Center for a New American Security

Tom Friedman's column today about how we can build more schools and defeat terrorism is one of those things that sounds right but probably isn't.

There was a good article in the Independent today about the situation in Yemen. Keeping in mind the recent discussion on this blog about what to do, two paragraphs particularly stood out.

Nearly two years ago, Londonstani wrote his first post for this blog. It was based around an interview Londonstani conducted near one of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon with a young al-Qaeda fighter returning from Iraq. The camp itself looked like a transiting station. Londonstani saw young Arab fighters buying military clothing, handing out ammunition, testing weapons and picking up documents.

I have not been posting much recently, enjoying my retirement from daily blogging, but Richard Fontaine and I got name-checked in the lead editorial from today's Washington Post on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on account of this policy paper we wrote on Yemen for CNAS, so if you have not read it, do. I re-read it today to make sure I still agree with what we wrote and ... yup, I still do.

The trick with bad news in Washington is to release it on Friday afternoon so no one notices. That's the idea behind a new paper I wrote with Richard Fontaine on Yemen. Combined with Yezid's recent paper on SSR in Lebanon, Palestine and Yemen, this should make for some cheery weekend reading.

Yezid Sayigh, to whom this blogger owes both a dissertation chapter as well as an interim progress report, has a new white paper out from the Carnegie Institute on secutiry sector reform (SSR) in Palestine, Lebanon and Yemen (.pdf). Considering Yezid's background, the section on the Palestinian Territories will be especially worth reading.

Aside from being a great Caitlin Cary album, that phrase is as good a way as any to break the news that Saudi Arabia is now bombing Yemen. 

Bobby Worth and Bryan Denton were kind enough to let me crash at their place in Beirut for a few nights, and I have been talking with Bobby about Yemen since he's one of the few English-language journalists to have spent a lot of time there reporting of late.

The new edition of the CTC Sentinel (.pdf) is now online, and as I plug that publication I should also note that a) there is a really good article on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in it and that b) the author of that article blogs on all things in Yemen -- along with Greg Johnsen -- at this fun blog.