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Yemen, Yemen Everywhere

by Jon Queally

Whether you've been forced to listen to Pat Buchanan (again) promote the suspension of rule of law, watched as the media machine chewed noisily on Joe Lieberman's latest pitch for preemptive war, or felt assuredly unassured by our President's promise to fight terrorism 'wherever it is', one thing ought to be certain by now: The US 'War on Terror' is neither at its beginning, its middle, and certainly not at its end.

As the tired - and disproven - arguments get pulled out of the cupboard, let us acknowledge Yemen and the Yemenis, who know as much about a Nigerian bomber as most Americans know of the Arabian Peninsula.  It's possible that the US public would benefit from a deeper understanding of Yemen's violent civil war, its endemic water crisis, its long history of food, fuel and economic crises, and the overall extreme level of poverty that makes it one of the least developed countries on the planet. 

Perhaps if the US public had a more comprehensive view of Yemen, it would not be so cavalier to name it the next front in our misguided, endless war on a tactic and an ideology.

Then again, there's nothing to suggest a better understanding of Afghanistan would have quelched the American thirst for revenge in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.  We are lucky this young Nigerian criminal was so incompetent with his explosives.  We are less fortunate that our nation's ability to respond to terrorism has not developed beyond full body scans and the rhetoric of military strikes on a faltering state. New terrorist, new country; same tired, deadly mindset.

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