For Pacifica Radio, November 14th, 2021.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is Anti-War Radio.
All right, y'all.
Welcome to the show.
It is Anti-War Radio.
I'm your host, Scott Horton.
I'm editorial director of Antiwar.com and author of the books Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism.
You can find my full interview archive, more than 5,600 of them now, at scotthorton.org and at youtube.com slash scotthortonshow.
All right, introducing this week's guest, Hassan El-Tayeb, from the Friends Committee on National Legislation.
He is legislative director for Middle East Policy there at the FCNL, which is also their handle on Twitter.
Welcome back to the show, Hassan.
How are you doing, my friend?
Scott, good to be with you.
I'm well.
Great.
Great to have you here.
All right, so here's the thing.
The biggest deal in the world is also almost entirely unheard of.
It's America's war in Yemen, but they call it the Saudi-led war in Yemen because the Americans, well, they're leading from behind, as the Obama people put it.
They happen to be the same people back in power right now, by the way.
And I guess I could say from just what I'm seeing reported constantly at antiwar.com and from Nasser Arabi, this reporter in Yemen that I talked to, it seems like the Houthi side has the momentum with them and no incentive to quit now.
They're taking Marib and all of this.
Well, on the other side, the Saudis are losing and so have no incentive to quit now because it's not like they're losing Riyadh.
They're just losing friendly cities that they controlled inside Yemen.
But it's not like they're running out of money so they can keep the thing going.
And they have all the more reason to now, from their point of view, because they've lost so much and would be humiliated to essentially admit it.
But they can stay and not admit it and keep the status quo going.
The problem is, though, it's been seven years and hundreds of thousands of people, mostly tiny little babies and toddlers, are starving to death.
So you tell me, what are we going to do about it?
Scott, you raise an important point about the conflict and what's going on right now.
There's a lot the U.S. can do about it.
I don't know if you saw, but the Biden administration just green-lighted a $650 million arms sale to Saudi Arabia.
They say it's for defensive purposes.
But we know that the offensive-defensive line is very blurry, where these are air-to-air munitions.
They say they're used to be able to shoot down drones, but they can also shoot down humanitarian aid cargo planes trying to land in Sana'a airport.
What's stopping them from using it for that or using it for other offensive operations in the war in Yemen?
What we could do is start by trying to block that sale.
Our buddy Rand Paul, it would be great if he introduced a joint resolution of disapproval to try to force a vote and get all the senators in Congress right now to try to block the sale.
We saw Rep.
Ilhan Omar just announce that she's introducing a joint resolution of disapproval.
I think that's critical that folks in the House also support that.
That's one thing we can do, is just make sure we're not sending a message of impunity to the Saudi-led coalition as they bomb and starve millions and millions of Yemenis to the brink of famine because they're incompetent and don't know how to conduct themselves.
That's one.
There's also the National Offense Authorization Act.
There's an amendment by Senator Sanders and Ro Khanna.
The Ro Khanna amendment actually passed the House already, and that would cut off all military aids of the Saudis for their war and blockade in Yemen, including intel sharing, logistical support, spare parts and maintenance, which are all critical for the daily operations of those warplanes.
Congress needs to pass that.
We're going to find out pretty soon what happens in the Senate.
I think as early as next week, it'll be taken up if they can get it together over there.
It might actually be kicked till after Thanksgiving.
We're not totally sure what's going to happen on the Senate side, but we've been pushing hard for a vote.
Lastly, but I think most importantly, is Congress should just force the question whenever they want on a Yemen war powers vote.
That's something that FCNL is working on and trying to build support for in the House and Senate.
All right.
So who are the FCNL's most powerful allies on this issue in the House and in the Senate, and how much juice and how much dedication do they really have on this?
Well, I will say that we just saw a statement from the LA area's own chairman, Adam Schiff.
It was led with a bunch of other reps, Rep Malinowski, Rep McGovern, Chairman of the Rules Committee, Allred, Castro, Andy Kim from New Jersey.
They announced that they are opposed to the $650 million advance munitions deal to Saudi Arabia because they want to see an end to the war in Yemen.
They called for a lot of that military aid I mentioned for to stop.
It seemed like it was a very forceful statement.
It's shy of going as far as Rep Omar did, which is actually introducing legislation, but obviously a good step.
So I would definitely put Schiff on our list, but we got to do even more, right?
I say Rep Khanna is great.
Rep Jayapal is fantastic.
We've got a lot of Republican members that have been good on this, including Biggs and Buck.
