Repetition Foreign Policy

Looks like we are developing an Israeli policy towards terrorists. They attack us, we strike at some of their sites. They attack us, we hit back. This could go on for a while. Another attack eventually ensues. We launch some drone attacks on their sites. Then another attack occurs. Then maybe we invade somewhere, then we pull out. The rocket attacks resume, we retaliate on some training camps. This could go on for a while. We change Presidents, the same policy unfolds.

Yemen again

After the latest attempt to take down an airplane: two immediate conclusions present themselves. First, after 9/11 it is increasingly unlikely that an attack on an airplane will succeed, simply because passengers will not remain docile if an aggressive move is made on the plane.

The attitude learned from the seventies that highjackers just want to fly to Cuba or Libya, and so if you stay quiet, everything will work out, this attitude, which did not even last through the day of September 11^th, is now once again shown to be over. Passengers will jump anyone who makes a hostile move. Once it has been shown that any able bodied passenger will leap into the chest of a highjacker regardless of how much smoke is rising from his torso or what manner cutting implement he is holding.

The second conclusion has to be that there is some strong reason why the US does not invade Yemen, presumably because the Saudi's are opposed to it. Not that one would advocate such a move, but based on previous US excursions into small countries, Yemen would seem to be a prime target. It cannot be that the desert terrain has kept the US in check. That was hardly considered a reason for restraint before the US went into Afghanistan. It must be simply that some foreign policy concern is holding the US back from jumping on Yemen, a positive development for we hardly need a third messy invasion. There are surely elaborate plans on how to invade Yemen which have been simply shelved because some larger factor, i.e. Saudi Arabia or the general sense that US troops should stay very far way from Mecca, keeps us away from yet another crazy invasion.