I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism, and I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2003, almost all on foreign policy, and all available for you at scotthorton.org.
You can sign up for the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scotthorton show.
All right, y'all, introducing Hassan El-Tayeb.
He is at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.
That's the Quakers, fcnl.org, a great peace activist organization.
Welcome back to the show.
Thanks, Scott.
Doing well.
Really happy to have you on the show here.
I am so embarrassed.
I was late to this conference call yesterday with all these very, you know, important activists on the issue of the Yemen war, and I asked a really good question, I think, and then — I'm sorry, I forget his first name — Mr. Bhatt started to answer me, and then I had to go because I had an extremely important phone call, and it was extremely embarrassing that I had to go.
So I wondered, first of all, if we could just talk about — because everybody already knows about the war, let's skip to the current activism.
My question was, you guys — and I missed this, I'm sure you already explained before I got there.
You guys are pushing Congress, and you've got some congressmen working with you to introduce the War Powers Resolution again, 1973 War Powers Resolution, to make them end the war.
So then my question was, one, I forget which is which, the concurrent and the continuing resolution, but one of them is supposedly veto-proof, and last time, they used the vetoable kind.
But so this time, are they going to do the veto-proof kind?
And or also, why not just defund the thing, which you can do just with the House, and you don't even need the Senate to cooperate, you can just have the House refuse to pass a thing for appropriations, rather than even pass a new thing.
They could just sit on appropriations until they get what they want.
So those were my questions, and then I didn't get to hear the answers at all, so I'm very sorry.
And please tell Mr. Bott for me that, I'm very sorry, but could you please tell me what I need to know here?
Well, absolutely.
So I think you ask really good questions.
As far as the concurrent resolution, I completely agree with you that that's powerful.
It's good law.
Unfortunately, I could get into a whole bunch of legalese and talk about the legislative history, but the executive branch basically determined that the concurrent resolution didn't hold up in the court of law, and that the executive branch didn't necessarily have to respect the concurrent resolution.
In a case around immigration, naturalization services, our point is that this is still good law, and it hasn't been tested in the courts.
But unfortunately, that just makes our job a lot harder, building that majority, because there's a lot of people on the Hill that don't agree.
So what we're trying to do with this joint resolution is force the question.
We've already passed a joint resolution, and just use that vehicle, because it gets us our vote, and it gets us over the finish line.
And really what we're trying to do is get a majority to pass this thing.
There's way more to that question that I want to get to some other things.
As far as the funding question that you talk about, that's another good point.
We have consistently tried to pass no funding for the Yemen war via appropriations, and there's an amendment in there right now that they're finalizing the 2022 appropriations budget.
Unfortunately, the administration just looks at that and says, hey, we stopped offensive operations, so we're not doing it.
And so that's why we think it's really critical that we get the Senate and the House to vote on this WPR, this War Powers Resolution, to finally put an end to ongoing U.S. complicity.
And we're looking forward to getting that through.
All right.
So there's a lot of new people listening.
They're always as they come and go.
So what's to be concerned about here anyway?
I didn't see on TV that this was a big deal, or maybe if I did, it's all Iran's fault, something like that.
Yeah, there's a lot going on in the foreign policy world right now.
There's an invasion in Ukraine.
There's the Iran nuclear deal happening, and so much going on.
But this is the world's worst humanitarian crisis right here in Yemen, with 80 percent of a 30 million population at risk of starvation and needing critical humanitarian assistance.
This month, one year ago, President Biden announced that his administration would follow through on a campaign promise to end U.S. support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen.
And among advocates like myself who've long urged the United States end its involvement in the war, we had really high expectations for a serious shift in U.S. policy towards Yemen and Saudi.
But unfortunately, we were quickly disappointed.
We have seen ongoing maintenance support, logistical support, and spare parts transfers.
So that has just perpetuated the violence, perpetuated the Saudi blockade.
And January actually was one of the bloodiest months in the history of the whole war.
And we saw Saudi target a detention facility, killing 90 civilians, wounding 200 more, and also triggering a nationwide internet blackout and cutting off water to 120,000 people.
So Reps Jayapal and Defazio, they just released an op-ed in The Nation about two weeks ago, and they are announcing their plans that they want to introduce a new Yemen War Powers Resolution to terminate this ongoing support.
Biden took us 30 percent there.
We're trying to get all the way and cut off all of this stuff that's enabling the Saudi operations.