Matt Gaetz has been really good on Yemen war powers and Yemen issues, and a whole bunch of others.
On the Senate side, definitely Murphy.
He was good on this at one point.
He's not been as forceful on the Saudi-led coalition, unfortunately, since.
Senator Sanders, got to give him a lot of credit for his amendment.
He's been very consistent.
Senator Warren led a 16-member letter opposing the blockade and saying that we got to use U.S. military leverage.
So I would put Warren up there.
But again, no one has actually pulled the trigger on a Yemen war powers resolution to force both chambers to actually take a vote.
I think that's a critical next step that we should take if this war continues and if this blockade continues.
It's just a disaster.
Saudi is just not letting supplies in through the ports of entry.
Granted, there are a lot of other problems within Yemen.
The Houthis aren't Boy Scouts.
You've got the Southern Transitional Council backed by the UAE.
You've got the Hadi government, which is basically working through the ISIL party or the Muslim Brotherhood, essentially, in Marib.
A lot of people don't even know that.
So there are a lot of conflicts inside of the conflict.
But the U.S. should be using our leverage in the way we can.
We have leverage over one of the parties.
We have leverage over the Saudi coalition.
And we should use it because if everybody points at somebody else saying that they're the problem and not taking care of their own backyard, I think we're just going to see this keep spiraling.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, so can we do the scorecard from the promises that the Biden people made at the time that they came into power, just two weeks after he was sworn in or so?
Yeah.
They announced that they were calling off support for this war and then they didn't because we're having this conversation in November still.
Yeah.
So I will start, you know, because I work for the Quakers and we like to give credit where credit is due.
You know, I think this is a significant improvement, you know, in some ways from what the Trump administration was pushing.
They put a foreign terror designation on the Houthis, which would have prevented all the humanitarian aid work from happening in North Yemen, in the northern part of Yemen, you know, where 80 percent of the population lives.
So that was one thing that I think that was really important.
He restored humanitarian aid to all parts of Yemen so, you know, those critical operations could continue.
So that was another good thing.
He did mention that they were going to pause two arms sales, which was good.
You know, I think the precision guided munitions were clearly, you know, going to be used for offensive operations.
And he announced an end to U.S. support for offensive operations.
And that's where it gets tricky, where he said offensive and he said we're going to still support, you know, defensive operations.
But who knows what that even is?
I mean, are these airstrikes going on over Marib?
I mean, you're seeing a similar amount of airstrikes from 2020 to 2021.
So that's got to tell you something.
They announced that they were going to continue the spare parts and maintenance of Saudi aircraft engaged in operations over Yemen.
And that has also got to tell you something, that we are definitely a part of this conflict and, you know, complicit in these, you know, in these airstrikes and the blockade.
So, you know, that's why Congress is stepping in.
That's why we've seen over 100 members of Congress since the start of the Biden administration, you know, including, you know, Republican Joe Wilson, have come out against the blockade.
And some have, you know, and then we've got a bipartisan majority that just voted to end all support for the war for the third time in the National Defense Authorization Act.
So something has got to give here.
I mean, I'm hoping that we won't be having this conversation in January and we can be talking about something, you know, other than the war in Yemen that we're still supporting.
But, you know, we'll see what happens.
Counterpoint.
Iran.
Iran.
Well, I think that's a point that you're hearing a lot on the Hill, you know, and a lot, you know, with the administration, they're obviously concerned about Iran.
But my answer to them is lift the blockade then, because the blockade is actually the thing that's empowering the Houthis right now.
It's giving them a ton of legitimacy.
Since the start of the blockade, they've only consolidated more and more power and created a little empire in Yemen.
And by opening up the country to humanitarian aid, flights, commercial access, and stop trying to, you know, continue the same failed policy of trying to isolate the Houthis, you know, in the way that we're doing and not having any dialogue, you know, that's the thing that's actually going to make Iran less influential.
And let's just put it into perspective.
Saudi, they're spending hundreds of billions of dollars, you know, on the conflict in Yemen.
And, you know, Iran's spending millions.
So I think you should also know that the conflict is being overblown with the amount of influence Iran has in Yemen.
It's a little outdated at this point, but there is a great piece in the Carnegie Endowment Foundation for International Peace called Iran's Small Hand in Yemen.
And I think folks should check that out.
And again, we have one side of the conflict to kind of, you know, take care of, because that's the side that we have leverage over.
