Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 5/11/23 Joziah Thayer on AQAP’s Standing in Yemen

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Joziah Thayer joins to show to discuss some of the work he’s done digging into the many factions and groups within Yemen and the foreign powers working to pull their strings. Scott and Thayer drill in on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, and explore how the group’s standing in Yemen has changed and how the country is likely to evolve going forward. Discussed on the show: “The CIA, AQAP, and the Never-Ending Excuse to Bomb Yemen” (WEDA Coalition) “How the IMF & World Bank Destroyed Yemen” (WEDA Coalition) Joziah Thayer is a researcher with the Pursuance Project. He founded WEDA in 2014 to combat mainstream media narratives. He is also an antiwar activist and the online organizer behind #OpYemen. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton dot for you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show all right you guys next on the show is josiah thayer and he is a researcher writer and anti-war activist from new england and he founded the wedda coalition an unmonetized research-based information site to combat mainstream narratives

and he's been writing for us at anti-war.com on the most important topic of the war in Yemen and for a good half-dozen articles or more by now welcome the show Josiah, how are you doing? I'm doing well, Scott. Thanks for having me. Man, I really appreciate you joining us on the show and all these great articles that you've been writing for us here.

the latest is the CIA AQAP and never-ending excuse to bomb Yemen damn it man can't I enjoy the good news for a minute before the bad news kicks back in we've ended one war and now we're switching sides again is that right? Yeah that's right and you know of all people that the Yemen option has been active in Yemen for a long time

the CIA has been operating in Yemen out of Djibu and other North African places. And Yemen is obviously a hotspot for Al-Qaeda because that's where Assam Bilanen came from. And, you know, the first United States citizen to be killed by a drone was in Yemen. And that's, you know, that's history that we know. Saleh, the president of Yemen,

was very open with the CIA and worked with the CIA for many years. for many years, and including sending many Yemenis to black sites before many people knew that they existed. And the main thing about what you just said, you know, switching with just ending a war, we're starting another one. The key to them taking or the key to controlling Yemen is obviously the ports and access to the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea, the Suez, to now vital international waterways.

And that's why, if you notice recently, China is interested in the Arabian Peninsula and sticking their toes into the water, kind of rebutting the United States' moves in the Middle East in recent years. Because in my eyes, the United States has kind of taken a back seat in the Middle East. You know, I don't know what you think about that, but you have, you know, Syria and Turkey coming back to the table. You have the deal brokered by China to normalize relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which, of course, helps Yemen. I argued from the rooftops for many years that the Houthis in Yemen are not an Iranian proxy. I believe that on the morals of who Iran supports in the fields, you know, all over, you name it.

And the religion that the Houthis practice is different, you know, the Iran is a 12 imam democracy. The Houthis are 12, I mean, five imam Islams. It's different. The Zadis are very unique to Yemen. It's one of the most organic forms of Islam. And the Zadis have controlled that area for a very long time. You know, back to the days, 1950 and Imam Yaya has my dynasty, you know, all of that stuff. So Salah is a representation, Salah was a representation of the north. He came. from Sana'a. He was actually born in Sadda in the northern most province of Yemen on the border with Saudi Arabia. So he was always seen as a people, somebody who was going to support the northern Yemen. And then he started not to. You know, and Salah was always, um, how do I say this? He was always the CIA's guy in the Middle East when he came to combating, uh, counterterrorism or whatever you want to call it. But you could tell by the way that he interacted, there was that phone call that leaked by the Houthis, although that phone call, when I did more research on it, I had trouble verifying when exactly the phone call took place or who leaked it, why they leaked it. But the essence of the phone call is very, very interesting because it's clearly George Tenet, the former CIA director. talking to Salah about releasing a prisoner.

