and maybe (but I doubt it) Mossad.

It is as if we have never left the 19th century.

The proxy war is close to becoming a direct one.

interference?

The war could also weaken Saudi Arabia. Pushing the House of Saud into a “full-on hot war,” said Dr. Davidson, would be “great for the arms industry, gives the US much needed leverage over increasingly problematic Riyadh… If the regime in Saudi Arabia’s time is up, as many in the US seem to privately believe, in the post $100 a barrel era, this seems a useful way of running an ally into the ground quite quickly”.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016119288

Wasn't Saudi screaming about invading Saudi any day now a week ago? And threatening to start a nuclear program of it's own - good luck with that!

Why the sudden change in tone?

Those fuckers have a deserved reputation.

The market really took off when America, under George W. Bush, wanted support for its occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. One firm, Blackwater, stood out, but the work gained a unfavourable reputation and the company has since changed its name twice, first to Xe and now Academi.

The growing faith in free markets and privatisation, ushered in by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and the increasing political need to hide the human cost of war by reducing deaths in the standing army, have encouraged the use of private soldiers. So did the belief that they were often more effective and efficient. (Erik Prince, Blackwater’s founder, liked to describe his firm as the FedEx of the American national security apparatus.)

Mr McFate writes with an insider’s knowledge, having worked for DynCorp, another private military company, on assignments that he says included foiling a plot to assassinate the president of Burundi. On another occasion, he says, he was approached by a famous actress turned humanitarian who, with various human- rights groups, wanted to hire Blackwater to set up safe havens in Sudan to protect civilians fleeing the janjaweed militia. In the end, though, they decided that the risks of an illegal action of this kind outweighed the benefits.

With American demand for private military operators falling as it scales back its overseas operations, Mr McFate expects demand to grow from other customers, including humanitarian organisations and less idealistic groups. He is alarmed by the prospect, not least because he feels that in a truly free market mercenary armies might be encouraged to seek profits by starting new wars.

http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21638096-how-private-armies-will-remake-modern-warfare-return-hired-gun

guess they can pay them to be the guns on the ground.

I feel so bad for the poor bastards that weren't able to get out.

Yemen truly is the worst part of the world and every evil piece of shit jihadist has decided they have to conquer it first.

get their people out of prisons where they were abandoned.

Now Saudis will roll over what's left of Yemen and flatten it into the sea.