And I suggest we use it for the sake of millions of Yemenis, including 400,000 kids that the UN has warned, you know, are living on the brink of famine and are suffering from severe, acute malnutrition right now.
They say that those kids will die.
And they said that actually back in March, many of the probably, you know, who knows how many of those kids have already perished from, you know, continuation of the blockade.
Yeah.
And it's been like this for years now.
It's been almost seven years, six and three quarters, I guess.
Yeah, nearly seven years, though.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, I think, well, it'll be surely instructive to say the least when the excess death rates are measured, you know, after the war finally comes to an end, if it ever does.
Which brings me to the other thing that besides the genocide here, Hassan, this war is treason.
And that this war is being fought indirectly, but in a way also quite directly on behalf of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
I think it's a disturbing thing to know that U.S. weapons are ending up in the hands of al-Qaeda and being used in the Saudi coalition forces against the Houthis.
I mean, that is just really disturbing.
I don't think you know this, but I actually had a family member killed by ISIS.
So I know firsthand.
Geez, I didn't know that.
In Iraq or Syria?
It was actually the Jordanian Air Force pilot, Muath, that was shot down.
His plane had a technical malfunction and he was captured by ISIS and burned alive.
Oh, crap, I've seen that footage.
My God, I had no idea that was connected to you, man.
I'm so sorry about that.
Yeah, I mean, it was awful.
I never met him.
Thanks, Obama.
Sorry.
My father, you know, my father was just completely devastated.
His mom died of a heart attack just a couple of years after that.
And, you know, his dad is just a ghost.
And I, you know, while I never met him, you know, and it just kind of led me to do this work and say, you know, our behavior in the Middle East is unconscionable.
We're trying to dominate this entire region and, you know, in supporting dictatorships like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, you know, as they perpetuate, you know, extremist ideologies like Wahhabism, which is the most intolerant version of Sunni Islam on the face of the planet.
And, you know, that's not a reflection of what most Islam, you know, is and what most Muslims believe.
I'm actually agnostic.
That's another thing, even though I work for the Quakers and my dad's a Muslim.
But I, you know, I think something's got to give.
We have to start, you know, taking ownership of what we're responsible for in the Middle East.
And, you know, this is the most simple thing that we could do to really protect millions of people is to force Saudi Arabia by, you know, cutting off our military aid to this war and blockade, you know, and really push them to open up these ports of entry.
And, you know, it's also the thing that I think is going to help us get closer to a ceasefire deal.
That's another thing that's important, because, you know, like no amount of humanitarian aid is going to, you know, serve a population of nearly 30 million people.
I mean, we need an end to this blockade.
We need to open up Sana'a Airport so Yemenis don't have to take these treacherous journeys, you know, from Aden all the way through, like, these mountainous terrains, you know, going through these checkpoints.
And, you know, and some folks just have been separated from families.
They can't leave to get an education abroad, even if they, you know, get accepted to the best school in the world.
They can't leave.
So it's time.
It's time we get serious here and end this war and blockade.
That's what I'm saying.
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Hey, guys, Scott Horton here from Mike Swanson's great book, The War State.
It's about the rise of the military industrial complex and the power elite after World War II, during the administrations of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and Jack Kennedy.
It's a very enlightening take on this definitive era on America's road to world empire.
The War State by Mike Swanson.
Find it in the right hand margin at ScottHorton.org.
All right, now, so it may sound unreal for some people to understand or to be told that the Americans are on the side of Al-Qaeda.
Well, depending on whether you've been around the block once or twice or what.
But the thing of it is this.
And I say this all the time because I think it's a great clarifier.
It's very important and it's easy for people to find.
In the Wall Street Journal and in Al-Monitor in 2015, January of 2015, they both reported that the U.S. military was very happy to see this group of Shiites, the Houthis, take over the capital city, or at least they weren't against it.
And they were happy to have a group of guys who wanted to fight against Al-Qaeda.
And the military guy's point of view was, let's kill Al-Qaeda guys.
Now, I'm not saying I was for the war against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which really began in 2009 in earnest at the beginning of the Obama years there, because it did only backfire and kill innocent people and was horrible in its own way.
But at least it was against the guys that tried to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, had bombed the USS Cole.
It's understandable on the face of it why they're America's enemies.
They are America's enemies.
And they're not like Al-Shabaab, where, oh, they're Al-Qaeda linked.
These guys really are Al-Qaeda terrorists and dangerous guys.
They did the Charlie Hebdo attack in France, for example, and other attacks as well.
