history is a great thing. we either learn from it or repeat it.

and for some bizarre reason we seem obsessed with repeating it.

either

a, give the country resources to fight the problem
b, go in properly with an aim and kick several flavours out of it
c, pull back to your own borders and keep your own house tidy

thanks to Bliar and his 5 minutes of fame we now have several years of people trying to kill us (who sadly are willing to die for their cause)

Another 'ADEN' bar to their GSM anyone?

In reality therehas been a low-intensity conflict going on since the 1990s
and the US has been actively engaged for the last few years.
It has similar characteristics to the FATA of the the NWFP to harbour unfriendlies,
and would similarly swallow any ground forces that attempt pacification.

Like the Af/Pak border it has the potential of destabilising both neighbouring countries' central governments' authority.
Similarly, Sana'a's control could be equated to Kabul's - beyond the capital's environs it's pretty much negligible.

The US chickenhawks & neocons who are calling for immediate military intervention, who have little military military experience among them,
don't appear to realise how depleted their capacity is after 8 years of war, to take on another large scale military enterprise.
It's more about political point scoring at home than creating security abroad.

Originally Posted by brettarider

But would it be seen like that Yemen is asking for the help. Mind you giving AK's to newborn kids isnt excalty a bright idea either. It did make me laugh when they were asking for helo's saying that the UK could help were has he been getting his info from I suppose there's a whole fleet parked up ready to be handed over

Yemen are more than willing to have US help, but the Al Qaeda won't roll over and accept it. Just like Afghanistan, and the same as Iraq, this can be so easily turned into a 'holy war' as they phrase it, drawing support from fanatics from all over the Arab world.

It's doubtful that anything will really come of this, it's the usual storm in a teacup thing that gets blown way out of proportion. Unless the UN sanctions action against the insurgency and allows Military action in the form of large scale deployments of ground troops then this will continue as it is and be forgotten by the press and the general public by no time at all.

Originally Posted by RhodieBKK

Another 'ADEN' bar to their GSM anyone?

It would be on the OSM now though wouldn't it? The GSM is no longer distrubuted.

Is it me, the journos reporting or is the world (particlularly poor areas) rising up in some sort of riot? Are the various terrorist organisations really getting a foot hold?

Originally Posted by chocolate_frog

Is it me, the journos reporting or is the world (particlularly poor areas) rising up in some sort of riot? Are the various terrorist organisations really getting a foot hold?

A pertinent question imo.
I believe it's the manner in which the political leadership responds.
In the past they were more resilient and less emotive when reacting,
rather than the knee-jerck fear-mongers that have been in charge recently.

Journos with the demands of rolling 24hr news & the bloggo-sphere also tend to ramp everything up.

Post WWII we've been involved in what were called "brush fire" actions as the empire dissolved,
were they to have had the focus of 24hr TV then it would have appeared much grimmer than it was.

The one factor that has changed in the UK, is the relatively large muslim indigenous population
which has the potential of producing 'fifth columnists' who present a different
& more serious form of 'gaining a foot-hold'.

The report is a non entity. There has been a large US presence in Yemen since the USS Cole atrocity. I would suspect that the US are aware of what's going on there.

I wouldn't expect an air strike there unless they had hard evidence of the lunatic being tied to a place, organisation and personnel. I would also suspect that the OPFOR would know this and there would be enough of the CIVPOP around to deter any air attack.

Yep, I'll have some of that - if the money's right

Originally Posted by FORMER_FYRDMAN

It's getting like a Centenary tour to celebrate past Imperial conflicts. On that basis the Sudan is a must - what are the Zulus up to nowadays?

:D Creeping back east of Suez again....
Though who got Somalia in the scramble for Africa? Wasn't one of ours, was it?

Originally Posted by flibbertigibbet

Originally Posted by FORMER_FYRDMAN

It's getting like a Centenary tour to celebrate past Imperial conflicts. On that basis the Sudan is a must - what are the Zulus up to nowadays?

:D Creeping back east of Suez again....
Though who got Somalia in the scramble for Africa? Wasn't one of ours, was it?

Don't know but it would be fun to see the Eyeties have their backsides handed to them on a plate again if we are resurrecting old efforts.

Originally Posted by tropper66

Once again we dont learn from history, we got kicked out of South Yemen( Aden) in 1967, didn't we?

For our younger readers:

http://britains-smallwars.com/Aden/index.html

(This bit may sound familiar though)

http://britains-smallwars.com/Aden/mutiny.html