huh ? (Kerry mention in trial of terrorists)

[JI7]

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen on Wednesday put on trial 17 men, including five Saudis, charged with planning attacks against U.S. interests in the country on the orders of the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The prosecutor said the defendants had planned to carry out "criminal attacks" to avenge the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's killing of a top al Qaeda operative in 2002.

He said they had travelled to Iraq and then returned to Yemen in 2004 to "carry out their mission on the directives of Abu Musab al Zarqawi".

The defendants admitted to going to Iraq but denied planning any attacks in Yemen.

"Our problem with the United States is in Iraq, not Yemen," said the leader of the group, Ali al-Sayyad al-Harithi.

He said he had received explosive-making training in Iraq but that he had left after he said that John Kerry, the Democratic candidate in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, had threatened Yemen. "I wanted to defend my country," he added.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-02-22T103435Z_01_L22757985_RTRUKOC_0_UK-SECURITY-YEMEN-QAEDA.xml&archived=False

[Island Blue]

1. The article was a little short on details,

or maybe I'm just being really dense this morning, but what exactly does that comment about JK mean? I guess he (JK) made some comment in regard to Yeman during the campaign that upset these people? I'm confused.

[TayTay]

2. I did find an article confirming what the Yemeni Pres thought

(btw, quoting what someone thought is not the same as stating the truth. It is simply saying, this was that person's mind set.)

SANAA, Yemen, Nov 02, 2004 (United Press International) --Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Kurbi said he hopes the next U.S. president will deal with Arab causes with more objectivity and less bias to Israel.

In comments to the press Tuesday, Kurbi said: "The new American president should be aware that issues in the Arab world need to be tackled in an unbiased way and that certain matters should be decided by the peoples of the region freely."

"What concerns us most as Arabs is that the president of the most power country in the world which commands great influence on international decisions act objectively especially with regard to the Palestinian cause and to let Arab leaders and peoples chose the future they want," Kurbi added.

Yemeni officials were reportedly disturbed by Democrat John Kerry's comment during the campaign that the war on terrorism should have started in Yemen.

************

Remember, the attack on the USS Cole happened in Yemen.

[Island Blue]

3. Since we don't have JK's comments handy,

I would assume (dangerous, I know) that what he meant by the comment "the war on terrorism should have started in Yemen" is not that we should have had a traditional "war" against Yemen (like we're sorta, kinda having now in Iraq), but that we should have begun to make better efforts to try to prevent such acts as the attack on the USS Cole from happening again. (Thus, perhaps preventing 9/11.)

[TayTay]

5. I completely agree

That's why I posted that story with comments surrounding it. Otherwise it would have lacked context. The attack on the Cole should have been an alarm bell for the incoming Administration that they needed to double their guard against Al Qaeda and the threat of attacks against Americans. Yemen was, at best, lax in helping the US to investigate the attack. Kerry was 100% right to point this out. But sometimes the foreign press distorts this. Then people react to the distortion.

[karynnj]

4. The only thing I can think of is

all of Kerry's comments of having special forces that could go directly after the (non-state) terrorists. If so, the TERRORISTS took seriously Kerry's determination to go specifically after them.

Ironic with Russert on Imus saying that the Democrats realize that they lost 2004 because they were weak on the war on terror even though they were on the right side of every issue. (rather than PERCEIVED to be weak on the War on Terror because Russert & co didn't challange the Republican theme). So, the "party leaders" (Clinton or DLC ??) seem to be wanting to scapegoat Kerry - even though he might have the strongest credentials of the Democrats on this.

It's disgusting that they are accepting the charge, rather than challanging it. If they weren't immediately positioning Hillary (or themselves), they would realize that Kerry's positions were both strong and likely right. It would be easier to argue that the Rovian (media too - but that would be impolitical) theme was never true and look at the fact that the Republicans weakened our security.