West rachets up aid to Yemen to boost anti-terror battle

Why would a sudden increase in U.S. military aid to the Arabian Peninsula nation of Yemen transform the Middle East's poorest nation into a loyal ally in the war on terror? It's kind of hard to see, given that Yemen harbors a branch of the al-Qaida
terrorist group that has been the avowed enemy of the United States for years and is responsible for devastating attacks that have killed thousands of people. But Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, announced Friday that the United States would more than double its $70 million in annual military support to help the government in Sanaa, Yemen's capital, crack down on militants believed to be setting up headquarters there, according to the Reuters international news service. "We have, it's well known, about $70 million in security assistance last year, Petraeus said at a news conference. "That will more than double this coming year." British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Western support was needed to help Yemen avoid becoming a haven for terrorists, and announced a high-level meeting in London later this month. "The international community must not deny Yemen the support it needs to tackle extremism," Brown said. The al-Qaida in Yemen branch itself has claimed responsibility for this month's aborted attack on a passenger jet and is responsible for the attack on the USS Cole in Aden that killed 17 U.S. sailors in 2000 -- even before the still-hard-to-believe attack by its parent organization that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York.

Coast Guard admits Sept. 11 training exercise was a bad idea

For anyone who still thinks it impossible that the U.S. military was caught napping on the fateful day that terrorists crashed jumbo jets into the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001 comes news of an internal U.S. Coast Guard investigation that found that scheduling a training exercise on the Potomac River on the anniversary of that attack was a mistake. Gee, you think? False reports of gunfire near the Pentagon, where President Barack Obama was attending a memorial ceremony, prompted FBI agents to rush the scene and caused the grounding of 17 flights at nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the New York Times said, citing a report yesterday by the Associated Press. CNN and Fox News reported the shots on television after hearing about them on a police radio, even though no shots were actually fired, the Times said. Instead, the exercise raised unnecessary fears that Washington had again come under attack on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the report found. The Coast Guard said it did not know that Obama was in the vicinity and would not have conducted the drill if it had known, and promised to use more-secure communications in the future. Of course, the biggest question has to be why the Coast Guard didn't figure any of this out before. Like the incident in April when an airplane painted to look like Air Force One caused panic in New York City when it flew dangerously close to skyscrapers in a publicity exercise without notifying local authorities, federal authorities display stupidity at best or contempt for the citizenry at worst when they pull such stunts. If it's only stupidity, it certainly seems a likely explanation for what happened, or failed to happen, on the real Sept. 11.