Last Thursday, a group of House Democrats, including Ro Khanna, Adam Smith, Mark Pocan, and Jim McGovern, announced that this month they would introduce legislation invoking the War Powers Resolution force a vote on ending unconstitutional U.S. participation in the biblically-catastrophic Saudi war in Yemen, and would seek Republican co-sponsors and support in doing so.
You can urge your Representative and Senators to support this effort here.
Here’s why this should happen, and why it should happen now.
Why this should happen now as a matter of basic morality, legality, and a decent respect for the opinions of the majority of Americans:
1. The scale of the catastrophe. The U.S.-backed Saudi-UAE war in Yemen has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. As the Members of Congress noted, the people of Yemen now face the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe where 22 million people require humanitarian assistance and almost 18 million lack access to food, largely due to the Saudi war and blockade.
2. The unique role of the United States. This war will end when the U.S. stops participating in it, and there is no prospect that anything else will stop it besides the end of U.S. participation.
3. Congress never voted to authorize this war. Under the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution, U.S. participation in this war is unconstitutional and illegal.
4. Of all the wars that the U.S. is currently participating in, the case that the U.S.-Saudi war in Yemen is unconstitutional and illegal is far and away the most obvious, by a country mile. This war has nothing to do with fighting Al Qaeda or ISIS and never did; there is no case that it was authorized or even imagined by Congress in the 2001 AUMF passed after the September 11 attacks; the target of the war, the Houthis, are mortal enemies of Al Qaeda; indeed, Al Qaeda is on the other side of the war, the Saudi side that the U.S. is supporting; even the U.S. government acknowledges that the Saudi war in Yemen has strengthened Al Qaeda in Yemen, considered by the U.S. government to be the most dangerous branch of Al Qaeda.
5. Of all the wars that the U.S. is currently participating in, the case that this war has nothing to do with protecting Americans is far and away the most clear-cut, because it is not a war against Al Qaeda, it is a war in which the U.S. is on the same side as Al Qaeda.
6. Of all the wars that the U.S. is currently participating in, the case that this war is fundamentally immoral is the most obvious. Many U.S. wars, including the war in Iraq, the war in Libya, and the pre-ISIS CIA war in Syria, were justified as wars to remove dictators, and many Americans believed these justifications at the time, if not enough to support the wars before they began, then enough to feel bad about opposing them before they began. This war was never a war against a dictator; this was always a war on behalf ofa dictator: the King of Saudi Arabia, a country where there is not even a pretense of democracy or human rights, where all protests against the government are illegal, where people are sentenced to death for non-violent political activity that in the United States would be protected by the First Amendment. This war began as a U.S. government favor to the government of Saudi Arabia, and today the main Washington justification of the war remains that the government of Saudi Arabia is a U.S. ally, and that’s why we must continue to support their war, regardless of the biblical catastrophe it is causing.
7. It may well be the case that “Saudi Arabia is our ally, so we have to keep supporting their war in Yemen” is still a decisive argument for the leadership of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department. But it’s a nothingburger argument for the majority of Americans, who do not see the government of Saudi Arabia as an ally, but see it as the antithesis of “American values,” if that phrase has anything to do with what the majority of Americans would choose to do with U.S. power if they had a vote. That’s why when President Obama vetoed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which amended U.S. law to allow families of victims of the destruction of the World Trade Center to sue the Saudi government for liability, on the grounds that allowing these families to sue Saudi Arabia would be bad for U.S. national security, because Saudi Arabia is our friend, ninety-seven Senators voted to override the veto. Regardless of what courts ultimately decide about the specific legal questions of liability of the Saudis for the 9/11 attacks, the majority of Americans correctly see the government of Saudi Arabia as having eagerly promoted and financed the ideology that produced the 9/11 attacks, a fact which has been openly and repeatedly reported in major U.S. press and quietly acknowledged by senior U.S. government officials.
8. The case against this war, morally and legally, has been vetted in Congress. 53 Representatives have co-sponsored the bipartisan Khanna-Massie-Pocan Jones bill which the House leadership blocked from getting a vote. 14 Senators co-sponsored the bipartisan Sanders-Lee-Murphy bill, which received 44 votes. But under the current Congressional leadership, the House has never had a floor vote.
Why now politically:
9. In less than two months there will be a Congressional election, in which Democrats are widely expected to win the House. If Democrats win the House, Adam Smith, who signed the announcement of intent to introduce the House Yemen war powers bill, is expected to lead the House Armed Services Committee, and Jim McGovern, who signed the announcement of intent to introduce the House Yemen war powers bill, will lead the Rules Committee. Thus, even if this effort is not ultimately successful in a direct sense, it will lay down a marker for what people expect to happen if Democrats take over the House in January.
10. Even if Democrats don’t take the House, the House will have a new Speaker in January, because Paul Ryan is leaving. Even if Democrats don’t take the House, there will be a fight for the Speaker’s post in a closely divided House. When there is a race for Speaker, that will be an opportunity for Members to extract commitments from candidates for Speaker for reforms of House process; in particular, to allow more [that is, as of now, any] votes on continued U.S. participation in unauthorized wars, of which the unauthorized U.S.-Saudi war in Yemen is far and away the most extreme example.
You can urge your Representative and Senators to support this push for a vote here.