Monday, May 21, 2012

Suicide Bomber Kills Scores at Yemen Military Parade — On Cue, Los Angeles Times Warns Against Mission Creep in Arabian Peninsula

Well, it was almost 100, so I'm putting the number of killed in the scores. The Los Angeles Times says dozens, but who's counting?

See: "Suicide bomber kills dozens of soldiers in Yemen."

And the Times goes after the Obama administration for escalating the terror war in Yemen? I must be dreaming. From the editors, "Mission creep in Yemen":

As the United States finally begins to wind down its military presence in Afghanistan, is the Obama administration poised to replicate that intervention in Yemen? The administration insists it has no such plans, but it has been evident for months that it regards the Yemen-based group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as the most dangerous incubator of terrorist plots directed at America. And it is acting on that conviction.

This week The Times reported that U.S. special operations troops, which were withdrawn from Yemen last year amid political turmoil in that country, have returned and are providing technical assistance to Yemeni forces. Meanwhile, at least 18 U.S. military and drone strikes have been reported against Islamist targets in Yemen since early March, a significant upsurge, and the CIA is active there....

Given the experience of the U.S. in Afghanistan, where a mission to dislodge Al Qaeda and the Taliban morphed into a decade-long exercise in counterinsurgency and nation-building, it is hardly alarmist to worry that similar mission creep might occur in Yemen, especially as the U.S. becomes more invested in the Hadi government. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula isn't the only threat to the new regime. Islamic militants have established an "emirate" in southern Yemen.

No one should belittle the danger posed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. There is clearly a need for intelligence operations such as the one that thwarted a conspiracy to construct a potentially undetectable bomb in the month before the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death. What President Obama — or Mitt Romney, if he is elected in November — must avoid is the sort of expansive intervention that has enmeshed this country in Afghanistan.
Right.

No one should belittle the danger, but let's not be too hasty to fight the terrorists on their home ground!

You'd think the country elected John McCain, or something. Sheesh.

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