Senate Resolution on Yemen - Better Than Nothing, but Three Years Late
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
07 March 18
It is long past time for Congress to exercise its constitutional authority
on matters of war, and if the United States is going to participate in the
Saudi-led war in Yemen, there must be a debate and a vote. Otherwise, our
involvement is unauthorized and unconstitutional, and it must end.
This is the pitch Senator Bernie Sanders uses in a press release to entice
people to "sign my petition if you agree." This is also the full text of his
Friends of Bernie Sanders petition. The petition seeks support for Senate
Joint Resolution 54 "to direct the removal of United States Armed Forces
from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by
Congress." Introduced by the Independent senator from Vermont, the
resolution became tri-partisan when it picked up support from a Democrat,
Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and a Republican, Mike Lee of Utah.
Ordinarily, an effort to halt an ongoing American war could be shuffled off
to committee never to be seen again. In this case, Resolution 54 is offered
in the context of the War Powers Resolution, which requires that it be
considered "in accordance with the expedited procedures" of the law. We may
expect Resolution 54 to be voted on within the next few weeks, barring other
developments.
Resolution 54 deserves support not only from people who object to war crimes
or undeclared wars of aggression, but from people who believe our government
should run in an orderly, transparent, and Constitutional manner. Resolution
54 is getting a big push from organizations on the left (including Demand
Progress, Daily Kos, Code Pink, Our Revolution, Win Without War, and 15
others). And it's about time.
Almost three years ago, on March 26, 2015, Saudi Arabia and its allies
started bombing Yemen, the poorest country in the region, with a population
of about 27 million. US military units had operated there with impunity
until the Houthis overthrew Yemen's internationally-imposed government. From
the start, the Obama administration blessed and enabled the initiation of
this aggressive war, itself a war crime. Now it is blessed and enabled by
the Trump administration. Besides selling the Saudis their planes and bombs
(including cluster bombs, another war crime), the US has provided the Saudi
coalition with military intelligence, targeting expertise, and mid-air
fueling. The US Navy also supported another war crime, the naval blockade of
Yemen that has caused starvation and disease (part of a crime against
humanity). From the beginning, the Saudi-led attack on Yemen was a genocidal
assault on the Houthis, an ethnic Yemeni minority with whom the Saudis have
had territorial squabbles dating back decades, if not centuries. None of
this has been a secret. By and large nobody cared any more than the inert US
Senate in 2015 (including Sanders, Murphy, and Lee). In connection with
Resolution 54, Sanders said:
The United Nations emergency relief coordinator said that Yemen was on the
brink of, quote, "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades,"
end-quote. So far, at least 10,000 civilians have died and over 40,000 have
been wounded in the war, and 3 million people have been displaced. Many
Americans are also not aware that U.S. forces have been actively involved in
support of the Saudis in this war, providing intelligence and aerial
refueling of planes, whose bombs have killed thousands of people and made
this crisis far worse.
The carnage has been accumulating for three years under daily bombing,
constant blockade, and the world's silence. That is the profoundly sad thing
about Resolution 54 and what it illustrates about the present, diminished
state of American democracy: this gesture is the best we've got right now
for ending the actually unauthorized, unconstitutional, and criminal war
that the US has co-waged for almost three years. It's not just the best
we've got, it's all we've got. Resolution 54, important as it is, is way too
little and way too late. The senators make a point of noting that the
American public is unaware of the devastating war in Yemen. And whose fault
is that? All three of them have been in the Senate since will before 2015.
That they have now found their conscience while 97 other senators hold their
silence in the face of American-sponsored genocide is hardly a sign of
political health in a country gone far off the rails since 2001.
The sponsors of Resolution 54 don't mention US complicity in the blockade
that starves Yemen. The sponsors of Resolution 54 don't breathe a word about
war crimes. The sponsors of Resolution 54 don't come close to calling for
the same rules being applied to the unauthorized deployment of US troops in
Syria. The authors of Resolution 54 have nothing to say about applying the
rules in advance of any attack on Iran. The sponsors of Resolution 54, in
their small gesture to the rule of law, are pretty much detached from
reality.
Resolution 54 isn't designed to solve anything, but it might lead to a
reduction of suffering in Yemen. That's slightly better than just washing
your hands clean after the crucifixion.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV,
print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont
judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation
for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination
from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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