Top Republican Myths about the Crotch Bomber Affair

[Purveyor]

By Juan Cole - Wednesday, December 30, 2009

I hear these on tv or from Reps. Pete Hoekstra and Peter King and Sen. Joe Lieberman.

1. President Obama did not speak publicly swiftly enough. In fact, Bush was silent for 9 days after the shoe bomber attack in 2001.

2. Bush would have tried Abdulmutallab as an enemy combatant. Well, he tried Richard Reid the shoe bomber in civilian courts.

3. Yemen is the issue. In fact, Yemen's government is actively bombing al-Qaeda cells, and complains that the US never shared its info on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab with Sanaa.

4. A US war on al-Qaeda in Yemen is next. This way of thinking is foolish. Yemen is not a cake walk, folks

Col. Pat Lang, former Defense Intelligence Agrency head for the Middle East, is an old Yemen hand and delivers a blunt warning against the US getting militarily involved there.

I have been to Yemen twice, before and after unification, and have traveled outside Sanaa. I've spoken publicly in Arabic in front of big audiences and interacted with Zaidis, Salafis, Sufis. It is an extremely complicated society with multiple ecological zones. It is an arid, tribal (segmentary-lineage) system. Most of the scholars I know who work on Yemen have been kidnapped by tribes or thrown in jail by the government at least once. People are either Arab nationalists or Muslim ones. They have very little use for outsiders. If the US tried to establish a big presence there, they would make the Iraqi resistance look half-hearted and weak-kneed.

MORE...

http://www.juancole.com/2009/12/top-republican-myths-about-crotch.html

[dhpgetsit]

1. Obama and Napolitano wore working security in Amsterdam Airport on Christmas

NOT!

[peacetalksforall]

2. Thanks for the true and false list. I'm going to memorize it. Leiberman is

a huge problem for our country.

Jingle, jingle, jingle - money flowing down his pockets, deep pocketswhich flow into his banks - all for pushing perpetual war and Israeli ruler wars. He shares a belief with Israel that they can bomb the entire region and rule it.

[JPZenger]

3. k and r. Facts are always nice.

[gateley]

4. Why would the Repubs want to attack Yemen? We don't invade the country where

AlQ actually IS, just a country whose oil we want. :shrug: