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All right, you guys, Scott Wharton Show.
I'm him.
And on the line, I have Kate Gould from the Friends Committee for National Legislation.
That's the Quakers.
They're pacifists and they're trying to end all the wars and all the nuclear weapons programs and all the rest of that stuff all the time.
Tirelessly working on behalf of peace there in Washington, D.C.
Hi, Kate, how are you?
I'm doing well.
Thanks for having me back, Scott.
Very happy to have you back on the show here.
And wow, could it really be true?
Am I daydreaming or having some kind of hallucination or something that people in Congress are noticing and taking the right side on the issue of the American-Saudi war against the people of Yemen right now?
There is some good news to report, yes.
And it's quite surprising news.
It was a surprise to all of us working on it.
So yes, there's some good news on the House votes on defunding U.S. military support for this disastrous Saudi-led war in Yemen.
And now this is the overall National Defense Authorization Act, the spending bill for the year.
Yes, so this is the major national security legislation for the year.
This is one of those few bills that's still considered must-pass legislation.
Hard to bet on any legislation getting through Congress these days.
But this passes every single year in the House and the Senate, and then they get a compromise bill sent to the president.
And this is the opportunity for a whole slew of national security amendments to be added.
And really glad to see this time around that a bipartisan duo of members of Congress brought forward these amendments to cut off U.S. military funding for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
So yeah, some really good news.
We were very surprised that it did make it, because there's so many hurdles, right?
There's all these hurdles to get it through.
There's so many, especially in the House and Rules Committee, which is heavily influenced by the House leadership.
I mean, they make so many decisions about what goes forward and what gets votes.
So they decided to let this through.
And not only that, they decided to let it through on what's called an unblock amendment process.
So these amendments were added in a block of other legislation, and then it was just passed altogether and added to the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act.
So generally that's reserved, that kind of process is reserved for uncontroversial amendments and generally reporting requirements.
And we did get some good reporting requirements as well for Congress finally exercising oversight over U.S. military support for the Saudis in this war.
So there's some good language on that, but then also not only that, but we also got this amendment passed.
This is by Warren Davidson, Republican from Ohio.
And this legislation cuts off all military support, all funding for U.S. military support for, or all Pentagon support, so it doesn't cut off arms sales, but it cuts off U.S. military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen for any, actually any military operations in Yemen that are not covered under the 2001 authorization for the use of military force.
Man.
So yeah, meaning, and there's an article about this at Truthout by Robert Naiman, by the way, guys, a U.S. House votes to block U.S. participation in the Saudi war in Yemen.
And this is a complicated mess.
Most of the audience, I think, probably already understands this, but there are two wars going on in Yemen, maybe more, but America does attack with the CIA mostly, I guess, although, no, I guess special operations forces too have been attacking and attempting and missing, killing civilians, but fighting against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and there are now factions that identify with the Islamic State.
That would count as authorized by the AUMF, even though that's ridiculous, at least under the theory, it would.
However, this other war, that's the war for al-Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen against their enemies, the Houthis, which is the air war waged by the Saudis and the ground war waged by the UAE and their mercenaries there.
That's the war that would be banned by this legislation, correct?
That's right.
So this war, the Saudi-led air war and Emirati ground forces, that war, of course, for listeners who haven't heard it, started two and a half years ago and has just devastated Yemen.
So has plunged millions to the verge of starvation.
Seven million people are on the brink of starving to death, and that includes half a million children because this war has really been, I mean, it's killed scores of civilians, thousands and thousands of civilians, also has devastated civilian infrastructure.
So there were four Saudi-led airstrikes on Doctors Without Borders hospitals in a single year.
With US weapons, the Saudi-led coalition bombed a funeral hall, mourning procession in October, killing 140 in just one strike, 140 civilians.
And so there's been all of these unlawful attacks, and that's included these attacks on the sewage system, sanitation infrastructure, water filtration, on food warehouses, on the port, on the port where Yemen depends, I mean, about 90% of Yemen's food comes through this port called Hudaydah, and they bombed the port, including cranes, that are essential for lifting the food from the ships to the ground, and then from there goes, and they can distribute it throughout the country.
