One failed bomber isn't worth another bloody war

• Source: Global Times
• [04:04 January 18 2010]
• Comments

By Barry Cunningham

Americans breathed a collective sigh of relief on Christmas Day after the near-catastrophe of an amateur terrorist trying to blow up a plane in Detroit.

But then we waited for the other shoe to drop: US retaliation against the Al Qaeda operatives who sent the would-be suicide bomber on his "panty bomb" mission.

It didn't take much time before US President Barack Obama declared yet another counter-terrorism offensive. This time it was in Yemen, where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas bomber, got his marching orders.

Now there's another collective sigh, but this time it's a gasp of disbelief: Another war? Aren't two unfinished wars enough?

After trying to remember exactly where Yemen is, ordinary Americans like me are now digging for more information on another cesspool of tribal vendettas, bloody religious wars, terrorist bombings and political filth in the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden.

Before Christmas, if Americans knew anything about Yemen, it was the memory of the US Navy destroyer USS Cole being suicide-bombed there, with 16 American sailors dead.

Or that huge numbers of Yemenis are zonked out on khat, a narcotic similar to mind-altering betel nut in Vietnam, recognizable by the green drool that oozes from the khat-chewers' lips.

And these are the people getting an additional $70 million to $150 million in US military aid to match terrorist financing from Saudis to the north.

Obama vows that he won't actually put US "boots on the ground" in Yemen, but the history of US foreign intervention is that small footsteps eventually lead to a stampede of foot soldiers placed in harm's way. The 10-year-long American sacrifice of blood and treasure in Vietnam began with a mere 400 Army "Green Beret" advisors sent by former President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to train the South Vietnam how to fight Viet Cong guerrillas.