[Peace-discuss] It’s Simple, @BRhodes. Pass the Yemen War Powers Resolution!

[Robert Naiman]

Please vote in the poll. "Vote early, vote often." *Chag sameach!*

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/4/15/2092223/-It-s-Simple-BRhodes-Pass-the-Yemen-War-Powers-Resolution

It’s Simple, @BRhodes. Pass the Yemen War Powers Resolution!
<https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/4/15/2092223/-It-s-Simple-BRhodes-Pass-the-Yemen-War-Powers-Resolution>

Back in the Dark Ages of the 1980s, when we were young and green, trying to
stop Reagan’s illegal wars in Central America, there was a t-shirt you
could easily spot on any college campus in America:

“It’s simple, Steve. Why don’t you and your boys just get out of El
Salvador?”

We need to update this t-shirt for our time. “It’s simple, @BRhodes. Pass
the Yemen War Powers Resolution
<https://twitter.com/USProgressives/status/1507432639392845833>!”

Tell me, *boichik*. Why is this “night” in the unconstitutional
deliberate-famine journalist-assassinating U.S.-Saudi regime relationship
different from all other “nights” in the unconstitutional deliberate-famine
journalist-assassinating U.S.-Saudi regime relationship? Because there’s
something we can do about it in Congress right now. We can pass the Yemen
War Powers Resolution
<https://twitter.com/USProgressives/status/1507432639392845833> in Congress
right now.

Every American schoolkid who cares about Yemen knows who @BRhodes is.
@BRhodes was Deputy National Security Advisor for Obama in March 2015, when
the Obama Administration decided to “go into Yemen with the Saudis,” as
former Obama Chief of Staff Bill Daley once put it, expressing regret.
@BRhodes was Deputy National Security Advisor for Obama in March 2015, when
the Obama Administration decided that unconstitutional U.S. participation
in the *Putinesque* Saudi regime war on Yemen was an acceptable “side
payment” to the Saudi regime for acquiescing in U.S. diplomacy with Iran.
[Why we need Saudi regime permission for U.S. diplomacy with Iran is left
as an exercise for the reader.]

But then — after he was no longer making U.S. foreign policy in the Obama
Administration — @BRhodes had a “Saul on the road to Damascus” moment on
U.S. participation in the Saudi regime war on Yemen. And, to his credit, he
has remained consistent on this ever since. Unlike some people that we will
pass over for now, as Cicero would say.

Recently, @BRhodes said something pretty good
<https://twitter.com/RepPeterDeFazio/status/1512490746162532357> about the
recent truce in the Saudi regime war on Yemen:

“I’d like the U.S. to put on the table that we won’t support in any way a
resumption of hostilities from the Saudi side and that includes providing
any mil- you know - that would be - we have some leverage here! We
obviously - we’ve all learned that you can’t tell the Saudis what to do!
But we can tell them that we wouldn’t provide them any military support
whatsoever for a resumption of hostilities in Yemen. That might be one way
to make this stick. You know, so, that kind of solution has to be on the
table too, here. Where the U.S. is actually really kind of bringing some
weight to bear in trying to turn this into a lasting peace.”

Not too shabby! But every American schoolkid who cares about Yemen knows
that right now, as a practical matter, there is one and only one way for
“the U.S. to put on the table that we won’t support in any way a resumption
of hostilities from the Saudi side.” And that’s for Congress to pass the Yemen
War Powers Resolution
<https://twitter.com/USProgressives/status/1507432639392845833>. That’s the
only thing that shuts this down for good. If Congress doesn’t shut this
down for good now, in the future the Saudi regime could re-start the war,
and the Administration could re-start its support. And at such a future
juncture, we might be in a weaker position to shut this down, even though
it’s unconstitutional because Congress never authorized it. Because in the
future, we might not have a Democratic Congress to enforce the Constitution
with.

Do it now. “*Morgen, morgen, nur nicht heute, sagen alle faulen Leute*.” As
the old saying goes: “They tried to kill us. We survived. Pass the Yemen
War Powers Resolution!”
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