Yeah.
Now, tell me, what's the extent of what you know about all of the real meaning behind the term logistics there?
Because I think that's essentially shorthand for U.S.A. runs the entire war, right?
All the air traffic control.
I mean, just even as far as that, which planes are taken off, which way is the wind blowing on takeoff when they take off, is everything, right?
There is no war without the U.S. and British officers and contractors running the whole damn thing on the ground.
Is that or is that not right, Hasan?
Do you know?
That is absolutely right.
And one of the main things we're trying to do is cut off the daily transfer of spare parts and maintenance.
And there are U.S. personnel that oversee even these private contractors doing this work.
And as our buddy Bruce Riedel has said numerous times from the.
I don't know the guy, but your buddy.
But go ahead.
Yeah.
Well, he's a buddy for a piece in Yemen, that's for sure.
Someone that we might not see eye to eye on a whole bunch of issues.
But on this particular issue, he's been saying for years that, you know, if we stop the flow of spare parts and maintenance and this logistical support, the Saudis could not operate their warplanes.
They couldn't do these bombing runs and they couldn't be targeting civilians with our help.
So we think that this is a critical piece of leverage.
You know, we want Saudis to end their airstrikes and their blockade and finally, you know, agree to a realistic peace process.
And despite what the administration has said up until now, they have not engaged in good faith and they've just been continuing their war of aggression.
And, you know, I try to remind people that, well, OK, they did offer a ceasefire last year, but, you know, they weren't lifting the blockade.
They were continuing to strangle and choke off millions of Yemenis from food, fuel and medicine.
So we think that's a priority and we cannot be supporting the Saudis with this blank check as they continue this aggression.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, talk about in the House and in the Senate.
Who do we like?
Who cares about this?
Who cared about this under Trump and still care about this under Biden, their dear leader in the Democratic Party where they're in control here?
Yeah, well, you know, Congress has repeatedly made its opposition to U.S. involvement in the Yemen war clear.
You know, in 2019, they made history.
They passed a war powers resolution to end all support.
Trump vetoed it, unfortunately, and we saw a real breakdown in diplomacy.
So, you know, we've got a majority on record.
We've got Biden saying it, you know, and I will point to even a vote in the House that happened in September on the National Offense Authorization Act.
We got 219 Republicans and Democrats to come together.
You know, it was introduced by Rep Khanna, but it was also co-sponsored by Rep Schiff, the, you know, the rep from the L.A. area.
And I hope he hears from a lot of people that are listening right now about this.
And, you know, we did get a majority.
And so Jayapal, Defazio, Khanna, those folks are all good.
We are hoping that Bernie will introduce a companion effort on the on the Senate side.
You know, we're in talks with him now and, you know, I'm feeling pretty good about those conversations, but obviously, you know, grassroots support is really critical.
People reaching out.
And I think that's going to be huge.
We'd love to see Warren on this as well.
Rand Paul has actually been really good.
He he he's introduced a resolution to block weapon sales to Saudi in December.
Unfortunately, that didn't get the majority we needed, but he's really, you know, engaged on this issue and I think could be compelled to join an effort.
I'll also flag that that, you know, we've got some other Republicans on the House side.
We're still trying to secure exactly who will be the co-lead.
But a lot of the folks that have supported in the past, you know, there's a strong indication that they'll come on board with us.
You know, folks like Biggs, Buck, Massey, you know, I hope.
Yeah.
So folks like that, I think will definitely, you know, join the effort.
We're just trying to figure out who's going to be the co-lead.
Give me just a minute here.
Listen, I don't know about you guys, but part of running the Libertarian Institute is sending out tons of books and other things to our donors.
And who wants to stand in line all day at the post office?
But Stamps.com?
Sorry, but their website is a total disaster.
I couldn't spend another minute on it.
But I don't have to either, because there's EasyShip.com.
EasyShip.com is like Stamps.com, but their website isn't terrible.
Go to ScottHorton.org slash EasyShip.
Hey, y'all, Scott here.
You know, the Libertarian Institute has published a few great books.
Mine, Fool's Errand, Enough Already, and The Great Ron Paul.
Two by our executive editor Sheldon Richman, Coming to Palestine and What Social Animals Owe to Each Other.
And of course, No Quarter, The Ravings of William Norman Grigg, our late great co-founder and managing editor at the Institute.
