Losing Yemeni Hearts and Mind
During meetings with young, reform-minded activists last month in Yemen, the talk invariably turned to accelerating CIA drone strikes against Islamist militants, and the temperate voices quickly turned angry. The youths’ comments underscored how swiftly the U.S. is losing hearts and minds as it battles Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and its local affiliate, Ansar al-Sharia.
“These drone strikes are stupid policy,” said a secular female activist from Taizz, a city that is considered Yemen’s intellectual capital. “Every time they kill Yemeni civilians they create more hatred of America.”
The youth activists sounded a lot like residents in a new Washington Post feature about how the dramatic increase in U.S. drone strikes in southern Yemen — at least 21 attacks since January — is breeding anger and sympathy for al-Qaeda. The Post primarily quoted tribal leaders in areas under attack or residents whose loved ones were killed by drones. In contrast, the activists I met hailed from cities far from the militant safe-havens that drones are targeting. Most were political moderates eager for reforms — just the sort of potential leaders the U.S. should be cultivating as it seeks to steer Yemen toward a rights-respecting democracy after three decades under its autocratic former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The U.S. has good reason to be concerned about armed Islamist groups in Yemen. AQAP this month tried for the third time since 2009 to blow up a U.S.-bound jetliner. Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility for last week’s attack on a military parade rehearsal that killed nearly 100 soldiers in the heart of Sanaa; it also controls cities and towns in southern Abyan province, where it has imposed a brutal interpretation of Islamic law.
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/31/losing_yemeni_hearts_and_mind/
We are radicalizing the youth in Yemen, much like we are doing in Pakistan. This is unsustainable and counterproductive.
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