And he says, you know, this is my guy. This is months after the USS coal bombing in Yemen, when in Sana' Yemen's highest security prison, they had a bunch of people who the Yemen authorities had suspected were committed the USS coal bombing. They had 11 people in custody. And then you get phone calls from tenant asking, Salah to release a prisoner. And the phone call is it's translators talking through

translators, you know what I mean? So it's kind of hard to follow exactly what's going on. Salah, Salah tells him, I always call him Salah, sorry. Salé tells them, you know, the FBI is here at the embassy. Why don't you contact the FBI and we can set up a meeting? He's like, oh, no, this is my thing. This is, this is my thing. Don't involve the FBI. So right then and there, that was my smoke to the fire. We was talking about, you know, lighting a neuron. That was like, okay, so there's definitely something deeper going on here. And I tried to investigate all the connections between the CIA and ISIS or AQAP in Yemen. And I found a lot of similarities. And I found a lot of things that it's like a pattern that I think should be.

ignored, dating all the way back to the hijacking of Flight 814, I believe it was called when the Taliban hijacked the flight in 1999, and they demanded a prisoner swap. Ever since then, there have been prison bricks, like I wrote about, in the MENA region, in the Middle East and North African region, where in these military style attacks with flashbang grenades and you know you name it they're hitting these places and extracting prisoners with inside help from you know guards who were flipped and there it's of course other people are escaping but it's al-Qaeda who are the targets of release and if you notice this happened in syria when everything was popping off in syria it happened in iraq when you know iraq started to heat up

again and the pattern this continued in yemen it was was like, I think, 2003, 2006, 2011, 2014, 15, and 16, there were prison breaks where all Akira members escaped. So there is either this is a tactic that was adapted by Al Qaeda and that they're using in the field or there's some type of control. I'm going to be careful what I say here, but some type of control of assets in the field that we used and when we flipped terrorists or suspects, especially people who were at the Tonimo Bay for seven years. And we turned them into our assets in the field. And that is basically what I wanted the readers to come to their own conclusion of without

writing it myself, because I don't have the proof. I don't have the beans on it. But it's just what I think. All right. Well, so you talk also about the early wars. against the Houthis and the American and Saudi role in backing Sala attacking the Houthis in, I guess, the early 2000s, right? Yes, in 2009, in Operation scorched Earth, and along with other northern tribes who were

opposed, who are Sunni tribes opposed to the Shiite Houthis, they aligned and they forced 50,000 she had to flee their homes and over 8,000 were killed in this operation that was to quell a northern revolt and another article that I wrote about how the IMF and World Bank destroyed Yemen. There's a connection between the uprising in the north and then the mission to stop the uprising because in the World Bank's papers, they write that the insurrection in the north is going to be a problem to investors who want to invest in specifically the mines in Hijah province that can produce, you know, 200 ounces of gold a year. And at today's gold prices, you know, we're talking about $5 billion. And obviously there's companies that are interested in that

from China to the UAE to Russia, you name it. Everybody's interested in those fields. Right now, it's the UAE who controls the mining rights to that area. And this actually even started earlier with the assassination of Hussain Ali, Ali Huthi. This was back in 2004 where there was protests outside the Great Mosque and Sanaa, who, They were protesting the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan and America's, you know, involvement in the Middle East. They were chanting things like death to America, death to Israel. And once the United States got one of this, the United States asked a lot to quell the protests.

They quelled the protest by arresting 640 Houthi members and then putting a bounty out on Ali Houthi, the original founder of the Houthi movement. Many people don't know that the Houthi movement started as a nonviolent political movement in 1996. They didn't take up arms until their villages were attacked in an effort to assassinate or capture Ali Houthi. They considered him to be a rogue cleric who was, you know, the spearheader of this revitalist movement in the north that Slaf feared would eventually overtake him. that was their mission. But I also connected it to the interest in gold in these regions. And I always tie it back to minerals because I've just been beaten my head as a journalist that the minerals is where you'll find wars because they hold wars over minerals all the time. And Yemen's gold and abundance of other minerals that I highlight in that article,

people pretend like it's not there and they often call Yemen, you know, a desolate place that has little to no natural resources and the World Bank's old documents proved otherwise. And I believe that it was a major reason for what we were talking about, Operation Scourge Earth, to launch that thing, that movement. I mean, the operation to kill and quell this movement

because if they didn't, then investors wouldn't want to invest in Yemen. And then that falls into, you know, the Yemen revolution of dignity when, you know, the Arab Spring was... Let's get back to that one second. Hey, y'all, the audiobook of my book, Enough Already. Time to End the War on Terrorism is finally done. Yes, of course, read by me. It's available at Audible, Amazon, Apple Books,

