[Peace] Let’s Make Dem Leadership Care About U.S. War Victims As If They Were U.S. Soldiers

[Robert Naiman]

https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10159053118382656



Let’s Make Dem Leadership Care About U.S. War Victims As If They Were U.S.
Soldiers



Here’s a paradox of trying to “reform U.S. foreign policy.”



When we’re trying to stop some U.S. atrocity somewhere – like ending
unconstitutional U.S. participation in the genocidal Saudi regime war in
Yemen – national Democrats often say, “Well, that’s going to be very hard,
because Americans don’t really care about U.S. foreign policy.”



But then, when the pro-war, pro-Empire wing of the Democratic Party wants
to impose new sanctions somewhere to starve more civilians to death and
take away their essential lifesaving medicines, in violation of U.S. and
international law, that’s flying through the “Democratic” House on the
suspension calendar like “a hot knife through butter.”



That combination suggests that the causation story we’ve been sold by
national Democrats doesn’t pass the smell test. The real truth is that some
Americans’ concerns about U.S. foreign policy are getting served. And other
Americans’ concerns about U.S. foreign policy are not getting served.



Let’s raise the performance standards for national Democrats on these
issues.



Here’s a first step. House Democrats recently proved that they could pass a
“concurrent” [veto-proof] War Powers Resolution to end unauthorized and
therefore unconstitutional U.S. participation in hostilities against Iran.
There were only eight Democratic defections. The entire House Democratic
leadership backed the Iran War Powers Resolution. Not only that, but
Speaker Pelosi and House Foreign Affairs Chair Engel went in front of TV
cameras and affirmed that under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 [which is
U.S. law], such a “concurrent” [veto-proof] War Powers Resolution is
binding.



Whatever else may be true, as a matter of logic and House procedure it must
be the case that these same events could theoretically occur if the idea of
“Iran” were replaced by the idea of “Saudi war in Yemen.”



We already proved that Americans care about this when Congress passed the
Sanders-Lee-Murphy “joint” [veto-bait] War Powers Resolution, with every
single Democrat and a bunch of Republicans voting yes. So in this case, at
least, we can put that “Americans don’t care” story to bed. So if there’s a
problem – and it’s not clear yet how much of a problem there is, because
this proposition hasn’t been fully tested yet, that’s what makes it
interesting – the problem isn’t that “Americans” don’t care. The problem is
that the House Democratic leadership doesn’t care.



Now we don’t know this yet, because the proposition hasn’t been fully
tested yet. But that would be the logical conclusion, if we fully test the
proposition and the House Democratic leadership refuses to move.



Why would the House Democratic leadership be willing to do this on
unconstitutional war with Iran, but not on unconstitutional U.S.
participation in the Saudi war in Yemen?



An obvious explanation would be, Iran has missiles they can fire at U.S.
military bases in Iraq, where U.S. soldiers are stationed. Whereas,
starving children in Yemen don’t have any missiles they can fire at U.S.
soldiers.



Therefore, this proposition forms a nice little test, to see if we can get
the House Democratic leadership to pretend to care about starving children
in Yemen as if they were U.S. soldiers.
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