There was a country called the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, and this state endured for around 23 years. However in the early nineties this state [along with the Yemen Arab Republic] unified to become the Republic of Yemen. There are many powers today calling for a return to secession and the abolishment of everything that has taken place over the past decade and a half. There is a movement in the south calling for the secession of south Yemen from the Republic of Yemen. This movement may not achieve any of its major demands, and Yemen will most likely remain unified, but at the very least this is something that will cause a big headache in Sanaa and to the political leadership there.
There are many worse possibilities than this, especially as the Yemeni military failed to achieve a decisive victory over the Houthi insurgents, and the Yemeni government agreed a truce with the Houthis that is not going to last. There is also Al Qaeda which has managed to sow its ideologies and station its men throughout Yemen, not to mention occupy part of northern Yemeni territory. The vanguard of US troops are now arriving in Yemen to counter Al Qaeda regardless of the toll that this war will take on America's allies in Sanaa. The Yemeni government is therefore facing a dangerous situation that may persist for at least two years. During this time, it is expected that the southern secessionists will give their support to the Houthi rebels.
The reason that the southern secessionists have begun moving now is because this coincides with the Houthi rebels successfully creating chaos in the north. The southern unrest has been growing over the past two years without the official authorities showing any concern. The desire in the south to secede from unification cannot be described as overwhelming; this is simply a marginal movement with limited demands therefore it wouldn't hurt the government to listen to the southerners and attempt to address their needs. The Yemeni leadership would be making a big mistake if it ignores this movement, or if it makes empty promises such as the promise of holding bilateral dialogue or appointing a handful of southern politicians to the government in the hopes of appeasing them while neglecting their key demands.
According to the citizens of the former republic, the problem is that Sanaa, in addition to dismissing thousands of military officers and civilians from their posts, has also neglected the entire region as a whole, and southern Yemen has been plunged further into poverty. Other opponents believe that the political leadership has prevented Yemeni investors living abroad from investing in the south, as well as putting an end to the Aden Free Zone project, and preventing those who fled the country during the civil war from returning, in addition to banning those who were allowed to return from engaging in politics. This is just to mention a few of their countless complaints.
There are opposition politicians abroad who have only recently boarded the opposition train however the main challenge facing the Yemeni government right now exists from within the country itself. The opposition is growing steadily each day, and there is fear that Yemen will reach a point of clash and division that is beyond healing. Yemen is a large country and if there is a public desire for secession then the armed forces will not be able to impose control on the south which was, until very recently, an independent state.
The south is undoubtedly a chief partner in unification, and in Al Mukla in southern Yemen the southern leadership, which at that time was led by Ali Salim al Beidh, accepted the idea of unification between Aden and Sanaa. This came as a result of favourable conditions due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the primary sponsor of the Marxist government of southern Yemen. Although the course of events led to war, the south eventually accepted Ali Abdullah Saleh as president. Saleh made many promises to the people in the south, and he vowed to promote comprehensive development in the south; a development that never took place.
However to be frank, the problem is not limited to the south. Yemen as a whole is suffering from a lack of development and poor management, and this is not something that affects one region of Yemen more than another. This is something that is well-known to many of those in the south. As a result of this, helping Yemen get back onto its feet is something that would be extremely beneficial to the entire country, its unity, and the region as a whole. Therefore it is important for the government in Sanaa to listen carefully to those in the south who are criticizing it, rather than confronting them, as long as they are demanding development rather than secession.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/07/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Whaddya mean before?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/07/2010 12:39 Comments ||
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#2
As a result of this, helping Yemen get back onto its feet is something that would be extremely beneficial to the entire country
Forgive my ignorance, but when has Yemen been on its feet in the last 2,000 years, to which it could be helped back?
A sharp-eyed viewer has noticed that when I was debating George Monbiot on TV yesterday and I mentioned that his cherished peer-reviewed science' had been discredited by Climategate he bared his teeth like a cornered cur. Says my body language expert John Lish:
It was a quite aggressive and defensive gesture which was noticeable when he was attempting to dismiss you (talking about peer review). A definite body-language sign of being rattled. He's definitely uncomfortable about what's occurring and others will have spotted that as well.'
Monbiot isn't the only one. Consider the paranoid tone of this email from climate-fear-promoter Paul Ehrlich, during an exchange with fellow members at the National Academy of Scientists on how best to deal with the Denier threat: (Hat tip: Marc Morano)
Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules.'
And consider this tragic response from the editor of the US magazine Skeptical Inquirer when faced with declining readership. Despite its name, the Skeptical Inquirer has tended to adopt a none-too-sceptical position on AGW. This has annoyed one or two readers who have been cancelling their subscriptions in disgust. The editor Kendrick Frazier seems to imagine that this is not a reflection on his editorial policy but on his readership's false consciousness' as he shows in this robust editorial: (hat tip: Philip Thomas)
This is the third SI reader who has canceled his (it's always a male) subscription over our climate change pieces in the current SI (not to mention the at least six who did so after our first round of articles several years ago). Boy, they don't want to hear anything they disagree with, do they.