But, I mean, this has just absolutely decimated the infrastructure in Yemen, and so right now what we have is the world's, the UN has said it's the world's largest humanitarian crisis and it's the world's largest cholera outbreak.
Every 35 seconds, there is one more child infected with cholera.
It is just this out-of-control epidemic that actually should be easy to stop, and it is, and the World Health Organization has said that if you have access to clean water, it's something that can be treated and can be stopped, but that's the problem.
They don't have access to clean water because of how this war has just devastated the country, and all with this supposed goal of rooting out the Houthis, this rebel group that has taken control of parts of the country.
It's a local group and they're responding to local grievances.
They've certainly committed human rights atrocities as well, but we have, the U.S. is backing these grave atrocities that are committed by the Saudis and Emiratis.
All right, now, so I guess there's some support for this in the Senate, but not enough to get their version of the bill amended, apparently, or at least yet.
Is that correct?
Yeah, so the Senate's gonna be harder.
The Senate is just, there's, you know, in the House, we have this situation where we have the Freedom Caucus members and progressive members who have teamed up on these sorts of efforts on other issues, of course, remaining in other endless war issues.
And there's just not the same kind of dynamic in the Senate, quite, well, not to the same extent, at least.
So it's harder to get this kind of legislation through in the Senate.
That said, of course, we're gonna push it.
We're gonna figure out what we can get through.
I mean, we're gonna get some language through.
I will say that, with the help of all your, of all the listeners who are gonna call and urge their senators to support ending the U.S. backing for this disastrous war, we're gonna get some language through.
And the question is then, because if there's some restrictions in the Senate, and then we also have this good language on the House version, then when they're conferenced together, we can come out and, you know, fight tooth and nail to ensure that we get some meaningful restrictions on U.S. support in the final legislation.
And obviously, ideally, kind of, you know, get the same, exact same language in the House, but pass the House and get that through the Senate.
But if we can't do that, then at least get other kinds of meaningful restrictions.
For example, cutting off or, you know, curtailing U.S. refueling, this is just specifically going after the refueling missions because, you know, right now, U.S. taxpayers are paying for U.S. servicemen and women to refuel the Saudi and Emirati bombers that then go on these bombing campaigns and decimate civilian infrastructure and bomb these weddings and funerals and hospitals.
And so there, so we want to at least curtail that.
And there was actually legislation offered this time around that the House majority did not allow through that would have a bipartisan amendment by Ro Khanna in California and Walter Jones, North Carolina.
They have an amendment to say that before refueling that the Secretary of Defense would have to certify that the U.S. is not refueling bombers that are going to be bombing civilian targets or any strikes on the, any areas that are civilian targets that are on the U.S. no-strike list.
So that got rejected by the Rules Committee, but we're gonna push for that in the Senate as well.
I see.
And then I guess in the Conference Committee, they can just completely erase the thing or they could do it up however they want, really, right?
So the people who have the most power, I mean, they have, yes, they have a lot of power in the Conference Committee.
They can't do quite whatever they want, but there is a lot of latitude historically.
The people who have the most power in that are John McCain and Max Thornberry, who are the chairs of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.
And so we have to get at least their okay on anything going forward.
I mean, essentially on a situation like this where we'll likely have different language in the House and the Senate version, then it'll require a lot of advocacy from that.
But they certainly, I mean, the other, then of course there's Jack Reed and Adam Smith that we have, and both Reed and Smith have been on board various initiatives to add accountability to at least rein in some kinds, some forms of US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
So there's certainly some momentum to build on there.
And then I think, I mean, overall, we do have the fact that there have been just so many members of Congress in the House.
And then also, of course, last month, we had a really successful vote.
We had, you know, it was just unprecedented that we had 47 senators who voted to block this latest bomb sale to Saudi Arabia.
So that is definitely noticed.
We heard that actually, in fact, when I was in the Senate that day, I saw Vice President Pence walk right by with all of his security entourage.
And then, and I was told by good sources that he was there.
He was lobbying on healthcare at the time too, but he was also there to break the, they sent him that day because he was there in case there was a tie, in case he had to break the tie on the, on the blocking these bombs to Saudi Arabia.
So anyway, the point is here that this is, there's real momentum growing that we've just never seen before.
And so that's gonna be noticed by the conference committee, you know, the conferees, and we have a real opportunity with that.
All right, hang on just one second.
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Thanks.
You know what, what am I missing here as far as the Saudis and their lobbyists seem to be AWOL and who in the world cares about the Houthis?
They don't have a firm on K Street.
Who's representing them other than the Friends Committee?
And I don't mean you're representing them, but who's pushing for peace on their behalf other than you?
I mean, they don't have any power in America whatsoever, right, any influence at all.
And yet somehow we have scores of senators and congressmen who are literally concerned enough about, what, human rights abuses?
That can't be the answer here.
Something else is at play.
Well, okay, so I would say, and of course, yeah, I mean, we're lobbying for peace and an end for these awful human rights violations on all sides.
And certainly the Houthis have committed war crimes.
And so nothing, you know, there's definitely problems on all sides and that's why we need a political solution to end this for all the civilians.
I mean, I, and on, but I would also say, I mean, on Saudi lobbyists, there are a lot of them.
And I actually have heard from some staffers and they have been on the Hill in force.
And with this latest vote in the Senate that we heard, well, we heard from some, and this is anecdotal, but we heard from some staffers that they heard more from the Saudi lobbyists in this vote than they even did with JASTA.
And maybe that's because they thought that, you know, with JASTA, that that was just, they weren't gonna have a chance on that.
And that just sailed through with only one Senator objecting, but with this vote, there was, yeah, the Saudi lobbyists have been out in force.
And there's those that are, I mean, it's just, it's been incredible to me to hear so much about it.
In fact, what I've heard is that with this latest vote, I was surprised, and this is again anecdotal, but overall I've heard from staffers that they were lobbying intensively by the Saudis, by Saudis or by lobbyist firms that work for the Saudis, you know, they were lobbying intensively and they didn't hear what they thought they would hear from defense contractors on this vote.
And despite them putting everything on the table to try to, you know, and they did, of course, successfully get, I mean, but the votes to pass this, to block this resolution of disapproval that was offered by Rand Paul and Chris Murphy, but it was so close.
And we expect that next time, I mean, of course, we're gonna continue to mobilize and push so that next time we win and next time we do get, and with this kind of vote, you only need 51 votes.
You don't need 60.
So we were just four away from getting enough to block this bomb sale.
And there will be more bomb sales.
Of course, Trump has promised 110 billion in arms sales.
So that includes a lot of bombs to kill people in Yemen.
So there'll be more opportunities on this.
And so it's been, we've been lobbying on this and Yemen Peace Project, a great organization has been doing that.
Oxfam has been doing great work, Just Foreign Policy.
There's been a lot of different groups involved, Win Without War and others, Peace Action.
So there, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, there's been a lot of groups that have taken different kinds of positions, of course, but overall they've been, they have been supportive of these kinds of bills to block these bomb sales.
As far as where this kind of concern is coming from Congress, I would say there's different issues, right?
So for Congressman Davidson, he's particularly concerned.
I mean, he's been very vocal about this in the media.
He's concerned about unauthorized wars.
And that's what this is, that most Americans, many Americans don't know this, but we are at war in Yemen.
And as you say, in two different ways, we're at war in Yemen in, yeah, two different ways.
But this war has really decimated the country.
And for a lot of Yemenis, from people I've, when Yemenis have come to town and they tell me about this and anybody I know going to Yemen has said, the question they're asked all the time is, why is the U.S. bombing us?
These are U.S. bombs, we're fueling the plane, you know, that there's, but that's not, of course, for both the Obama administration and the Trump administration, they say they're not, they're not participating in this war.
They're merely, you know, supporting the Saudis.
So I think for Warren Davidson, he wants to highlight that, yes, we're involved.
