Applauding
Plan to Stop Refueling Saudi Planes, Progressives Call for Further Action to
End Yemen’s Humanitarian Nightmare
A boy walks by a house destroyed in an airstrike carried out by
a Saudi-led coalition warplane in Sana'a, Yemen, September 19, 2018.MOHAMMED
HAMOUD / GETTY IMAGES
November 11, 2018
Anti-war groups and progressive lawmakers
expressed cautious optimism this weekend after the Trump administration
announced it would end its policy of refueling Saudi planes that are engaged in
Saudi Arabia’s assault on Yemen—but called for bolder and broader policy
changes to ensure an end to the attacks that have killed more than 15,000 civilians.
On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the refueling practice
would end, with Saudi Arabia claiming in a statement that it now has the
ability to refuel its own planes—a claim that US Defense Secretary James Mattis
bolstered in his own comments on the policy change but that drew skepticism
from critics. The change came amid heightened calls from across the political
spectrum to end the US military’s cooperation with the Saudis, following the
killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Progressives including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)
and Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have called for an
end to US participation since long before Khashoggi, a Saudi who wrote
critically of his home country’s government, was killed by Saudi agents in
October.
Khanna and Sanders both said they would take
action in Congress to hold the administration accountable for its pledge to end
refueling efforts.
Calling the decision one that “could avert a
humanitarian crisis,” Khanna told The Intercept that Congress
should now pass Senate Resolution 54 and House Resolution 138, which direct the
president to remove US forces entirely from the war in Yemen unless they have
been authorized by Congress.
Email
“Similar to what we did in Somalia’s case, when
the White House said that we weren’t going to have any intervention, Congress
went ahead and passed both of the War Powers Resolution [measures], just to
make sure that was definitive,” Khanna said, referring to Congress’s urging of President Bill
Clinton to limit US involvement in Somalia in 1993.
“I’m glad that the Trump administration is
ending US refueling of Saudi aircraft in Yemen’s devastating war… U.S.
participation in this conflict is unauthorized and unconstitutional and must
end completely,” Sanders said in a statement. “I will soon bring Senate Joint
Resolution 54 back to the floor for another vote, so the Senate can compel an
end to U.S. participation in the Yemen war as a matter of law, not simply as a
matter of the president’s discretion.”
But other critics of the country’s involvement
in the war, which has devastated the impoverished country since it began in
2015 as the Saudi coalition has supported the Yemeni government in its attempt
to defeat the Houthis, say the US must go much further to ensure that the
assault can’t continue.
“Why are we still helping the Saudis with
targeting? Why are we still selling them the bombs at a discount?” Murphy said.
“Now that it’s no longer a secret that the war in Yemen is a national security
and humanitarian nightmare, we need to get all the way out.”
For
over 3 years, the US has helped the Saudi-led coalition bomb Yemen with few
constraints. Thousands of civilians died in airstrikes. When I asked the
Pentagon if it tracked the Saudi aircraft we refueled and the targets struck,
they said they didn’t. https://theintercept.com/2018/08/14/elizabeth-warren-yemen-bombing-us-military/ …
“Congress and the public must not
rest until the United States ends all military assistance to the Saudi-led
coalition, which also includes consultation on targets, other intelligence, and
weapons sales,” said Kate Kizer, policy director for Win
Without War.
“When it comes to Yemen, talk is cheap and those
on the brink of starvation can’t afford any political stunts. The world is
watching to see if this is merely more empty promises or if the United States
will finally use its power to end the suffering in Yemen,” she added.
Kevin Martin, president of Peace Action, also
demanded that Congress, now with Democratic control of the House, use its new
power to stand up to the executive branch and take further action to end the
war.
“Congress must pass the Yemen war powers
resolutions to bind the administration to this policy shift…and to reclaim its
constitutional authority on the question of war,” Martin said. “This war was
illegal from the start, and it’s time for Congress to stand up and say so.”
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Julia Conley is a
staff writer for Common Dreams.
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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