It is clear the anti-GW science crowd have their minds made up, and nothing anyone is going to say, no appeal to scientific evidence, no attempt to place things into an accurate context, no attempt to point out that many media and blog portrayals are not always fully accurate, no facts, no explanations, no attempts to show they themselves are being manipulated, nothing is ever going to change their minds. Very much like the evolution/creationist controversy, except that these are some of our longtime readers.
They do not want to engage forthrightly with factual, science-based statements or arguments. They only want their own views reinforced. There is no attempt at open-minded discussion or even fair argument. Just a determination to maintain their ideological purity and not have it be contaminated with any scientific information and perspective that doesn't support their presuppositions. They want to draw a don't-tell-me-anything-I-don't-want-to-hear cocoon around themselves. Unfortunately, that cocoon is growing ever larger. And they know they are punishing us, because, even more than most publications, which have advertising, we depend mostly on subscription revenue.
Guess we should just go along with the crowd, the lynch mob. Hop on the bandwagon. Slam those damned ignorant climatologists coming up with all that nonsense about changing climate and a warming planet. Who needs science anyway?
All this is a roundabout way of answering one of my editors' kind suggestions that I respond to this morning's front page story in which some desperate scientists at the embarrassing, useless and parti pris Met Office have apparently attempted to repair their creaky, wheel-less AGW bandwagon with a hurried new botch job report. Sorry, but I don't think many of us are going to fall for this nonsense any more.
Monbiot tried it on yesterday with his free two and half minute propaganda broadcast generously funded by the BBC's The Daily Politics show in which he rehashed all his old arguments (man's selfishness, rising sea-levels, plight of the poor, wind farms, blah di blah di blah) as though Climategate, Glaciergate, Pachaurigate, Amazongate, Africagate et al had never happened. Now the MET office is having a go.
Sorry chaps, it won't wash. The debate has moved on. It's not about the science' any more. (Not that it ever was). It's about economics. Politics. Money. The taxpayer versus Big Government.
On all of which, more later .
#2
Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
- Julius Caesar ACT I SCENE I, by William Shakespeare.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/07/2010 20:22 Comments ||
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#8
These two would fit the bill just fine:
Posted by: Andy Ulolusing3083 ||
03/07/2010 21:29 Comments ||
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#9
Laurel and Hardy would make a better Donk ticket than Obama and Biden.
Now let's see could we get a Curly, Larry and Moe ticket? Curly as VP, Larry as POTUS and Moe as SecDef. There you have it...or should Moe be SecState or DCI?
Posted by: Karl Rove ||
03/07/2010 21:32 Comments ||
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#10
The aree ready to fight all enemies foreign or domestic:
#11
I think Laurel and Hardy would make better policy decisions than Obama and Biden and FURTHERMORE I would National Defense and National Security to Curly Larry and Moe more than Obama and Biden. Especially with MOe as SecDef.
Posted by: Karl Rove ||
03/07/2010 21:34 Comments ||
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#12
From top right to left
President - Vice president - Secretary of State - Director National Intelligence
Posted by: Andy Ulolusing3083 ||
03/07/2010 21:37 Comments ||
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#13
Cabinet members:
Posted by: Andy Ulolusing3083 ||
03/07/2010 21:43 Comments ||
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#14
First International Incident:
Posted by: Andy Ulolusing3083 ||
03/07/2010 21:45 Comments ||
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#15
Re #13: No thanks. We already have enough Marxists in the White House.
Posted by: ed ||
03/07/2010 23:30 Comments ||
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#4
The money quote: Once the state swells to a certain size, the people available to fill the ever-expanding number of government jobs will be statists - sometimes hard-core Marxist statists, sometimes social-engineering, multi-culti statists, sometimes fluffily "compassionate" statists, but always statists. The short history of the postwar welfare state is that you don't need a president-for-life if you've got a bureaucracy-for-life.
#1
Holder's choice of civilian trials for monstrous war criminals like Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) reveals an extremely decayed and corrupted state of patriotic feeling which is well beyond the pale. In fact, Holder is so supercilious and incompetent that he has adamantly refused to distinguish the difference between heinous illegal enemy combatants and American citizens, military tribunals and civilian trials, friend and foe, war and peace. No one in their "right mind" would choose to give a gruesome illegal enemy combatant known as the "worst of the worst" the lavish if not sumptuous protections of an American civilian trial, but not so Eric Holder -- irrefutably proving him to be "the ugliest of things".
Posted by: war on terror ||
03/07/2010 21:58 Comments ||
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#2
Preceeded by only these two:
Posted by: Andy Ulolusing3083 ||
03/07/2010 22:25 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