There's these unauthorized war issues.
There's this carte blanche to Saudi Arabia.
And so there is growing support from, so I think a lot of different factors here, but it's great to see that there's this, there's different members who are teaming up together to push back.
Yeah, good to hear that, you know, he can realize that.
And I know from talking with Nasser Araby, and I think from others too, but certainly from him, that he says that, you know, the average Yemeni in sauna calls it the American war and they're not fooled one bit.
It's just, you know, that they don't even consider it a Saudi war as much of, as much as an American one.
I mean, who's the empire and who's the satellite, right?
Which maybe is a good question.
And here's the thing, I got an idea and you know a lot better about dealing with these Congress goofballs than I do, but it seems to me like maybe a good talking point for Republicans and their staffers would be that, hey, this is Obama's thing.
You know, that horrible, stupid ex-president of ours, he started this thing and it would be a heroic way to slap down the damn liberals by ending it, you know, by saying, look, and we're only talking about a compromise here, ending the war against the Houthis, not necessarily, we're not even talking about ending the war against Al-Qaeda there, we're talking about ending the war for Al-Qaeda there.
And that'd be the second part of the talking point would be that, hey, you know, sorry, no matter how you look at it, we're really fighting for Al-Qaeda here.
In fact, Mark Perry, in one of his pieces for Politico magazine, quoted a general at the Pentagon who said that, you know, John McCain complains that we're flying as Iran's air force in Iraq, which is true, but we're flying as Al-Qaeda's air force in Yemen.
And that was an air force general that said that because it's true and they resent that, they don't want to do that, you know?
So that seems like those are maybe ways to go at the Republicans and make it seem like something that it would be very safe for them to pin on the Democrats and explain to them in the starkest terms, just how counterproductive the policy is in terms of counterterrorism and just show them that.
All the good politics are in getting behind this thing, these new amendments, rather than sticking with the war, you know?
That's a good point, it's a good point.
And yeah, Senator Todd Young has been really vocal on this issue too, Republican Senator from Indiana.
He's been very vocal about the humanitarian crisis.
He's also been very vocal that this war that we are backing is empowering Al-Qaeda.
And so he has made that point.
And he's also talked about how it's emboldening hardliners in Iran.
And so, I mean, because that's what we're up against.
I mean, the proponents of these kind of bombshells and of continuing to back this war.
So when we saw this in the Senate debate, when Lindsey Graham said, he actually said on the Senate floor and said, stand with Saudi Arabia.
And when he was talking, he said, I mean, his big talking point is we gotta push back against Iran.
I mean, that is, you know, in DC, it's just been on Capitol Hill.
There's this idea that the Houthis are just like Iranian, you know, Iran's army, which is of course, very much exaggerating the relationship that the Houthis have with Iran.
I mean, yes, the Iranians back them, give them some support.
Of course, it's nothing like the way that the US gives the Saudis support for this war.
So anyway, but Todd Young has been great in pushing back on this and saying, to the contrary, we're talking about, by backing this devastating war, then you're only fomenting anti-American extremism.
You're only strengthening the hand of al-Qaeda and the power that al-Qaeda has in Southern Yemen.
So yeah, it's a good, it is a good point that this is, it's very important on the Hill.
It's really important, of course, with Republicans.
And I think what we have to, yeah, that will be important to push forward.
And it's, what's hard is that the House, well, especially Senate leadership, Mitch McConnell has really pushed his caucus hard on this.
And so it's, so I think, you know, Todd Young has been great.
We got four Republicans to support blocking the sale and going forward, we have to get, we have to get more.
I think the next, the future votes, you know, to win this, to get to 51, we're going to have to make that up with those extra four senators.
I think probably at least three of them have to be Republicans, so yeah.
Yeah, well, you know, I saw Rand Paul, actually, now that you mentioned some of these Republicans being good on that point, I saw Rand on maybe Fox News or one of these saying that, hey, listen, I mean, just think about it.
This could end up with al-Qaeda ruling SANA.
You know, that's a real possibility.
