for what was right for the mass of Americans, for the country.

Now, I am convinced that we are near the half-time mark of Obama’s presidency. He will not be reelected because he does not even try to do what is right for the mass of Americans, what is right for the country.

He has waved the white flag of surrender without making even an effort to fight the attack dogs on the right.

Instead of sticking to his campaign promise of repealing the hefty tax deductions for the better-off strata that helped to create the deficit fiasco and keeping it in place for the vast majority of the rest, he joined Republicans in continuing to make even multimillionaires and billionaires richer.

Republicans agreed to an extension of unemployment payments to the far too large army of America’s unemployed.

And, as the president had the nerve to tell the nation last night, “In exchange, the Republicans have asked for more generous treatment of the estate tax than I think is wise or warranted.”

A double dip for the rich is “wise and warranted?”

Wise and warranted would be to let the Republicans in Congress vote down a tax package that would extent the Bush tax cuts merely to incomes up to $250,000 and also reject an extension of unemployment benefits.

That would expose what Republicans stand for and that their for-the-American-people rhetoric is a farce. They are the representatives for the haves only. And that would expose the myth of trickle-down economics!

WikiLeaks and U.S. Counterterrorism Efforts in Yemen

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Yemen, probably far more than the Afghan-Pakistani border region, is the major hiding  ground for terrorists with actual or virtual ties to Al Qaeda Central. Extremists from a multitude of countries, from neighboring Saudi Arabia to far-away America, have found safe haven in those parts of Yemen that the government cannot control, even if it wanted to.

The words and deeds of Al Qaeda’s brethren in Yemen leave no doubt that they are determined to harm Americans.

Anwar al-Awlaki, formerly an imam at a Virginia mosque and now a leading figure in Yemen’s terrorist community, was in touch with Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and would-be Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. And counterterrorism officials here and in the U.K. are convinced that al-Awlaki was the plotter behind the PETN bombs that were sent several weeks ago as cargo from Yemen to Chicago—but intercepted before they could explode aboard planes. 

Moreover, Yemen has become the hub for virtual jihadi propaganda and terrorist instruction. Samir Khan, who formerly resided in North Carolina, is now a member of the terrorist community in Yemen, from where he publishes his jihadi magazine Inspire.

If all this is not enough to highlight the need for countering the Yemeni threat, what is?

As I wrote in my previous post, some of the leaked cables will harm, and probably have harmed already, counterterrorism efforts in certain parts of the world, including Yemen.

This weekend, the British Guardian, along with the New York Times and the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel one of WikiLeaks chosen “partners,” published more details about the U.S.-Yemini relationship that will make effective counterterrorism measures against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula far more difficult, if not impossible.

According to the Guardian, “The cables expose for the first time the true scale of America's covert military involvement in the Arab world's poorest nation amid deep concern in Washington that it has become the haven for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap).”

What follows are detailed descriptions of contacts, cooperation, agreement, and disagreement between American and Yemeni government officials.