BREAKTHROUGH: U.S. House votes to stop abetting Saudi Arabia’s Yemen war

In a sting­ing, long over­due, and much need­ed rebuke of the Trump regime, the Unit­ed States House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives today vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly to end Amer­i­can mil­i­tary assis­tance for Sau­di Ara­bi­a’s incred­i­bly destruc­tive war in Yemen.

Eigh­teen Repub­li­cans crossed over to join two hun­dred and thir­ty Democ­rats in pass­ing House Joint Res­o­lu­tion 37, spon­sored by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ro Khan­na, which car­ries the title Direct­ing the removal of Unit­ed States Armed Forces from hos­til­i­ties in the Repub­lic of Yemen that have not been autho­rized by Con­gress.

“The House res­o­lu­tion is a rare use of the 1973 War Pow­ers Act, which gave Con­gress the abil­i­ty to com­pel the removal of mil­i­tary forces absent a for­mal dec­la­ra­tion of war,” observed New York Times reporters Catie Edmond­son and Char­lie Sav­age. “Those pow­ers, cre­at­ed in the wake of the Viet­nam War, have almost nev­er been used, as law­mak­ers have demurred from inter­ven­ing in polit­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive mat­ters of war, peace and sup­port for the troops.”

“Today is his­toric,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Khan­na in a state­ment.

“This is the cul­mi­na­tion of sev­er­al years of leg­isla­tive efforts to end our involve­ment in the Sau­di war in Yemen. I’m encour­aged by the direc­tion peo­ple are push­ing our par­ty to take on for­eign pol­i­cy, pro­mot­ing restraint and human rights and with the sense they want Con­gress to play a much larg­er role.”

“I applaud all cospon­sors for sup­port­ing this his­toric effort and thank my 248 col­leagues who vot­ed yes on pas­sage today, espe­cial­ly Speak­er Pelosi and Leader Hoy­er, HASC Chair Smith, HFAC Chair Engel, Rules Chair McGov­ern, CPC Co-Chair Pocan and near­ly one hun­dred cospon­sors of my resolution.”

“I’d also like to thank Sen­a­tor Sanders for being my thought part­ner and co-lead on this work in the upper cham­ber. There are many par­ties who played an instru­men­tal role in mak­ing this hap­pen, includ­ing Keane Bhatt, who is the fel­low at the Con­gres­sion­al Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus. And Geo Saba, my nation­al secu­ri­ty advisor.”

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was along par­ty lines:

Vot­ing Aye: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, Den­ny Heck (WA); Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Kurt Schrad­er, Peter DeFazio (OR)

Vot­ing Nay: Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers (WA), Greg Walden (OR), Mike Simp­son and Russ Fulcher (ID), Greg Gian­forte (MT), Don Young (AK)

The eigh­teen Repub­li­cans who crossed over to join the Democ­rats are from the extrem­ist, mil­i­tant right wing “Free­dom” Caucus.

Anoth­er Repub­li­can, Justin Amash of Michi­gan, vot­ed “Present”.

U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Adam Smith, the Chair of the House Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee, issued the fol­low­ing state­ment after the vote.

“The civ­il war in Yemen has led to the world’s worst human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis with over half of the pop­u­la­tion fac­ing severe food inse­cu­ri­ty and twen­ty-one mil­lion Yeme­nis in need of human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance. Pas­sage of this res­o­lu­tion in the House sends a clear mes­sage to this Admin­is­tra­tion that Con­gress does not sup­port the Unit­ed States’ de fac­to sup­port for the Sau­di-led coali­tion in this conflict.”

“Con­gress must con­tin­ue to exer­cise much-need­ed over­sight of this Admin­is­tra­tion, and any Amer­i­can involve­ment can and must be debat­ed trans­par­ent­ly. The Unit­ed States should be focused on work­ing towards a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion to this con­flict and tak­ing mea­sures to alle­vi­ate the dev­as­tat­ing human­i­tar­i­an situation.”