and soon on Google Play and whatever other options there are out there. It's my history of America's War on Terrorism from 1979 through today. Give it a listen and see if you agree. It's time to just come home. Enough already. Time to end the war on terrorism. The audiobook. Hey, guys, I've had a lot of great webmasters over the years,

but the team at Expanddesigns.com have by far been the most competent and reliable. Harley Abbott and his team have made great. sites for the show and the Institute, and they keep them running well, suggesting and making improvements all along. Make a deal with Expanddesigns.com for your new business or news site. They will take care of you. Use the promo code Scott and save $500. That's expanddesigns.com. Man, I wish I was in school so I could drop out and sign up for Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom instead. Tom has done such a great job on putting together a classical curriculum for everyone from junior high schoolers on up

through the postgraduate level and it's all very reasonably priced just make sure you click through from the link in the right margin at scott horton dot org tom woods this liberty classroom real history real economics real education i want to ask you you know um martha mondi from the london school of economics had talked to me about the i mf's agriculture policy

which was essentially insisting that they stopped growing sorghum and millet, which were sustenance crops, and instead grow more cotton and coffee to sell for export. And it was, you know, basically a corrupt deal that these international banking institutions had made with the Sala dictatorship at that time. And how then, of course, that left them extra vulnerable once the, I guess now previous stage of the war broke out in 2015 when America and Saudi Arabia laid siege to the place. So I was wondering if you know much about that part of it. Another thing, to point out what you said and why it doesn't make sense is because right

across the Red Sea is Djibouti, which is, I think, the world's number one producer of Kaat and Yemen imports a lot of crap from over there. So I don't understand why they would ask them to do that. Coffee, I understand, because coffee is. is something that is exported. Oh, I said cotton. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's what it was.

I think it was coffee and cotton. Yeah, they all have plenty of their own to chew on. I think, grow your own, man. That's the truth. If you look at pictures, it's astonishing how many people, how many cheeks are just bulging with that stuff.

Yeah, seriously, man. I've heard it said. That's why nobody gets anything done, including, you know, like the killing could have been that much worse. Um, but yeah, so, but have you looked at that as far as, um, you know, gangsterizing them out of their sustenance crops previously? So I did not look into agricultural.

All right. Well, it's, Martha Mundy is the one who wrote about it. She's one. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. So, but yeah, you can see how that works. When I looked into to the stuff about the IMF and the World Bank, it focused on the social

welfare fund when they basically brought welfare to Yemen. And by the time that the war broke out, there was over 10 million people enrolled in the welfare program who were dependent on these funds because they were chronically poor people in Yemen. And when Yemen couldn't pay the loan that the World Bank had loaned to them, the World Bank stopped the funding. Yemen tried to get funding from the IMF. The IMF told Yemen that they had to raise fuel prices and cut fuel subsidies in order to do so.

And that's what caused the uprisings to start in 2014, that eventually led to the classes and the Houthi's overtaking some. Right. Yeah, that was one of the many mistakes that Hadi made. But, yeah, I was definitely on the list there. And now, so go back to the Arab Spring in 2012. It's, you know, the end of, I'm sorry, it's 2011 is when the day of rage protest breaks out. And you have the Houthis, the Southern Socialists, and I guess the Muslim Brotherhood. I don't know about the Al-Qaeda guys.

But I believe the Muslim Brotherhood was there, too. And you had all these different factions from around the country who were trying to overthrow Sala, but then come to some kind of an agreement, right? It wasn't like, I don't know if they're going to create a Jeffersonian democracy, but I don't think they were each vying to create a new dictatorship either, right? They were looking for some kind of compromise. So what happened to that? Yeah. I, from everything that I've researched, I don't see how Yemen could actually. come together. I believe that if you look through history, the North has always been the North.

The North is the most populous part of Yemen, while the South is more unionized, a lot of port workers. And it's different mentalities entirely. If you go out to Western Yemen, it's more tribal with the farming and the desert out there. And when you get to the eastern in southern part, it's also the port city that takes over. And that's why the southern success in this, you got to think from 67 to, I forget what time, they were a complete socialist country on their own part of South Yemen. And they're well-funded, well-trained by the UAE. The UAE's flags fly in unison with the southern Yemen flags. basis all over southern Yemen.

