The Yemen jazz radio plan
=========================

The last time he went to Yemen, in 2011, John Kiriakou says he met the American defence attaché and asked what he was working on.

'We have this great idea'

The answer, he recalls, was that they had this great idea: they had developed a propaganda programme modelled on NPR. It was going to play jazz on the radio, and it was going to have call-in shows for young Yemenis.  

Kiriakou's reaction, as he reports it, was immediate: what kind of stupid idea was that? Whose stupid idea was that?  And of course, he says, it lasted about two weeks and then it shuttered, because nobody is going to listen to that silliness. What a waste of money and time. 

The alternative he argues for

The anecdote is the negative case in an argument Kiriakou has made for years: that if you want to really fight terrorism, you do it through economic development, you develop these economies to the point where these men have jobs and do not need to make jihad against the Americans, and are not interested in doing so.  The European Union countries, he says, have that long-term view; the United States does not. 

His positive example, from the same conversation, is the Sanaa sewer project, the water treatment plant and sewer system that Dutch and Italian money took fifteen years to build for the Yemeni capital.  

Yemen over twenty years

Kiriakou frames both stories inside a longer observation about the country. He had been to Yemen five times over the years, he says, starting in 1990 and running through 2011, and every time he went, it was worse than the previous time.   His comparable objection to American broadcast propaganda aimed at Cuba is set out in Radio and TV Martí.

See also

- The Sanaa sewer project
- Yemen
- Radio and TV Martí
- Economic roots of terrorism
- The al-Qaeda foot soldier
- Houthis
