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Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, discusses his article “The Dangerous US Game in Yemen;“ the in-country CIA and JSOC covert agents who might have to relocate for a while; how President Saleh’s alliance with Saudi Arabia against his Shiite minority could prompt Iran to take protective action of their coreligionists; Yemen’s impoverishment and many long-term economic problems; the post-9/11 ultimatum (similar to Musharraf’s) that convinced Saleh to cooperate with the US war on terror; the big bucks given to Saleh by Saudi Arabia and the US, supposedly for fighting Al Qaeda, that instead is used to kill his political rivals; Obama’s continuation of the Bush administration’s worst offenses; Jeremy taking Ed Schultz to task on MSNBC (to skip the sanctimonious monologue, go to the 10:00 mark); and the New Yorker’s account of the Libyan rebels – essentially 1000 trained soldiers fighting against a real army.

MP3 here. (16:25)

Jeremy Scahill, a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, is the author of the bestselling Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, published by Nation Books. He is an award-winning investigative journalist and correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!. You can read his blog on TheNation.com here.