Word: obama
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...jittery public. That's what led to initial dubious orders to keep airline passengers in their seats for the final hour of flight. Now the Administration is assessing the wisdom of various military strikes on supposed al-Qaeda training sites inside Yemen. But there are few good options. Obama doesn't want to end up like Bill Clinton, whose futile 1998 cruise missile "retaliation" for the East Africa embassy bombings did al-Qaeda more good than harm. Given the partisan sniping already breaking out following the failed airline bombing, the last thing Obama needs right now is to be accused...
...Whatever action he takes, Obama will have to pay attention to the concerns of the weak pro-U.S. Yemeni government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Washington wants to continue its cooperative relationship with Saleh, and is encouraging his government to take the lead in rooting out al-Qaeda within Yemen's borders. The U.S. is helping, boosting counter-terrorism funding for Yemen from less than $5 million in 2006 to $67 million in 2009, and dispatching CIA and military personnel to train Yemeni forces. But the al-Qaeda problem has been a lesser security priority for Yemen than...
...fact, Yemen itself offered one successful approach to the problem Obama now faces. Ever since a pair of al-Qaeda suicide bombers in a skiff attacked the USS Cole in Yemen's Aden harbor in 2000 and killed 17 U.S. sailors, Washington had been looking to punish the ringleader of the attack, Qaed Sinan Harithi. More than two years later, after learning he would be traveling across the country in an SUV, the U.S. launched a Predator drone. Once in the open countryside, safely away from any civilians, the drone fired a Hellfire missile into the vehicle, instantly dispatching Harithi...
...stone discs weighing several thousand pounds are still used as a form of currency, but New York Yankees caps are sold in shops, Budweiser is the beer of choice and Obama stickers abound. "These islands have fallen in love with the United States of America," says Tony Babauta, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Insular Areas, which oversees relations with FSM. "The American people rely on them to defend our freedom, and at times there is an ultimate sacrifice." (Read: "A Tiny Pacific Island Faces Climate Change...
...paradoxical shifts in opinions provide a fitting close to what has been the most tumultuous year of the prime minister's political career. There were the public gaffes: calling President Obama "well-tanned"; getting scolded by the Queen after raising his voice at a London photo op; making German Chancellor Angela Merkel wait on the red carpet while he spoke on his cell phone. Then there was his private life: his wife of 20 years filing for divorce; her accusations that he "frequents underage females"; a Bari prostitute revealing details of several encounters at his Rome residence.(Read "Hoq Silvio...