{"id":182189,"date":"2015-11-25T20:09:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-26T01:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/11\/25\/our-noble-allies-in-the-middle-east\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T20:09:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-26T01:09:00","slug":"our-noble-allies-in-the-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/11\/25\/our-noble-allies-in-the-middle-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Noble Allies in the Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The United Arab Emirates is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/11\/26\/world\/middleeast\/emirates-secretly-sends-colombian-mercenaries-to-fight-in-yemen.html\">sending Colombian mercenaries to fight in Yemen<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>One wonders if they were hired from the right wing death squads, or the naroterrorist FARC:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">The United Arab Emirates has secretly dispatched hundreds of Colombian mercenaries to Yemen to fight in that country\u2019s raging conflict, adding a volatile new element in a complex proxy war that has drawn in the United States and Iran.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">It is the first combat deployment for a foreign army that the Emirates has quietly built in the desert over the past five years, according to several people currently or formerly involved with the project. The program was once managed by a private company connected to Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater Worldwide, but the people involved in the effort said that his role ended several years ago and that it has since been run by the Emirati military.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The arrival in Yemen of 450 Latin American troops \u2014 among them are also Panamanian, Salvadoran and Chilean soldiers \u2014 adds to the chaotic stew of government armies, armed tribes, terrorist networks and Yemeni militias currently at war in the country. Earlier this year, a coalition of countries led by Saudi Arabia, including the United States, began a military campaign in Yemen against Houthi rebels who have pushed the Yemeni government out of the capital, Sana.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">It is also a glimpse into the future of war. Wealthy Arab nations, particularly Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates, have in recent years embraced a more aggressive military strategy throughout the Middle East, trying to rein in the chaos unleashed by the Arab revolutions that began in late 2010. But these countries wade into the new conflicts \u2014 whether in Yemen, Syria or Libya \u2014 with militaries that are unused to sustained warfare and populations with generally little interest in military service.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cMercenaries are an attractive option for rich countries who wish to wage war yet whose citizens may not want to fight,\u201d said Sean McFate, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of \u201cThe Modern Mercenary.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cThe private military industry is global now,\u201d said Mr. McFate, adding that the United States essentially \u201clegitimized\u201d the industry with its heavy reliance on contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan over more than a decade of war. \u201cLatin American mercenaries are a sign of what\u2019s to come,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hiring mercenaries is not an indication that our &#8220;Allies&#8221; in the region are the good guys.<\/p>\n<p>Neither is the indiscriminate bombing of civilians by the Saudis.<\/p>\n<p>Our foreign policy is both morally bankrupt and incompetent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United Arab Emirates is sending Colombian mercenaries to fight in Yemen. One wonders if they were hired from the right wing death squads, or the naroterrorist FARC: The United Arab Emirates has secretly dispatched hundreds of Colombian mercenaries to Yemen to fight in that country\u2019s raging conflict, adding a volatile new element in a &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[981,970,964,1039,1179,986],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-war","category-corruption","category-foreign-relations","category-incompetence","category-mercenaries","category-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182189"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}