All right, welcome back to the show.
Our next guest is Ramzi Baroud.
He's an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com.
His work has been published in many newspapers, journals, and anthologies around the world.
His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada, a chronicle of a people's struggle, and he's got a piece published at Common Dreams yesterday, July 7th, Yemen continues to inspire amid great odds.
Welcome to the show, Ramzi, how are you doing?
I'm doing well, thank you for having me.
Well, I really appreciate you joining us today.
First of all, please tell us about your reaction to the president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, going on Saudi TV yesterday for the first time since he was injured.
That move was expected, really.
They've been talking about his imminent return for a while now, you know, just days after he arrived in Saudi Arabia with very little information about the nature of his injuries, and some leaks from his advisors in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen itself suggested that Ali Abdullah Saleh is going to make an appearance.
The political value of that appearance is that the man who resembles the obstacle, really, to any serious and meaningful change in Yemen is still there, and he is still holding on the same old position.
So when he appeared on television, it didn't really matter that he looked almost an entirely different human being.
What really mattered is that he repeated the exact same thing that he has been repeating to his supporters in Sana'a before he was injured, and as far as his supporters are concerned, it means that their political position remains unmoved, and Ali Abdullah Saleh is back in that political game after it was assumed that the end of that era is upon us.
Mm-hmm.
Well, and this is the thing with him gone for almost a month now, and the footage that I've seen, the pictures I've seen show millions of people outside.
It seems like any place where his helicopter tried to land, they could prevent him from landing.
They could prevent this guy from ever coming back, right?
That's right.
It's going to be extremely difficult, really, for Saleh to find an opening back into Yemeni society.
I mean, remember, things are moving pretty fast in Yemen.
New political realizations and new political moods are just on the swing.
Things are happening so very fast.
For a while, it's been assumed that Ali Abdullah Saleh has been discounted from that whole political equation, and from my personal opinion, I think he, in fact, is discounted, and now we are looking at the post-Saleh era.
However, his supposed return to that picture is going to complicate the scene as far as his supporters are concerned.
I think the opposition in Yemen, especially the societal opposition, I'm not talking about the organized opposition, because I think in Yemen has really proven to be pathetic, to say the least, but I'm talking about the millions of Yemenis who are so very clear and set on their demands for change and democracy and freedom in their country.
They have been clear from the start, with Ali Abdullah Saleh doing his Friday sermons or not, that did not change anything as far as these people are concerned.
I think Ali Abdullah Saleh has complicated the situation for his supporters, and for the U.S. in particular, because the discussion has been, okay, now Ali Abdullah Saleh is out of the picture, what do we do?
And suddenly the man is back, and he doesn't really exactly fit into the new scenario, and that's what is going to make it more interesting, I think.
Well, now, the protesters, what exactly are their demands?
They want elections, or they want a disillusion of, I mean, the military is basically his private army at this point, right?
Exactly, and this is really the only center of power that Ali Abdullah Saleh has in that country.
His son, Ahmad, is running the military, which is also under the command of his nephews, Ammar and, I can't remember the other family member's name, but it's really like a family mafia.
But the thing about that mafia that is running Yemen right now, or suppressing the demands in Yemen, has one very powerful friend, or two, rather.
One is Saudi Arabia, and the other is the United States.
They are supporting them militarily, financially, and politically, and that's what keeps them, you know, that's what keeps them there.
I mean, it's really amazing what's happening in Yemen.
No one wants these guys in.
The Yemeni people are so very clear, and by the way, their demands are perhaps some of the most refined demands ever infused by a civil society in the Arab world for years.
I would say that the demands of the Yemeni people are even clearer than the list of the demands that were put forward in Egypt, and in Tunisia, and elsewhere.
Their clarity regarding civil society, regarding a civil government, regarding democracy and freedom, is so articulate, and it's been articulate from the start, and they have the numbers to back this up.
But again, they are fighting against so many odds and so many currents.
One of the challenges that Yemen has, that Egypt in particular did not have, is that Yemeni society is very weak from within.
Ali Abdullah Saleh has destroyed civil society.
There's not even a semblance of civil society in Yemen.
So the center of gravity and the center of pressure within the Yemeni society is nowhere to be found.
There's the will of the people, but how do you articulate that politically if you don't have the platform?
And that's what made Yemen much more vulnerable to outside interferences, unlike Egypt.
Well, the thing is, something is, I guess it sort of means that they have a clean slate to work with, in a sense, because they must have come up with some great new organization to keep everybody out in the street this long.
