Hoekstra on Gitmo, Yemen and Al Qaida

It was reported yesterday in the Grand Rapids Press that Congressman Pete Hoekstra spent New Year’s Day in Yemen at intelligence briefings in the US Embassy.

Hoekstra is apparently blaming President Obama for the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day, when a Nigerian man was caught in Yemen who was in route to Detroit. Hoekstra believes that the terrorist activities being originating in Yemen are made up of men who were once prisoners being held at the US military prison in Guantanamo.

“One of the key core groups that forms al-Quaida are former Gitmo detainees. The president just sent six or seven more back to Yemen. That’s a disastrous policy and it’s just plain dumb.”

The article states that the Bush administration had released 14 detainees to Yemen, but apparently Hoekstra had no response to this. According to Press reporter Jim Harger, Hoekstra was scheduled to be on the ABC show “This Week” on Sunday afternoon to discuss terrorism, along with President Obama’s counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan.

Hoekstra had several interesting things to say. First, Hoekstra believes that Al Qaida is now recruiting Americans to “attack the US.” Hoekstra does not substantiate this claim and the host of the ABC show does not question the Congressman’s statement.

The second comment worth mentioning from Hoekstra was his response to the issue of intelligence gathering, when he said, “the challenge that we now face is that we are collecting so much information, we are sharing it, we now need to develop the capabilities to do a better job of analysis.” It seems that the Congressman is making an admission that the US does not do a good job of analyzing intelligence information. One question that could come from such an admission would be what has the Congressman done as head of the House Intelligence Committee since 1994 to address the issue of intelligence analysis?

The rest of the Press article deals mostly with comments from President Obama in regards to Yemen, which underscores the supposed partisan tension on this issue. However, when looking at non-partisan and independent sources, the Gitmo prisoners, Yemen and Al Qaida connection seems a bit different that what Congressman Hoekstra or President Obama claim.

One question that was not raised in the Press article was why former Gitmo prisoners who are being sent back to Yemen might have issues with the US. Andy Worthington, a journalist and author of the book The Guantanamo Files, recently wrote that maybe the brutal treatment of Gitmo prisoners had something to do with their hatred for the US.

Writing on December 31^st, radical historian Paul Street states, “On December 17, eight days before Yemen resident Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blast Flight 253 out of the sky, Yemen opposition forces testified that many dozens of civilians, including a large number of children, had just been killed in US air-raids in the southeast section of that country. The fighters reported the deaths of 63 people, 28 of whom were children, in the province of Abyan.” Could the attacks against civilians be a legitimate motive for people wanting to commit acts of terror against the US?

The notion that attacks against the US is rooted in other people’s harsh experience of US foreign policy, seems to be lost on US journalists. However, this is the main claim made by many groups the US has labeled as terrorist. Addressing this issue, Street points out three overriding grievances against the US, which have lead to attacks against the US.

1. Stop occupying and attacking the Middle East and South Asia. 

2. Stop supporting vicious and authoritarian regimes (e.g. the Saudi Arabian terror state) there.

3. Stop backing Israel’s criminal and brutal occupation and apartheid policies toward the Palestinians.

Each of these points are well worth exploring, but lets look at the case of Yemen and the recent US missile strike against that country. President Obama’s claim for the recent attack was to go after Al Qaida terrorist cells, but independent reports see the attacks in a different light.

Ron Jacobs, writing for Dissident Voice, states, “In recent months, parts of Yemen have come under attack by Saudi Arabian forces backing the government there. In recent weeks, the Saudis have been supported by the US military. It seems quite likely that there is more to the growing likelihood of deeper US military involvement in Yemen than the visit of the wannabe bomber Mr. Abdulmutallab.”

The Press article did mention that the US had provided Yemen with $67 million in military aid, but offered no details of what that money was actually being used for. This lack of historical or policy context in the story is typical in the kind of reporting on foreign policy we have seen from the Grand Rapids Press is the past.