Media Image

I was not able to get the picture posted that I found but I'll do my best to describe it. It is a picture taken September 17,2008 in Yemen which is an Arab country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia. That day the U.S. embassy in Yemen was attacked by terrorists. According to Time Magazine "in a coordinated attack, militants assaulted the front gate of the embassy with machine gun fire, rocket propelled grenades and two suicide car bombs, killing 17 people, including one American. A U.S. state department spokesman said the assault had "all the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda attack;" the next day, security officials in Yemen arrested 25 people suspected of having links to the terrorist network."

This photo depicted a tall building with a huge cloud of dark smoke hanging over it and around it. As you looked at the ground below you see cars driving and civilians walking around like nothing had happened. I don't know exactly when the picture was taken. It could've been many hours after the attack. But to me, it appears the smoke is still very think and it seems that the people of Yemen are used to this kind of activity. If this sort of thing happened in the U.S, I couldn't imagine any civilian let anywhere near the site of the attack. In the U.S. the smokey building would be surrounded by uniformed and armed military. It's scary to think that anywhere in the world there are places that this is normal.