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Wednesday, September 18, 2002
 
Yemen and Saudi Arabia: Loonies and War Criminals

Has anyone paid attention to Yemen lately? SecDef Rumsfield has. This article talks about this new global war on Al Qaieda moving to Yemen.

"A potential target is the uncharted area along Yemen's porous border with Saudi Arabia, officials said. The lawless region has long been a concern of American intelligence as a haven for Al Qaeda."

People have long wondered why besides Israel and the United States, Saudi Arabia is on Osama's top attack list. Could it be that his father was from Yemen and that Yemen and Saudi Arabia have had a troubled relationship? The article mentions a pourous borders; this is quite an understatement. Yemen has no agreed upon border with SA, which is in as much dispute as the border between Palestine and Israel. Back in 1990-1, during the Gulf War, Yemin also joined forces with Sadaam and allow their airfields to be used to strike at SA. To punish Yemin, SA kicked out 800,000 or so workers from Yemen and sent them to refugee camps. Because SA was so important to the "coalition" and the war nothing was said about this. Wonder if Osama is still mad? (Expelling seems to be a popular tactic among the Arabs, as they also, during the 1948 War of Independece, expelled hundreds of thousands of Jews also. Now there are no Jews in the Arab world. And Israel is the racist state?)

Imagine if Israel had kicked at 800, 000 Arabs from Israel and the territories, because they too supported Sadaam. Imagine the speeches in the UN, the op/eds on the pages of the NYTimes and the International Herald Tribune. Imagine the academics screeching that this is proof that "Zionism is racism." I could see the headlines "ISRAEL FORFEITS RIGHTS TO EXIST AS A STATE", with every "pro-human rights" advocate advocating divestment from Israel. SA kicks out some 800 thousand odd Arabs and not a peep from the left. Can you say double standard?