Bush's promise after 9/11 was to attack any nation that harbored terrorists. And it wasn't an empty threat or a threatening promise. Just ask Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan if those were empty words. Anyone who wasn't living under a rock, especially the Yemen government who remembers the October 12, 2000 al-Qaeda bombing of the US Navy Destroyer, the USS Cole while it was anchored in Yemen's Port of Aden, should be thanking the terrorists that their bombs didn't go off causing another 9/11(Pearl Harbor) event, and that Barack Obama isn't George W. Bush.
But even President Obama admits that the packages constituted a "credible terrorist threat", which should be diplomatic code to Yemen that our current President's patience is not unlimited, and that they better hope that no more such packages with a Yemen return address, or if you prefer "Greeks bearing gifts"-that can be easily construed as an official act of war on their part, ever enter US airspace again...
Talking Points Memo reported today:
"President Obama, speaking this afternoon about the suspicious devices discovered on flights to the U.S., said the packages constituted a "credible terrorist threat" and that an "initial examination of those packages has determined that they do apparently contain explosive material."
Obama said that the packages, which were found last night on U.S.-bound flights in Dubai and near London, were addressed to "two places of Jewish worship in Chicago." He confirmed that the packages had originated in Yemen, and suggested that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula might be responsible".
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmem...
Today, I have no doubt that had Bush still been President, our combined B-52, B-1, and B-2 bomber fleets would've already left some secret undisclosed location here or overseas, and well on their way to turning Yemen, the former home of the Bin Ladens and which is now one of the largest al-Qaeda concentrations of terrorist training bases in the world, into yet another front line battleground in the global war on terror.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Yemen isn't like Iraq-no oil fields. It isn't like Afghanistan-no opium, no Eurasian overland oil corridor routes to the Causasus. Not like Pakistan-no nuclear missiles to fall into terrorist/rogue nation hands, but OBL is rumored/assumed to be still alive and well there.