It's not just outrage at the dictatorship.
It must be a sense of, you know, us and them going on, that they can win and do this.
What's the shape of the rebellion?
They have their own kind of front government in waiting, or how's that work?
Well, I like that, the clean slate thing, because in fact, if that revolution is successful, they will have a fresh start.
But let's also be clear on the fact that, with or without Ali Abdullah Saleh, the situation in Yemen was so very difficult, in the sense that you had a huge deal of disaffection in the south.
We know that the south of Yemen became unified with the rest of Yemen in 1994, after a very intense and costly civil war.
And the scars of that civil war was never really completely washed away.
It was always there.
It was always present, and it kind of manifested itself in constant jubilees and uprisings and fights and wars and so forth.
In the north, we also have a big situation here, where you have the Houthi tribe, which is a Shia conglomerate of tribes, have also been fighting with the central government.
We also have the so-called Al-Qaeda.
I'm really not very clear on what's going on as far as Al-Qaeda's presence.
I'm sure that there is Al-Qaeda's presence, but it's very clear, and that's what the Yemenis are saying, that Ali Abdullah Saleh has exaggerated the power of Al-Qaeda to continue channeling American funds and weapons and arms and political cover for his policy in Sana'a.
The Yemenis have to deal with all of this, and I think the millions of people who have been gathering all around Yemen, from Aden to Sana'a to everywhere else in Yemen, have made it very clear that their opinion is not only against that dictatorship, and not only against foreign interference, but it's also uprising for unity between the north, the south, and the center.
And that's a beautiful message.
But again, the challenge is, how do we articulate that politically?
The only option they have is the joint meetings, meeting parties, which is a kind of a cluster of political parties that serve as an opposition, and co-existed with Saleh for many years.
They are disconnected somewhat from the people.
They don't really articulate the demands of the people the way that the people want them to be articulated.
And that poses a challenge, that the millions of people out there don't have that political platform, and the only ones who are capable of providing it are people who are not fully engaged with the uprising.
Okay, now we'll have to hold it right there.
It's Ramzi Baroud from PalestineChronicle.com.
Peace as Yemen continues to inspire and make great odds at common dreams.
All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
I'm Scott Horton, and I'm talking with Ramzi Baroud.
RamziBaroud.net is his website.
And he's also the author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com.
We're talking about the revolution in Yemen.
Pardon me, the revolution in Yemen right now.
Yemen continues to inspire amid great odds, is his piece at Common Dreams.
And now, when we're going out to break, you were talking about the unity, Ramzi, of the Houthi secessionists in the north, the more socialist secessionists in the south, and the protesters in Sana'a in the center, more or less, of the country there.
And now, so I wonder, with the weakening, the severe weakening of the central government, during this revolution, is it, do I read you right, that what you're saying is that these groups are no longer really pushing for autonomy and secession, they're actually pushing for the revolution in alliance with the people who would, you know, remain under whatever is the new government of Yemen, and in hopes of really building a democracy that they'd be willing to participate in, rather than trying to just break away?
Correct.
And I think in the early days of that rebellion, I mean, it's important that we note that the uprising in Yemen started in the south.
And many of us were in doubt that this is a genuine, serious uprising, that, for example, the views and ideas of the whole of the Yemeni society, it started in the south, and there was that assumption that, is it possible that the rebellious south in Yemen is kind of reigniting its uprising, taking advantage of what's going on in the Arab world?
So, many commentators, especially in the Arab media, were really still unsure about what is happening in Yemen.
Is this a genuine uprising, or is this a specific ethno-sectarian uprising?
And I think what happened is, when the entire Yemen erupted, and the slogans, on a daily basis, were kind of streamlined into one common message that spoke of unity, spoke of democracy, of freedom, of civil society, it encompassed everybody's wishes and ideas, and to the point that the current discussion about the transitional ruling council is already including representatives from the south, from the Houthis in the north, and from the uprising leadership, the youth leadership throughout Yemen.
So, I think politicians are becoming increasingly aware that they cannot devise a solution for Yemen that excludes any of these parties, and in my opinion, this is the peep, the report, the collective report of the people of Yemen to the disunity that has marred their country for so many years.
Well, now, the Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA continue to wage their drone war in Yemen.
Is it a certain geographical, you know, a certain region where that's focused, or what effect is this having on the broader protest movement?
It's actually, it's one of the hardest situations ever.
You have people who are demanding democracy and freedom in line, really, with at least the declared policies of the United States, and I say, you know, the declared because it's a complete opposition of what is happening on the ground, and yet, at the same time, that country, which is going through so much trauma, so much chaos, and so much uncertainty, you have another superpower out there that is just bombing villages throughout the country.
