Here's how CBC is spinning it

The British and U.S. embassies in Yemen have closed because of the threat of attack from an al-Qaeda affiliate linked to the failed Christmas Day attack on a U.S. passenger aircraft. The U.S. Embassy posted a message on its website Sunday saying it was closed "in response to ongoing threats by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to attack American interests in Yemen."
The U.K. Foreign Office later said it, too, had shut its embassy in the capital Sanaa "for security reasons."
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Tom, while you are quite right that "closing" doesn't mean "evacuating", that distinction just isn't made by most of the civilian population outside of people who work with foreign affairs types. If you look at the first paragraph of the CBC story, the implication is that the US is running away because of a (failed) threat.


I've argued in other places that there is a serious difference in perception of what exactly constitutes the AO between Western and AQ perceptions and, to me at least, I think that this type of action will be spun by AQ and their fellow travellers both as a tactical victory and as continuing "proof" that the US is "weak".