The UAE is in, they have vital interest in that region because they want access to those ports. All the oil ports that dot Yemen's coast are controlled by UAE troops that, you know, that's their area. And when it comes to all of them agreeing, that kind of, that really, that really, that really broke when Salah ordered the Republican Guard to shoot down from rooftops with tear gas and live bullets. He killed over 50 protesters who were leaving the Great Mosque after Friday prayers, which in the Muslim world was seen as a travesty beyond recognition. So his top guy in the Republican Guard defected, who was also his brother, Ali Muson, they have different fathers.

And he defected. And once that happened, the Republican Guard essentially was supposed to be the one protecting Sala. So then Sala was left with just his security team in the palace protecting him. But now you had this new emerging force who had their own wishes, you know, the Republican guard had to have their own wishes. And the, the, the, the Republican Guard had their own wishes. And the, the, The shortly after, just to speed forward a little bit, when Haiti was announced that he was going to hold elections, as he's announcing this, Al-Qaeda member parks his truck outside of Ali Muson's battalion's palace in Yemen detonates.

It kills 26 members. And it was a clear sign that, that I guess, Al-Qaeda backed, saleh in this in this effort or whoever is behind al-Qaeda I don't know backed select in this effort and the southern the southern successanists that's what I call them they they will always vie and they're I've talked to many of them they are very keen on becoming their own you know South Yemen and there are you know some of them don't want that and some of them want it, it's, it's, you know, 65, 40, I'll call it.

But for the most part, they, like I said before, they don't really mix well with the northern. They don't even, when the northern tribe tried to go down into southern Yemen, the northern tribesmen, I should say, tried to go down into southern Yemen. They were immediately rebooted. That's where the Houthi, you know, I guess, you know, tank stopped, is, is, when they tried to take over Aiden. And, you know, it was the southern sexist. This is well-known people in Yemen, like Tariq Salah, the nephew of the former president.

He was one of the leaders of the top fighting force in the South, and he still is. And he is now a member of the presidential leadership council that was formed when they, I was in Haiti. So, and he, he, they thought they assassinated him. He's proven to be a ghost and, you know, always escapes assassination attempts and stuff like that. And what eventually led to Sala's assassination, which I don't know why I read these dramatic reports about, you know, like Hollywood-style RPG attacks on his convoy and then they pulled them out and shot him when, um, Everything that I found out from the ground in Yemen was that they kind of cornered him at his palace and then attacked his palace with grenades and stuff like that. And then eventually shot Sala inside of his palace.

And this was because they intercepted weapons cash that was destined for Tariq Sala from the UAE. So they considered it. That whole thing was so stupid. I mean, he should have just said to the Houthis, look, let's make a deal with the Saudis. Instead, he tried to make a deal with the Saudis behind their back. And then they shot him in the back, you know? Yeah. But if the Saudis were all, and Americans were always able to get along with him,

and then now at that time he's allied with the Houthis, well, then what the hell is all the fighting about? They could have just put him or his son or buddy or somebody, you know, that was the compromise that they should have had at the time. And he sure blew that. I'm sorry, we're out of time. So let me just ask you real quick one more thing, which is, what do you think of the status of the South versus the Houthi-controlled capital city now that the war is over? Are they going to compromise? Are they going to split back into North and South Yemen, you think? I do think that everybody is at their bitter end.

Everybody is out of resources. And the people of Yemen are fed up. You saw a protest not against the Houthis or the, you know, the internationally recognized government of Yemen, but against the GCC, which was very rare. And they, hundreds of thousands of people were in the streets of Yemen protesting the GCC in the blockade. There cannot be peace in Yemen until that blockade is lifted. They have to allow them to be torn, return to a normal country with normal trade. So then, you know, food, medicine, 50% of the hospitals are inoperable in Yemen. You know, so that adds to them not having a good infrastructure to begin with.

Yeah. All right. I'm sorry, we're out of time, man. But thank you very much for coming on the show and for all your great insight. And these articles are really great. I hope everyone will go and check them out. The latest is the CIA, AQAP, and the never-ending excuse to bomb Yemen. and how the World Bank and IMF destroyed Yemen and quite a few more before that as well.

Thanks very much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you very much, Scott. Have a good day. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.