Brains Like a Shoe

Cross-posted at a great new blog venture Poets and Policymakers.

Is it just me or have the number of Yemen “experts” in the United States increased exponentially in the last two weeks? Before the thwarted Christmas Day terrorist attack, if you wanted daily analysis on Yemen, the Waq al Waq blog was one of the only reliable sources. Now its hard to keep track of the self-proclaimed experts popping up on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and across the media spectrum. Waq al Waq thankfully is now receiving the attention it deserves (they reported 3,000 hits today alone).

I am still scared, however, of the collective narrative being formed by all these other talking heads. Joe Lieberman led the way with the Yemen hysteria. Days after Christmas, he told Fox News: “Iraq was yesterday’s war, Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.” Discussions about putting boots on the ground in Yemen, even if still very unlikely, are now appearing more and more frequently.

These “experts” though rarely mention the humanitarian crisis associated with the conflict in North Yemen between the Houthi rebels and the central government. Likewise, few commentators ever mention the human rights abuses committed by President Ali Abdallah Salih’s government – our partner in the war against Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula – in its efforts to silence dissent in South Yemen. Largely ignored, Human Rights Watch put out an extensive report on December 15, entitled “Yemen: End Harsh Repression in the South” that stated:

Based on over 80 interviews with victims in the southern Yemeni cities of Aden and Mukalla, the report finds that security forces used lethal force against unarmed demonstrators on at least six occasions. Over the past year the authorities arbitrarily arrested thousands of people for exercising their right to peaceful assembly, suspended independent media critical of government policies, and detained journalists and writers on spurious charges.

With an insurgency/counter-insurgency that has resulted in mass displacement of civilians and recurring secessionist problems, the interlocking crises in Yemen appear remarkably similar to those in Sudan and Somalia. The news coverage unfortunately in the American media on Yemen more closely resembles that of Somalia than Sudan. Al Qaeda and pirates make headlines; humanitarian crises, civilian casualties and displacement, root political causes, human rights, and gripping poverty are generally ignored or are of only peripheral interest.

As Greg at Waq al Waq writes:

The problem is not that Yemen was getting little attention – the problem is that Yemen only got attention when al-Qaeda was viewed as a threat in Yemen. The country received a great deal of attention in 2001, 2002 and 2003 but very little after that particularly in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. It was only in 2008 and 2009 when al-Qaeda was once again viewed as a threat by the US that aid to Yemen was increased once again. The lessons for the Yemeni government are clear.

Sudan, of course, is not in the headlines every day, nor is the coverage by the American media perfect. With that said, at least, when stories appear about Sudan, experts and journalists explore the human side of the conflicts and human rights abuses. This difference, no doubt, largely results from the presence of an active human rights advocacy movement for Darfur and Sudan in the United States. With the departure of Osman bin Laden from Sudan in the 1990s, the Al Qaeda threat from Sudan also became greatly diminished. So, while American foreign policy still aims to prevent Sudan from harboring terrorists, most of its attention can focus on other immediate challenges like ending the conflict in Darfur and preventing a return to war between North and South Sudan.

It is natural that Americans will care first and foremost about national security. The problem is that – despite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which have turned into labyrinthine nation-building projects – there is still very little appreciation for the complex array of factors involved in denying Al Qaeda a safe haven in dangerous places around the world. As Marc Lynch writes, there is still an inherent instinct to want to respond immediately to threats and “do something” – even if the repercussions could make the task of defeating Al Qaeda in the long-run more difficult.

It is incredibly challenging though to make the political case to Americans that “doing less” (i.e. doing things slowly and smartly) in Yemen or Somalia could actually be the preferred option. One small step forward in making this case though would be for the American media to focus more on the daily struggles of average people in Yemen or Somalia and less on the opinions of the countless security experts who may not even know a Yemeni or Somali. This change will not happen by itself though. Instead, human rights organizations and concerned citizens need to develop mechanisms to highlight these stories. To that end, linkages would need to be formed with civil society groups in the country and the diaspora outside.

These are just some initial thoughts on the matter and, therefore, I would be very interested to hear what others think. For those who want to read some of the best analysis thus far on what to do about Yemen, here are some useful links:

• The New York Times: Yemen’s Chaos Aids the Evolution of a Qaeda Cell
• Waq al Waq: What to do in Yemen: Five Basic Suggestions
• Joost Hiltermann: Yemen: Disorder on the Border
• Marc Lynch: Don’t Lose Perspective on Yemen
• Alex Thurston: Yemen, Somalia, and Al Qaeda