Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Colombia: Emirates importing mercenaries to Yemen

“Gun drain” in Colombia: The NYT reports that (emphasis added),

The United Arab Emirates has secretly dispatched hundreds of Colombian mercenaries to Yemen to fight in that country’s raging conflict, adding a volatile new element in a complex proxy war that has drawn in the United States and Iran.

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.

The arrival in Yemen of 450 Latin American troops — among them are also Panamanian, Salvadoran and Chilean soldiers — 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.

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 — whether in Yemen, Syria or Libya — with militaries that are unused to sustained warfare and populations with generally little interest in military service.

Specifically,

Emirati officials have made a point of recruiting Colombian troops over other Latin American soldiers because they consider the Colombians more battle tested in guerrilla warfare, having spent decades battling gunmen of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in the jungles of Colombia.
. . .
“These great offers, with good salaries and insurance, got the attention of our best soldiers,” said Jaime Ruiz, the president of Colombia’s Association of Retired Armed Forces Officials.

According to the report, Colombian troops deploying to Yemen make nearly ten times more than they would at home.

Joshua Treviño comments on Facebook,

Give this phenomenon sufficient time, and we’ll eventually have a cohort of Latin American military personnel with combat experience and contacts in the Middle East. The problem isn’t what they do over there — or rather, that’s not our problem — but what they do when they come back.

For now, the more immediate issue is that, considering how  Pres. Santos is agreeing to the FARC ‘s requests that FARC members have (unelected) seats in Congress and that the military be put on trial alongside the terrorists, many more Colombian troops may resign and go to UAE, denuding the local military.

[Post redacted for clarity]

PS,
Following Monster’s tweet, I stand corrected,

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Book review – Eyes On Target: Inside Stories from the Brotherhood of the U.S. Navy SEALs

Sometimes you read a book you can’t wait to recommend to everybody, and this is that book:

Eyes On Target: Inside Stories from the Brotherhood of the U.S. Navy SEALs by Scott McEwen and Richard Miniter, is a gripping read in many ways:
It tells the story of a group of men who will give their all to protect our country, from the point of view of several of the men themselves.
It is the history of the most-feared anti-terrorist force in the world.
And, as the book jacket aptly describes, it

is an inside account of some of the most harrowing missions in American history-including the mission to kill Osama bin Laden and the mission that wasn’t, the deadly attack on the US diplomatic outpost in Benghazi where a retired SEAL sniper with a small team held off one hundred terrorists while his repeated radio calls for help went unheeded.

Read my full review here.

And, please, buy the book and read it; it’s a fascinating, scrupulously-researched, moving account of a group of heroic men, and authors Scott McEwen and Richard Miniter lay to rest that “fake, phony scandal” narrative about Benghazi.

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Where will Assad go?

A little while ago, I was asking, Assuming Assad asks asylum . . . will he go to Cuba, Venezuela, or Ecuador? One commenter asked about Bolivia, too.

Assad Is So Out of Vogue that the Russians are distancing themselves,

The Syrian dictator has yet to be pried from power, but with the Kremlin sending war ships for a possible evacuation of Russian citizens, it may not be long before the Assads are passé. That’s good news, isn’t it? In the Middle East, “yes” and “no” are rarely correct answers.

We can say this: Assad’s downfall would be preferable to Assad’s survival. As U.S. Central Command chief General James N. Mattis told Congress last March, regime change in Syria would represent “the biggest strategic setback for Iran in 25 years.”

Hugo Chavez, who had those weekly direct flights from Damascus and Tehran to Caracas, is now in Cuba supposedly recovering from his fourth cancer surgery, but delegating some duties “related to the budget, expropriations and government debt” to Maduro, his VP. With the prospect of a prolonged post-Chavez power struggle, it’s unlikely that Maduro is willing to be welcoming Bashar and Asma anytime soon.

Cuba has much to lose when Hugo’s gone, and, considering that Russia’s turning its back on Assad, what is there for Cuba to gain by taking him in?

Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Bolivia are possibilities, but only if Assad can line a lot of coffers. Enough coffer-lining to justify a lot of unwanted attention?

Asma and Cristina Fernandez are big Louboutin fans, but Argentina’s got enough problems; let’s hope Cristina doesn’t decide to jump that shark. She’s not that crazy, is she?

One thing is clear: any country who welcomes the Assads will be signaling that it welcomes Iran’s meddling in its affairs, too.

Of course, all of this assumes that Assad’s own people are going to allow him to get out of the country. Now that the top general responsible for preventing defections within the military has become a defector himself, it may turn out that the Assads may not be able to reach the airport alive.

Cross-posted at Liberty Unyielding.


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Catch Spring Fever

Andrew McCarthy‘s new book, Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy is out today,

Every human heart does not yearn for freedom. In the Islam of the Middle East, “freedom” means something very nearly the opposite of what the concept connotes to Westerners – it is the freedom that lies in total submission to Allah and His law. That law, sharia, is diametrically opposed to core components of freedom as understood in the West – beginning with the very idea that man is free to make law for himself, irrespective of what Allah has ordained. It is thus delusional to believe, as the West’s Arab Spring fable insists, that the region teems with Jamal al-Madisons holding aloft the lamp of liberty. Do such revolutionary reformers exist? Of course they do . . . but in numbers barely enough to weave a fictional cover story. When push came to shove – and worse – the reformers were overwhelmed, swept away by a tide of Islamic supremacism, the dynamic, consequential mass movement that beckons endless winter.

In it,

…foremost, I did not try to write a history of the “Arab Spring.” Spring Fever is, instead, an attempt to give the reader an alternative way to understand what is happening in the Middle East, an antidote to the delirious “Arab Spring” narrative. Mine is based on understanding that Islam, a culture and civilization distinct from and hostile to the West, is the most significant fact about the region; that far from being a fringe ideology, Islamic supremacism is the dominant interpretation of Islam of the Middle East; and that the most salient precedent for the current revolt, Turkey, is a model for Islamization not democratization.

You can buy the book at Andrew McCarthy‘s website, or through Amazon.

Post re-edited to include omitted paragraph.
Cross-posted in The Green Room.

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Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Lebanon, Bangladesh … UPDATE: Iran, too

Friday afternoon links,
Revealed: inside story of US envoy’s assassination — Exclusive: America ‘was warned of embassy attack but did nothing’

More unfit than incompetent

‘Obama’s Middle East Policy Is in Ruins’

The 10 Most Important Stories of the Embassy Attacks…

Black flag of Islam flies over U.S. embassy in Tunisia as America is targeted by angry mobs across the globe in day of chaos
Mob scales the walls of U.S. embassy compound, sets fire to cars and replaces American flag
Chaos across the globe amid anger at American-made anti-Islam film
Kentucky Fried Chicken ransacked in Lebanon
Protesters burn American flag in London
American embassy stormed in Sudan
10,000 Muslims stage a noisy protest in Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, burning and trampling American flags while chanting anti-US slogans
Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak appeals for calm on live television, a day after Barack Obama issued a veiled warning to the region’s leaders to protect US embassies
It follows unrest after September 11 attack on US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, killing ambassador and three other Americans

Jay Carney is in denial,

This is a fairly volatile situation, and it is in response not to U.S. policy, not to, obviously, the administration, not to the American people. It is in response to a video – a film – that we have judged to be reprehensive and disgusting. That in no way justifies any violent reaction to it. But this is not a case of protests directed at the United States, writ large, or at U.S. policy. This is in response to a video that is offensive and – to Muslims.

Pay No Attention to the Burning Flags, Stormed Consulates, and Dead Americans . . .

Note to Mr. Carney: Radical Islamists really do not care whether “we” have judged some crackpot video “reprehensible and disgusting.” They have more important aims than distinguishing the Obama administration or its policies from the moronic Terry Jones.

UPDATE,
Iran: Down, But Not Out

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