Thursday, October 11, 2012

The Summer of Muslim Discontent 4: Yemen

Continuing an Arab Spring update from James Petras' latest (21/9/12) essay...

"The seizure of the US Embassy in Yemen followed 33 years of US arming and financial backing of the brutal Ali Abdullah Saleh dictatorship, months of drone warfare and the repression of mass peaceful protests. The ongoing pro-democracy movement in Yemen, which attained massive proportions, has been blocked by US-Saudi intervention, leaving in its wake thousands of dead, wounded and jailed Yemeni citizens. The seizure of the US Embassy, ostensibly over 'the film', had far deeper and more comprehensive causes: popular discontent with the decades-long US-Yemen alliance and a phony US-promoted 'democratic transition'. As in Egypt and Tunisia, changes in personnel are designed to save the client state apparatus (police, military, judiciary), the mainstay of US and Saudi power in the Gulf region, while sacrificing the incumbent dictator. In all such 'transitions' the US and EU rely on pliable and servile Muslim politicians in order to harness local religious beliefs to their neo-liberal and pro-imperial policies."

Next post in the series: Tunisia...

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