Right now there is a huge opportunity for the Congress to force President Joe Biden to force the Saudis and United Arab Emirates to end their war against Yemen. This intervention has been totally unauthorized by Congress and does not serve American interests.
The only enemies of the American people in Yemen are the members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). They are real bin Ladenite, anti-American terrorists. They bombed the USS Cole in 2000, helped to co-ordinate the September 11 attacks in 2001, tried to blow up a plane over Detroit with the underpants bomb in 2009 and committed machine gun massacres in France in the 2010s.
In 2015 our current secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, then commander of Central Command (CENTCOM) was passing intelligence to the new Shi’ite Houthi regime to use to target and kill al Qaeda for the United States. Just two months later, Austin helped President Barack Obama stab the Houthis in the back and took AQAP’s side against them. Really! Yemen expert Michael Horton (no relation) told Pentagon reporter Mark Perry back then that the U.S. was now “flying as al Qaeda’s air force” against the Houthis. After al Qaeda’s gains under American protection became too embarrassing the Donald Trump administration had the UAE intervene against them in 2018. UAE recruited them into their mercenary army and renamed them the “Giants’ Brigade.” They remain an allied auxiliary force in the war to this day.
As Senator Rand Paul once explained to an instantly converted Fox News host Neil Cavuto years ago, if the US and its allies succeeded in their goal of regime change in the capital, AQAP and the Muslim Brotherhood (al Islah) could take over instead.
What more could anyone possibly need to know about this war to oppose it?
The War Party may cry “Iran,” but it was not the Houthis, Hezbollah or IRGC that knocked down the towers. It was al Qaeda. And Iran’s role as a participant and motive for this war have always been exaggerated.
Worse than treason, this war is a real, no-exaggeration, genocide. From the very beginning the Saudis and UAE have inflicted massive damage on civilians targets, including water, electricity, sewage, hospitals, bridges, farms, fishing boats, markets, food distribution facilities of all kinds, and with the full support of the US Navy, enforced a brutal blockade against trade and aid into Yemen. Hundreds of thousands of people have been starved and otherwise deprived to death, including thousands of children under five years old from the worst cholera epidemics since World War II.
When the House and Senate passed these resolutions back in 2019, Senator Mike Lee of Utah heroically led the charge for the America First Republicans, letting the rest know that it was okay to be tough but smart on this issue. This helped other Republicans feel like they could sign on and vote for it too.
They did and it passed.
Unfortunately, President Trump, at missile-maker Raytheon’s request, vetoed the resolution.
Biden, who unlike Trump, campaigned on ending this war, would have a much harder time vetoing it. This may especially be true since it is a Democratic-controlled Congress during election season. His otherwise completely incompetent and detestable secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has apparently been somewhat helpful in recent diplomacy in Yemen. Let them be encouraged (forced) to see a peace deal through.
The war against AQAP is excepted in these resolutions. That is far from perfect. The war on terrorism is what led to the war for terrorism in Yemen in the first place. But there is just no comparison between the levels of violence inflicted by drones and special operations forces against terrorist targets and this genocidal foreign invasion the US has sponsored and supported these last seven years. This war is every bit as bad as Iraq War II or the dirty war in Syria. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died and are dying.
It must be stopped now. The campaign to repeal the AUMF of 2001 can be next.
The era of George W. Bush and John McCain’s foreign policy is over. The American right demands an America First foreign policy that no longer has our armed forces serving at the beck and call of pretended “royal” monarchs of eastern despotisms, staining our nation in innocent blood and wasting our nation’s treasure on such needless horrors when the people of this country are being taxed and inflated right out of their homes to pay for it all.
Enough. Senators Lee and Paul, we are looking at you. Step up. Lead. You must. Co-sponsor and champion S.J. Res 56. Whip the other members of your caucus into shape while you’re at it.
You too can join the great effort to end this war. Just go to 833STOPWAR.com to get some bullet points on the war and some talking points to use when calling your Congressmen and Senators. Get your friends and family involved too! We could really help to end a war!
Reprinted with permission from The Libertarian Institute.
Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He’s the author of the 2021 book Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, the 2017 book, Fool’s Errand:Time to End the War in Afghanistan , editor of the 2019 book The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004–2019 and the 2022 book Hotter Than The Sun: Time to Abolish Nuclear Arms. He’s conducted more than 5,700 interviews since 2003. Scott lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Larisa Alexandrovna Horton.
