Violence rages in Yemen as America focuses on Libya

Violence in the Arab world continued to escalate, as thousands of protesters in Yemen took to the streets demanding the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Jeremy Scahill, an investigative journalist & author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army” explained there is a solid contradiction between how the US is addressing Libya and how it is looking at Yemen. “[It’s] actually a consistent US policy of supporting ruthless and brutal dictators as long as they’re doing the bidding of the United States,” Scahill commented. In Yemen the government is being allowed to kill protesters and fight political opponents with money from the US. All the while the US claims it is not their responsibility to intervene in the internal affairs of Yemen, but they do so swiftly in Libya.“The fact is the United States has been waging a covert war inside of Yemen for the past 10 years and it has been ratcheted up dramatically by the Obama administration,” he said. The US actively fights in Yemen against al-Qaeda, bombing various sites often killing many civilians. In order to continue the US government needs the support of the Yemeni government. As long as Saleh allows the US to bomb his people and take the responsibility as he does, the US will continue to support his government. “The Obama administration has used a hammer in these operations when they probably called for a scalped,” Scahill explained. The US President is looking at Yemen through military strategy alone, ignoring civil politics and diplomacy, something many experts have questioned. Scahill argued the US should support the people and support civil society to drive out al-Qaeda and win the over the population. But, US support for the government and the president has driven up the number of al-Qaeda members and turned the people against the US – further destabilizing the small nation.