So CENTCOM, at that time, under the command of our current Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, then a four-star general, was passing intelligence to the Houthis to use to kill Al-Qaeda guys.
The Al-Qaeda guys think the Houthis, as you were saying, the Al-Qaeda guys are pretty strict.
They think the Houthis are nothing but heretics worthy only of death.
So the Houthis were more than happy to kill them first with America's help.
And the Americans were perfectly happy to tell that to the Wall Street Journal and to a group at the Atlantic Council, where Barbara Slavin, the journalist, was there and asked some follow-up questions and wrote it up for Elmonitor.
It was just two months later, in March of 2015, that Barack Obama stabbed the Houthis in the back and took the other side in the war.
The Saudis, the UAE, and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, against their greatest enemies, the Houthi heretics worthy only of death in the eyes of the Bin Ladenites.
And that is whose side America is on for the last almost seven years now.
I mean, it's a super complex situation.
I would just say that the war on terror has created more terror.
These continued support for Saudi, as they're spreading Wahhabism, is creating more extremism.
And our continued occupation and policy of supporting regime change, wars and coups and military sales, we know where this has taken us.
And we know where this has taken the entire world.
And I got started in this advocacy world because I think we can make different choices.
And I think if enough people stand up and push their lawmakers, I think we can make a real difference here.
And I don't mean to be optimistic here, but I've seen a major shift where people didn't even think it was possible that we could challenge the Saudi-led coalition at the start of this process.
And then we're passing bills through both chambers.
We haven't gotten it over the finish line yet.
But I think we're in a place that a lot of people didn't think we'd be.
So I just want to put that out there in the middle of all this chaos.
I know a lot of people can feel there's so much despair, there's so much corruption.
But I've seen a handful of people change the world and make big things happen.
So I just wanted to put that out there for the record.
Yeah.
And look, I mean, as I'm saying, I go on and on about it.
But as I'm illustrating there with the treasonous aspect of this, and as we're talking about with the humanitarian aspect of this, it's a pretty black and white issue here.
You can't really even, not to anyone who knows the first thing about it, you can't even really characterize this under the rubric of the war on terrorism at all.
That was the last war in Yemen.
This was the war for terrorism there.
There's just nothing to justify this other than, well, we want to make the Saudis happy.
Yeah.
No, that's not a good enough reason to have a war against a bunch of innocent people who never even threatened us.
And especially the way the war has been waged against civilian targets and civilian infrastructure there, hospitals in the middle of cholera epidemics and fishermen's boats and farms and all these things.
You know, I don't know.
Who's it up to to decide what's trendy and important in this society?
You know, Hollywood actors and rock stars and I guess rap stars nowadays.
Somebody, anybody?
Because it is such a simple narrative.
You know, it's, well, not that simple, but simple enough.
Innocent people are suffering and we're on the wrong side of the war if we should be involved in it at all, which we shouldn't.
It's not that hard, you know?
Yeah, I mean, it is a very simple thing that we are providing military aid to one of the warring parties, and that warring party is using that military aid to perpetuate a blockade that's cutting off the flow of food, fuel and medicine.
And as a result, we now have, you know, the world's worst humanitarian crisis on the planet with 16 million people living on the edge of famine.
You've got 2.3 million kids suffering from severe acute malnutrition and 400,000 of those kids suffering from severe acute malnutrition who, you know, basically have a death sentence if we don't get them emergency aid and an end to this war and blockade.
So, you know, I, you know, I've come on this show a bunch and I think now is just such a critical moment.
I can't even stress it enough.
I mean, we are going to see what happens in the Senate next week on NDAA potentially.
And and we have a real opportunity to shift this whole narrative and conversation.
We've got, you know, Rep Omar putting out a resolution to block weapon sales to the Saudis.
I mean, you know, people are doing the right thing.
We just got to back them up.
Right.
OK, so let's talk about that.
You know, I talked to not enough different people.
Scott Paul at Oxfam, and I talked to you at the Quaker Friends Committee there.
And I don't even have a regular from Doctors Without Borders on this issue anymore.
Of course, I talk with Nasser Araby all the time, the great journalist out of Sana'a.
But can you talk about all the different groups?
Aisha Jaman, I've had her on.
Can you talk about the different groups who are working together on this and, you know, maybe help inspire people of different avenues they might actually take themselves to get involved in this?
Yeah, I mean, so I think that that's been, you know, on a personal level, I have to say that this these years of advocacy I've been doing on this, I've been working on this for about four or five years.
