by NICK TURSE
Is U.S. Aid Suppressing Another Mideast Freedom Struggle?
As Yemen’s security forces have escalated their violence against demonstrators this spring, the Obama administration has offered mixed signals regarding Saleh, but has yet to issue an outright condemnation of the dictator, no less sever ties with a leader seen as crucial to the fight against al-Qaeda. “We have had a good working relationship with President Saleh. He’s been an important ally in the counterterrorism arena,” said U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on March 23rd. “But clearly, there’s a lot of unhappiness inside Yemen. And I think we will basically just continue to watch the situation. We haven’t done any post-Saleh planning, if you will.”
On April 5th, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney came out more forcefully. “The United States strongly condemns the use of violence by Yemeni government forces against demonstrators in Sanaa, Taiz, and Hodeida in the past several days,” he said. “The Yemeni people have a right to demonstrate peacefully, and we remind President Ali Abdullah Saleh of his responsibility to ensure the safety and security of Yemenis who are exercising their universal right to engage in political expression. “
That same day, however, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell was more equivocal, justifying enduring U.S. support for Yemen’s strongman as a “prudent course of action,” while including the protestors as the equals of the security forces in his condemnation of the use of force: “The protests, the demonstrations need to be nonviolent. Obviously, the government needs to respond to them in a nonviolent manner. So we are — we condemn the violence all around.”
Morrell also sought to distance the Pentagon’s aid for the country’s security forces from the violence being meted out in Yemen’s streets. He told reporters, “To suggest that the aid to Yemen has somehow been used against protesters I think is a leap of faith for which there is no evidence to support.” Recent reports, however, suggest that Yemen’s elite U.S.-trained counterterrorism troops have now been deployed in the capital, Sanaa, to deal with the massive ongoing protests.
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