At one point, they were focused in the north and in the west.
Now, they are pretty much all over the place, and it just, imagine, on one hand, it's discrediting their ally, Ali Abdullah Saleh, usually discrediting him and his supposedly centralized power in Sana'a, but at the same time, it's stabbing the Yemeni people.
These people are seeking sovereignty from within and from without, and at the same time, we are listening in the same breath to news of people being killed in Yemen as a result of Yemeni-U.S. joint operations, and at the same time, we are learning of people getting killed in Yemen because of the suppression of that uprising.
And as a result, and to be expected, the slogans of the Yemeni people throughout the country, at least in the last few Fridays, they've been including the condemnation of the U.S. government and its interference in the political and military affairs of their country.
I think the Yemeni people have been clear about this issue for a long time, but they have been smart and calculating in trying not to rise the ire of the U.S., but at this point, it's becoming so clear that the U.S. is interfering in the affairs of that country in ways that is up forcing the earlier portion of this uprising, and it's indeed making it so extremely difficult for the Yemeni people to realize their rights and their I'm confused at really as to why they would do such a thing as continue.
I mean, why not put the thing on hold for a while?
If we assume that the New York Times reporting is right that there, you know, maybe as many as dozens of al-Qaeda guys in Yemen, after all, they had their switchboard there, the father-in-law of one of the hijackers, and the USS Cole attack happened there in 2000 and all that.
So if there are dozens even, maybe even as many as 50 or something like that, why not wait until see what happens with the revolution?
Because obviously the Americans want the dictator to win here.
He's been working with them very well this whole time.
It seems like they're weakening the regime even worse by, you know, helping turn the people of Yemen against him.
Do they not even think in terms of the immediate consequences, never mind the kind of hidden blowback sort of consequences that work out later, but the immediate consequences of their actions, dropping bombs from robots?
Well, their logic, they are thinking of two different fronts here.
One is military logic.
We've learned as of late that Somalia is once again being placed on the most prominent countries in terms of terrorism, and U.S. drones are bombing Somalia again.
And we understand that the proximity between Yemen and Somalia and the somewhat free movement between both countries would make Yemen, would once again accentuate Yemen's importance in terms of countries that supposedly harbor terrorism.
I say supposedly because we really don't have independent sources regarding this issue.
It's not like I'm, you know, I'm just infatuated with trying to discredit anything that the U.S. military is saying, but the news of al-Qaeda's presence in Yemen comes from two sources.
One is Yemeni and one is the U.S. military, and there's very little third-party, verified information regarding this issue.
So the whole thing really has to be put under a large question mark regarding their presence, their numbers, where are they exactly, who's feeding them, who's supporting them, and that sort of thing.
But the other front is a political front, and that is the U.S. wants to underscore the importance of Ali Abdullah Saleh as an ally.
If they discontinue their military operation in Yemen, they are actually sending a clear message to the opposition and to the uprising that we are pulling that rug from underneath Ali Abdullah Saleh, and that rug is the most expensive of all rugs in Yemen right now.
Because without U.S. support and U.S. backing, Saleh is not going to have much of a political value.
Nobody is popping him up, and that is going to be a very bad message to be sent.
So it is important that Saleh is exaggerating the presence of al-Qaeda.
It's important that the U.S. continuing their support of Saleh, and of course the argument goes, because of this chaos, and this is what Mike Mullen, the Shia U.S. military, said recently, is that this chaos is allowing further lawlessness in Yemen, which is giving more room for al-Qaeda to operate, and he might be correct regarding this issue.
But then, from his own military, for his own military purposes, the argument goes, because of this vacuum, because of this lawlessness, we have to upgrade our involvement in Yemen, and if we worked hard, we have to work a lot harder right now at eliminating that al-Qaeda threat.
Well, of course, in the media they've taken the hit on Osama bin Laden as proof that what they call the scalpel, I guess, compared to just outright marching into Iraq by the hundreds of thousands of troops and stuff, it's sort of more narrow, but they really have, according to the Post and the Times, escalated the drone wars and the covert wars in Somalia, as well as Yemen.
Seems like if there's anything that can make somebody from Yemen want to blow up something in America, it would be to keep continuing on this path, but I guess there's money to be made in bomb sales and stuff.
I don't know.
All right, well, listen, we're all out of time.
Thank you very much for yours, Ramzi.
It's Ramzi Baroud, everybody.
