4 ms·

Subtly!

tptacek 11y ago
Is it unsubtle? It seems like something more akin to a grassroots local political movement in Yemen than an international terrorist organization. A terrible political movement, but one nonetheless. Am I totally wrong there?
- idlewords 11y ago
  I really don't think there exists an international terrorist al-Qaeda at this point (at least not in the sense we imagine, with a Cobra Commander in some hollow island). It's more like a franchise, and regional groups use the name since it gives cachet and suggests a global, the-Caliphate-is-coming kind of power that makes these guys feel good. It's also in the interests of the United States and other Western powers to sustain the impression of an international terrorist conspiracy potentially capable of harming people in the West. The branding has switched to Isis now that al-Qaeda has kind of fallen apart. I don't know to what extent this is a cynical ploy, and to what extent it's a natural dynamic where we kind of manufacture our own enemies by showing how scared we are of them. All politics in Yemen is grassroots and local and foreign governments forget this at their peril. There's a tendency to assume the various Yemeni factions are puppets being controlled by Iran, the Saudis, the US and so on, but in practice the local factions are very adept at manipulating their various sponsors. The important divisions in Yemen are regional (north, south, and Aden) and tribal, and the tragedy of the country is that it is trying to stitch together very dissimilar regions while outside powers work hard to destabilize it. With regard to al-Qaeda specifically, the Yemeni branch has always been quite distinct. Bin Laden has deep ties to Yemen, which ironically has made AQAP even more of a tribal, regional force, since unlike Afghanistan it's a bunch of locals. I think it's good to remember that southern Yemen used to be a highly ideological, Marxist state(!). The fact that all these Marxists have vanished without a trace suggests how hard it is for any transnational ideology to gain a foothold in this deeply conservative, tenacious country.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    This is pretty close to what I understood. (Thanks for truing me up). So, not to put too fine a point on it: I have more of a problem with military attacks on 2015 Yemeni AQAP than I do with attacks in, say, Waziristan. It seems like attacking Yemeni AQAP implies attacking whole tribes.
    - idlewords 11y ago
      I found this article gave a good sense of what drone attacks really mean for the people in the area, and what it means to be "a member of al-Qaeda" in Yemen, in the eyes of US policymakers: http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/america-tonight-blog/2014/1/17/what-really-happenedwhenausdronehitayemeniweddingconvoy.html http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/ame... In my mind, the worst thing about American military attacks in Yemen is that the government refuses to reveal what our policy even is. Everything about them is being kept secret, removing any hope of democratic accountability.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        Frontline did something similar w/r/t/ the impact of US drone targeting for AQ in Yemen. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/frontline-fight-for-yemen/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/frontline-fight-for-... The Frontline Yemen episode was one of the more depressing Frontlines I've ever seen.
- Retra 11y ago
  This reminds me of one of the problems facing US soldiers in Afghanistan: you can't just ask them where the Taliban are, because sometimes practically everybody they know is 'Taliban.' The word just doesn't mean what you think it means.

Subtly!

Is it unsubtle? It seems like something more akin to a grassroots local political movement in Yemen than an international terrorist organization. A terrible political movement, but one nonetheless. Am I totally wrong there?

idlewords 11y ago
I really don't think there exists an international terrorist al-Qaeda at this point (at least not in the sense we imagine, with a Cobra Commander in some hollow island). It's more like a franchise, and regional groups use the name since it gives cachet and suggests a global, the-Caliphate-is-coming kind of power that makes these guys feel good. It's also in the interests of the United States and other Western powers to sustain the impression of an international terrorist conspiracy potentially capable of harming people in the West. The branding has switched to Isis now that al-Qaeda has kind of fallen apart. I don't know to what extent this is a cynical ploy, and to what extent it's a natural dynamic where we kind of manufacture our own enemies by showing how scared we are of them. All politics in Yemen is grassroots and local and foreign governments forget this at their peril. There's a tendency to assume the various Yemeni factions are puppets being controlled by Iran, the Saudis, the US and so on, but in practice the local factions are very adept at manipulating their various sponsors. The important divisions in Yemen are regional (north, south, and Aden) and tribal, and the tragedy of the country is that it is trying to stitch together very dissimilar regions while outside powers work hard to destabilize it. With regard to al-Qaeda specifically, the Yemeni branch has always been quite distinct. Bin Laden has deep ties to Yemen, which ironically has made AQAP even more of a tribal, regional force, since unlike Afghanistan it's a bunch of locals. I think it's good to remember that southern Yemen used to be a highly ideological, Marxist state(!). The fact that all these Marxists have vanished without a trace suggests how hard it is for any transnational ideology to gain a foothold in this deeply conservative, tenacious country.
- tptacek 11y ago
  This is pretty close to what I understood. (Thanks for truing me up). So, not to put too fine a point on it: I have more of a problem with military attacks on 2015 Yemeni AQAP than I do with attacks in, say, Waziristan. It seems like attacking Yemeni AQAP implies attacking whole tribes.
  - idlewords 11y ago
    I found this article gave a good sense of what drone attacks really mean for the people in the area, and what it means to be "a member of al-Qaeda" in Yemen, in the eyes of US policymakers: http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/america-tonight-blog/2014/1/17/what-really-happenedwhenausdronehitayemeniweddingconvoy.html http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/ame... In my mind, the worst thing about American military attacks in Yemen is that the government refuses to reveal what our policy even is. Everything about them is being kept secret, removing any hope of democratic accountability.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      Frontline did something similar w/r/t/ the impact of US drone targeting for AQ in Yemen. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/frontline-fight-for-yemen/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/frontline-fight-for-... The Frontline Yemen episode was one of the more depressing Frontlines I've ever seen.
Retra 11y ago
This reminds me of one of the problems facing US soldiers in Afghanistan: you can't just ask them where the Taliban are, because sometimes practically everybody they know is 'Taliban.' The word just doesn't mean what you think it means.