Either You Are With Us or You Are With the Terrorists

President Bush has taken a lot of flak for making the claim that other countries are either with us or with the terrorists. The liberals try to expand that statement into a claim that other counties must agree with us and follow the US on every foreign policy position or they are our enemy. I did not come away with that interpretation when he said it, and thought it was very clear. The paragraph of the speech this was in is the following:

Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

Liberals have chafed and complained about that clear statement for several years now; morphing the meaning into something it is not. The recent developments in Yemen remind us of the reason and meaning behind those words. We all remember:

On October 12, 2000, USS Cole, under the command of Commander Kirk Lippold, set in to Aden harbor for a routine fuel stop. Cole completed mooring at 09:30. Refueling started at 10:30. Around 11:18 local time (08:18 UTC), a small craft approached the port side of the destroyer, and an explosion occurred, putting a 35-by-36-foot gash in the ship's port side. The blast hit the ship's galley, where crew were lining up for lunch.[1] The crew fought flooding in the engineering spaces and had the damage under control by the evening. Divers inspected the hull and determined the keel was not damaged.

The Bomb Monkey behind the plot was captured and imprisoned. According to this World Tribune story:

In 2004, Al Badawi was convicted of plotting and conducting the bombing of the USS Cole. A Yemeni court condemned Al Badawi to death, but the sentence was reduced to 15 years in prison.

As if the sentence reduction were not bad enough, there are reports that the Yemeni government has released the Bomb Monkey and the National Security Council has responded angrily to the report:

The Bush administration expressed disappointment with Yemen's decision to release the man regarded as the mastermind [sic] of the Al Qaida attack on the USS Cole in Aden in 2000.

"The United States is dismayed and deeply disappointed in the government of Yemen's decision not to imprison [Al] Badawi," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. "This action is inconsistent with a deepening of our bilateral counterterrorism cooperation."

Two daysafter Johnroe made these statements, the Yemeni government responded that he "...was still in detention. But the Yemeni Interior Ministry would not elaborate." There were reports that Badawi was home and receiving guests.

A follow-up story by CNN now states that the US Embassy confirmed yesterday that the bomb monkey is in a jail cell. According to CNN:

Additionally, an official from the U.S. Embassy in Yemen reported seeing al-Badawi in his jail cell Monday, another official with the State Department told CNN.

The Interior Ministry official said that when Al-Badawi surrendered earlier this month, he asked to meet with his family before going back to prison.

So either the bomb monkey was released temporarily (some kind of house arrest?) and the Yemeni government changed their mind after the US blasted them, or they allowed this scumbag time to visit his family in his home before reporting back to prison after escaping and being recaptured.

The reduction in sentence and later playing footsie with this terrorist leaves the Yemeni government in a position where they might claim to be "with us", yet have a lustful eye toward the "against us" column. The sentence reduction is a slap in the face to our country and the loved ones of our fallen sailors of the USS Cole. I have serious doubts this bomb monkey will even serve the full 15 years. Regardless, the day they let this creep go is the day Yemen will clearly go into the "against us" camp. He has no right to take another breath, much less a free one. We can only hope that the US will have a sniper ready to take him out upon release.