it seems that the empire can do nothing to succeed and i suspect corruption is certainly a clear part of that failure so now we have yemen, which we've been attacking for years, is a formidable opponent. who would have imagined that and now they get in a long line that we can start from vietnam, or when we overthrew iran's government in 1953 or even earlier. 'the greatest country ever', the empire, has not really done much good ever and now the troubles are piling on;

The first time I went to remote Yemen, this wild, mountainous nation was just creeping into the 7th Century AD. That was 45 years ago.

There was only one hotel in the capital, Sanaa, and it was booked up with European businessmen trying to sell junk to the Yemenis. I had to sleep on a cot in the dining room and be up before breakfast. The ruler back in the day was a despot known to his less than loving subjects as ‘Ahmed the Devil.’  He liked to nail subjects who displeased him to the palace door.

One of Yemen’s frequent civil wars was raging around the walled, medieval capital between royalists and Shia tribesmen. At dusk a ram’s horn would be blown and the city gates barred.

Adding to the exotic flavor of medieval Yemen, just about everyone was seriously stoned on the local, mildly narcotic shrub qat.  All activity would stop at lunch and everyone from Ahmed the Devil to the lowliest tribesman would start chewing qat and getting high.  A wild and crazy place.

Hardly anyone in Washington knows anything about Yemen except that it’s the southern tip of the remote Arabian Peninsula at the southern end of the Red Sea that the Prophet Moses is said to have parted with the help of his god.

Central casting in Washington, ever in search for new ‘terrorists,’ hit on a barely known Shia religious movement known as Houthis as our new villain de jour. It seems that the Houthis actually had the chutzpah to fire missiles at Red Sea maritime traffic to protest Israel’s savage attacks on the woebegone Gaza Strip.  Hardly any other Arab nations had the guts to retaliate against the Israelis, never mind their American and British imperial mentors. ..........more........