I know the war's been going on about seven, but I've been, you know, working on it in a significant way for at least four of those years.
And I've met some of the most incredible people working on this particular issue, you know, including who you mentioned, Aisha Jaman.
I mean, Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation is an incredible org, yemenfoundation.org, if folks want to, you know, check them out and contribute because they, you know, they actually do incredible humanitarian operations, but they're not funded by any big governments.
They're not funded by, you know, the Saudis or the UAE or the United States.
They take small dollar donations and work with volunteers in Yemen to deliver aid to the hardest, you know, hit areas and some of these refugees, refugee camps in Yemen that are hard to access.
So, you know, meeting people like that who, you know, I think deserve a Nobel Peace Prize has just been incredible.
There's also Shireen Al-Ademi, follow her on Twitter.
She just always lights it up and just tells it like it is.
She's an anti-imperialist through and through, and I just have so much respect for her.
There's a lot of faith groups out there doing this work.
I've been working with a ton of, you know, right-leaning groups, libertarian folks, defense priorities, freedom works, you know, Committee for Responsible Foreign Policy, Bring Our Troops Home, you know, there's, you know, Demand Progress, Quincy Institute.
They're doing incredible work.
And if folks have not checked them out, I mean, they, not just on the Yemen situation, but they just really are doing, you know, fantastic analysis of foreign policy around the world and all these different contexts, including China, which I think is just so critical that we, you know, don't end in this, end up in a massive conflict or cold war with China.
And, you know, so they're doing some cutting edge work on that, too.
I will say that, you know, also just working with some great members and staff, like the Rakhana staff, they are, you know, friends of mine at this point, and there's a lot of folks that really care.
So I just want to, and those folks have made a big difference on, you know, on the ground in Yemen.
I mean, we, at one point, we thought there was going to be a complete closure of Hodeidah.
And then Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Lee and Senator Murphy introduced a Yemen War Powers Resolution and forced a vote.
And we saw, you know, a negotiated settlement to keep that port open, which, I mean, millions of people could have died if that didn't happen.
So, you know, so this stuff does matter.
I know it's, you know, overwhelming, but, you know, I think we just got to keep going.
Yeah, that's right.
And listen, I mean, you set a great example for people, too.
I mean, it's so obvious, but might as well state it.
If nobody does the work, the work doesn't get done.
Somebody has to make this happen.
And it ain't going to be the Yemen lobby, because there's really not one, other than just, as you say, regular human beings who are just many expats who, you know, would like to see their country cease being torn apart like this.
But there's no powerful Yemeni agricultural or oil interests or anything like that in this country anywhere.
And they don't have any allies like the Israelis or anybody like that to help them along either.
Yeah, there is no money to lobby on behalf of ending the Saudi-led war and blockade on Yemen, but there are some just passionate people out there, and I think there's probably a lot of people in L.A. that have been working on it.
You know, I think I came on your show, it was a while ago, and I said that Chairman Schiff hadn't signed a certain letter, you know, or I forget what it was, but he signed literally right after that.
And I don't know if, to this day, I don't know if it had to do with, you know, maybe constituents from L.A. calling after they, you know, we kind of put the word out.
But, you know, let's just keep going.
Yeah, well, I sure like to think so.
And I think people listening to this show early on Sunday morning in Los Angeles are the kind of people who would make the extra effort if they think they have the opportunity to make a difference there.
So let's hope so.
Maybe I can just leave folks with this last, you know, piece is, you know, we really need to get Padilla and Feinstein to support the Sanders amendment to the National Offense Authorization Act so folks could, you know, light up their switchboards and make sure that they're hearing from folks, you know, in advance of the Senate coming, Senate NDAA coming to the floor in the next week or so.
I think that would be fantastic and a great, you know, short-term push.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you so much for that.
And seriously, I mean, never mind what TV says.
This is quantitatively the most crucial issue in the world.
It must be confronted.
It must be stopped right now.
Thanks, Scott.
All right, you guys, that is Hassan El-Tayeb.
He's at the Friends Committee for National Legislation.
That's fcnl.org.
And this has been Antiwar Radio for this morning.
I'm your host, Scott Horton.
Find the full interview archive, more than 5,600 of them now, going back to 2003, at scotthorton.org and at youtube.com slash scotthortonshow.
I'm here every Sunday morning from 830 to 9 on KPFK, 90.7 FM in LA.
See you next week.
Bye.
