After the recent news about the 23-year-old man who tried to blow up an airliner flying from the Netherlands to Detroit on Christmas Day, I heard his plan was actually hatched by his Al-Quida friends in Yemen. The very mention of that country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia brought back a flood of memories of my semester in Dr. Sterdevant’s International Relations class at Huntington Park High School. On the first day of class, each of his students was assigned a country or two to "watch" during the semester and report on whatever was happening. I was assigned five countries - Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Oman - because they were small and, at the time, unimportant in the world view of things. I got an "A" in the class (not sure what that grade was based on) but for the entire semester - despite the fact that I combed the newspapers (B.I. - before Internet) every night looking for anything I could report in class - I only found one small mention about something which had happened in Afghanistan. My, how times have changed!!! Who would have thought - back then - those five little, non-decript countries would today be at the center of the current war on terrorism?
Saturday, January 2, 2010
A Thought on Yemen
After the recent news about the 23-year-old man who tried to blow up an airliner flying from the Netherlands to Detroit on Christmas Day, I heard his plan was actually hatched by his Al-Quida friends in Yemen. The very mention of that country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia brought back a flood of memories of my semester in Dr. Sterdevant’s International Relations class at Huntington Park High School. On the first day of class, each of his students was assigned a country or two to "watch" during the semester and report on whatever was happening. I was assigned five countries - Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Oman - because they were small and, at the time, unimportant in the world view of things. I got an "A" in the class (not sure what that grade was based on) but for the entire semester - despite the fact that I combed the newspapers (B.I. - before Internet) every night looking for anything I could report in class - I only found one small mention about something which had happened in Afghanistan. My, how times have changed!!! Who would have thought - back then - those five little, non-decript countries would today be at the center of the current war on terrorism?
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