If we achieve our mission, that's actually what we're doing right now.
This is what we're, we really ought to stop and think, yeah, you don't have to be Ron Paul to figure out that this is not a good idea.
So, yeah, it seems like a pretty, even a Republican could understand this, although you're right though, that, oh, Iran, Iran, Iran, that makes for a pretty big boogeyman, but like you're saying, you know, the Houthis on their worst, on Iran's worst day is still nothing compared to what's going to happen if al-Qaeda or the Islamic State ends up taking over the capital city.
Right, right, right.
So, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and they, so this war, I mean, we've seen that their presence has just mushrooms.
I mean, they have really been able to expand their influence under this war and in this kind of, you know, in this devastation.
So, yeah, it's really important, I think, to, as you said, I mean, to make that point.
And there are, you know, there's even, there's experts from the American Enterprise Institute and, you know, other conservative think tanks who've been warning about this.
So it's a really important point.
Yep.
All right, well, listen, I think it's just great that you do this work.
And I was sort of daydreaming while you were talking that if I could stand to live in Washington, D.C., that I would probably just go work for you.
And I'm not a Quaker or anything.
Oh, God.
But I think, who actually does the real work where the shoe rubber meets the road?
It's you and your group going around to these congressmen and, you know, pressuring them and educating them and, you know, doing the work to, you know, make these marginal differences, ultimately, that make the difference.
So, you know, I don't know.
I just sit here and complain from Austin and I ain't leaving again.
And I sure as hell ain't going to Washington, D.C.
But if I would or could, then I think that the work that you're doing is the very best work.
Well, that means so much to me.
And I learned so much from your show, Scott.
You know, over the years.
And whenever you come to D.C., you should come visit sometime and we should do some meetings.
We should get some meetings with your Senator, Ted Cruz.
And actually, seriously, I think he's someone we do need to focus on in thinking about these future bomb sales.
I think he's a good prospect for this.
And so, Texans, there's some opportunity there.
But anyway, whenever you come to D.C., of course, you're more than welcome and we should do some lobbying together, so.
Yeah, that'd be fun.
Well, I got a new book coming out about Afghanistan and I plan on certainly giving one to Walter Jones.
And, you know, as many, I guess you're probably a really good person to ask who to bother trying to get a book to, and including staffers of important Congress people.
If you have some good ideas, I'll have at least a few boxes full to get rid of here at first, so.
Great, can't wait to read it myself.
Oh, that's great.
Cool, well, and the whole thing of it is I really want to try to make a dent with the thing and not just have it be a book on a shelf somewhere, but actually have it be part of the, I want to give Walter Jones a leg to stand on, basically, to say, see, we can just quit, you know what I mean?
That's all.
Yes, that's great, that's great.
Oh, he does such great work.
He's such a great, great partner on these issues, so.
Yeah, wonderful.
Ron Paul runner up there.
Excellent.
All right, well, thank you so much, Kate, for coming back on the show.
It's good to talk to you again, gotta say.
Great to talk with you, thank you, Scott.
All right, and I'm sorry, what's the website, real quick, for the Friends Committee?
Yeah, so it's fcnl.org, and we have lots of information there.
If you go to fcnl.org slash Middle East, then you'll find information specifically about Yemen, Iran, that's another issue we're really concerned about right now, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Syria, all that.
So yeah, please sign up and be engaged.
So I look forward to being in touch, Scott, and I look forward to being in touch with any listener who wants to come on board.
Cool, all right, well, thank you again, appreciate it.
Thanks, Scott.
All right, you guys, and again, that's fcnl.org, the Friends Committee on National Legislation there, fcnl.org, and I'm Scott Horton, this is my show, scotthorton.org for the archives.
Oh, you know what, I guess one of the four today, might as well be Kate, is the 4500 one.
There you go, Kate, you're the 4500 interview in the archive there, got 4500.scotthorton.org slash interviews, and of course you can find me at the Libertarian Institute, libertarianinstitute.org, and on Twitter at scotthortonshow, thanks very much, you guys.
