better safe than sorry

Citing an overabundance of caution, the U.S. has decided to immediately close it's embassy in Yemen until further notice. Appearing on ABC's 'This Week [etc]', National Security Adviser John Brennan admitted that there was a 'live and active' threat against the embassy and it's personnel from the previously under-publicized Yemeni faction of al-Qaeda. "We decided it was the prudent thing to do to shut the embassy," Brennan said, "Particularly in light of the increased chatter we're hearing from the hundreds of al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. Holy moly, Afghanistan only has about 100... Who would have guessed this little country would have so many potential terrorists? And there we sit with only a handful of CIA guys and a catering service." Brennan admitted that this scenario seemed to demonstrate a somewhat misplaced sense of priorities. "You bet it does, and I blame our own intelligence for failing to notice, and the Bush administration for letting this problem fester and not telling us a doggone thing about it, and the lack of reporting from the mainstream media and I'm including you FOX, Ambassador Seche who hasn't sent us a cable in like forever, the sorry-ass 'government' of Yemen, myself for being being too distracted by Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and whatnot, and front and foremost al-Qaeda who likes nothing more than being exactly where we're not." "But there'll be plenty of time later for blame," claimed Brennan. "Right now the important thing is to get American personnel out of the embassy and to someplace safe. One of the CIA guys sent me a picture this morning where someone - al-Qaeda, I suspect - had stolen our embassy seal and replaced it with this big red and white thing. I don't know what it's supposed to symbolize, but I'm not going to stick around there and find out."