US and the Yemeni dictatorship

"Under the Bush and particularly the Obama administrations, the United States has been deeply implicated in Yemen, which emerged in the late 2000s as a haven and launching pad for the Arabian Peninsula branch of al-Qaeda. Especially since the Christmas 2009 “crotch bomber” attempted to detonate an explosive device hidden in his underwear on an airplane in Detroit, the US has spent up to $300 million upgrading counter-terrorism, military and internal security forces loyal to Salih. The Pentagon provided helicopters, armored vehicles, ammunition, surveillance technology, Humvees, night-vision goggles and other military equipment, as well as training, to its Yemeni counterparts. Classified cables released by WikiLeaks show that this assistance increased despite the Salih regime’s widely recognized backsliding from democratization and toward repression, as well as plentiful red flags in 2009 and 2010 that American-made weapons were being used against domestic enemies. Gulf and French officials were also frank with the State Department in their assessments of the regime’s shattered legitimacy. [1] Indeed, as early as 2005, the US ambassador in Sanaa wrote a cable envisioning scenarios including Salih’s fall to the legal parliamentary opposition, plotters among his inner circle or mass popular protests. [2] No one could have predicted the confluence of all three. But Washington, forewarned, might better have hedged its bets. It has yet to do so." (thanks Laleh)