Bolton Endorses Yemeni Strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh: He?s ?Preferable To Anarchy?
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on October 1st, 2011 4:36 am by HL
Bolton Endorses Yemeni Strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh: He?s ?Preferable To Anarchy?
Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton endorsed Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh as “preferable to anarchy” in a Fox News appearance this morning. Bolton argued that Saleh — despite clinging to power for three decades, refusing to implement democratic reforms and overseeing a violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators — is the key to preventing Al-Qaeda from […]
Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton endorsed Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh as “preferable to anarchy” in a Fox News appearance this morning. Bolton argued that Saleh — despite clinging to power for three decades, refusing to implement democratic reforms and overseeing a violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators — is the key to preventing Al-Qaeda from sweeping from across Yemen. He said:
I think Saleh’s return is quite significant. For month’s people had been saying the Saudis were trying to talk him out of power — him and his family — and when he was wounded in that attempted assasination and had to go to Saudi Arabia for treatment, I think many people thought that was the easy way out, in effect, and he would never go back. And he obviously didn’t leave Saudi Arabia without their concurrence. So my guess is the Saudis have put more weight on stability in Yemen than perhaps we’re willing to. But in light of the killing of Awlaki, I think we have to look again at whether Saleh might not be preferable to anarchy, certaintly preferable to Al-Qaeda.
Watch it:
But Bolton’s apparent endorsement of Saleh’s iron-fisted rule as means to containing Al Qaeda isn’t backed up by the reported facts on the ground. Indeed, Saleh cooperated with U.S. efforts to pressure al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) but AQAP appears to have suffered a major setback with the death of Anwar al-Awlaki. The main coalition of opposition groups in Yemen have shown little sympathy for AQAP and claim that Saleh used al Qaeda’s presence as an excuse for harsh tactics against pro-democracy activists and his political opponents.
Minnesotan Whose Daughter Suffered A Stroke From E. Coli Asks Bachmann To Reconsider Her Food Safety Position
During a campaign stop in Iowa about two weeks ago, 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann criticized the government’s regulatory “overkill” when it comes to food safety. “When they make it complicated, they make it expensive and so then you can no longer stay in business,” she said, while chopping beef at a Des Moines […]
During a campaign stop in Iowa about two weeks ago, 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann criticized the government’s regulatory “overkill” when it comes to food safety. “When they make it complicated, they make it expensive and so then you can no longer stay in business,” she said, while chopping beef at a Des Moines meatpacking plant.
In the weeks following Bachmann’s statement, an outbreak of listeria tied to some Colorado cantaloupes has killed sixteen people — making it the deadliest foodborne illness outbreak in the U.S. in more than a decade — while four children in the district of Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) were stricken with E. Coli from tainted meat. Today, in the Minnesapolis Star-Tribune, a mother from Bachmann’s home state of Minnesota whose daughter had a stroke due to E. Coli poisoning appealed to Bachmann to change her position:
I caught it on the news that you visited a meatpacking plant in Iowa last week and promised to reduce restrictions that ensure food safety, so that small businesses could create more jobs.
I am adamantly opposed to this idea.
According to CNN, the European outbreak of E. coli has killed 16 people; the New York Times reports an even higher number. To loosen rules for the meatpacking industry invites danger to innocent victims — like my 4-year-old daughter, Rachel.
Thanks to E. coli, my daughter has lived in a hospital since June 11. Thanks to E. coli, she experienced acute kidney failure.
Thanks to E. coli, she has also suffered a stroke, resulting in a brain injury on both hemispheres. She has lost her ability to walk, talk and move in a normal way.
Before E. coli, she was a perfectly healthy, active little girl.
The woman, Melissa Castino Reid, closed her letter by saying, “from one mother to another, I’m asking you to reverse your campaign promise and err on the side of safety. For my child. For your children. For everyone’s children. It’s just that simple.”
Every year, 3,000 people die from foodborne illness, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, while Georgetown University’s Produce Safety Project has found that foodborne illness costs the U.S. $152 billion annually. This month, the Agriculture Department announced that it “will ban the sale of ground beef tainted with six toxic strains of E. coli bacteria that are increasingly showing up as the cause of severe illness from food.” It’d be nice if Bachmann could see through her deregulatory zeal for just a moment to support these common-sense rules that protect families from going through the situation with which the Reids are struggling.
(HT: @JenniferJJacobs)
