Yemen leads all Arab nations in dialoging

Yes, they are insatiable dialogers, those Yemenis are.

No less an expert on all things Arab Spring than Thomas Friedman informed us of this recently.

Today World Bank flunky Amina Semlani chimes in, verifying in an opinion piece at al-Jazeera what Friedman already told us; those Yemenis are dialoging like nobody's business. Not only that, but women are taking an increasingly activist role in the dialog.

Hell, those folks are going to dialog their way to freedom and democracy in no time!

No wonder Obama has had a change of heart and now wants to repatriate those dozens of Yemenis still languishing in Gitmo.

And why not? Bet they can hardly wait to join the dialog!

Alas, every party needs a pooper, and leave it to the American Enterprise Institute to drop this turd into the hookah at the Yemeni National Dialog.

Seems that while the entire nation is consumed with dialog, nobody noticed that the Yemeni Armed Forces have suffered at least twenty brigade level mutinies in recent months.

Maybe they're tired of all the talk.

But back to Semlani. She's a "human development specialist," don't you know. Not sure what that means, but I think it's related to "democracy activist" and "civil society specialist."

In the midst of what is essentially a fluff-piece for the World Bank, she does make one declarative statement that cannot go unchallenged;

...the revolution created a unique opportunity to address Yemen's gender gap - one of the main drivers of the country's underdevelopment.

I fear she has it exactly backwards. There is not a society on the face of the earth where the gender gap drives underdevelopment. It is underdevelopment that maintains the gender gap. Historically it has been prosperity, modernity, and education that close that gap and create an environment conducive to equal rights.

Surely an unintended oversight on the part of the World Bank.

Thomas L. Friedman burnishes his credentials as a complete PR hack

"The Yemeni Way" his latest bit of Pentagon PR is called.

And I have to apologize. Apparently those who live closer to the center of the universe were privy to Friedman's insights eight days ago.

Up here in the outer provinces we have to wait eight days for enlightenment.

But apparently Yemen is a textbook case in how to do democracy among the People of the Towel. Unlike some of those other Toweller states, in Yemen they are having extensive DIALOGUE.

Not only are the much-to-be-admired Yemenis much to be admired, they seem to have the benefit of American "democracy advisers" thick on the ground.

Hmm... dialogue, American advisers... what's missing from this story?

Well for one thing, Friedman has written an entire column about Yemen without once mentioning the word "drone."

A curious oversight indeed!