Coming very soon in the new year will be the excellent Voluntarist Handbook, edited by Keith Knight, a new collection of my interviews about nuclear weapons, one more collection of essays by Will Grigg, and two new books about Syria by the great William Van Wagenen and Brad Hoff and his co-author, Zachary Wingard.
That's LibertarianInstitute.org slash books.
Now, listen here, man, I was talking with Joe Cirincione earlier about how this horrible crisis in Ukraine right now, in a way, makes the passage, the re-enabling of the Iran nuclear deal more possible, a little bit easier, because, boy, when you're talking about a conflict like this in Eastern Europe, it makes the Ayatollah and the Persians and their supposedly threatening civilian nuclear program really seem diminished in importance.
So maybe we can just go ahead and put that to bed kind of attitude.
And then, so I wonder whether, you know, obviously, the same sort of effect could affect the Yemen issue one of two obvious ways.
In one way, just nobody cares at all anymore because people only care about Eastern Europe, and so let the Saudis continue to do what they wilt.
Or maybe we could say, hey, listen, you know, Europe is so important that we really ought to put an end to this Yemen thing or something and somehow turn this into a thing like the JCPOA here, where somehow this crisis make it easier to solve that one kind of a deal.
Am I making any sense to you right now?
Well, this is, you know, certainly an interesting quandary and one that I've definitely thought about.
Part of the issue here is there's a political dynamic around energy and energy costs right now, and cutting off the Saudis militarily, you know, I think there's a sort of incentive of the Biden administration to want to keep good relationships there.
But Congress might not feel that same way.
They might, you know, I'm, you know, pushing and hoping that people can, you know, follow through with things that they've already promised to do.
But it certainly is putting a lot of pressure on the administration to keep military support and the relations with Riyadh good.
So I think it's definitely a concern.
Other members might be swayed by that.
I'm hoping that we still have a majority that wants to say, no, your war on Yemen is just not OK, and we need to end our complicity in it.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, not to get all into the battlefield, and hell, I'm not up to date all the way on the details, but I guess just from my cursory, keeping an eye on Jason Ditz and Dave DeCamp at Antiwar.com and their coverage over the last few weeks or, you know, six, eight weeks, you have essentially some gains by the Saudis on the ground and the Houthis pushed back from the city of Marib and I forgot the names of a couple other towns there in sort of the relatively southeast of the country.
And as you say, there's horrible bombings taking place at Hodeidah and all that.
But the bottom line being that the Houthis are sort of kind of having some setbacks, but it's probably not even fair to say that they're losing in any way.
They're definitely not in jeopardy of losing the capital city, which is the Saudis' goal, obviously, is to drive them completely out of power in Sana'a and, you know, try to put Hadi or somebody else on the throne there.
That now, so the Saudis are making no progress and in some cases have had some major setbacks like in Marib over the last year, if you lengthen your time scale there.
But then again, Riyadh is not really threatened.
You have, you know, a couple of drone strikes and small missile attacks against UAE and Saudi, but nothing that threatens some kind of, you know, Houthi invasion of their countries and regime change against them or anything like that.
So they're losing, but on somebody else's territory, in other words.
So doesn't look like there's too much incentive for those sides to quit.
And if anything is going to make it happen, you tell me if you got better ideas.
I want to hear them.
But it seems like it would have to be the American people making the Congress make the president tell the Saudis and the UAE.
And I guess Al-Qaeda would get the memo that this is over and we really mean it.
You have to stop it right now.
We're not supporting this anymore.
And even with whatever you can still do yourselves, we want that to stop too.
And we're putting our foot down and we really damn mean it.
And then, but is there anything else that can be done or we're in a real quandary here where the Houthis and the Saudis can afford to just keep fighting and fighting and the Brits and the Americans and the French too, I guess, just continue to cash in on the deal?
And some people really care because, as you said, it's the worst thing happening in the world right now of people laying down, dying and being exploded to death too.
And so, yeah, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
I was going to try to wrap that up with a question at the end, but I lost my sentence.
Well, I think what you said is pretty right on in a lot of respects.
I'll just, you know, add that despite, you know, some setbacks by the Houthis, you know, you've seen dynamics on the ground pretty stable, you know, like the Houthis occupy and control about 80 percent of the country's population centers.
So we're talking, you know, 20 plus, 22 million people or so are living in Houthi held territory that hasn't really changed.
You know, Mareb, you know, is still sort of contested, but, you know, that hasn't really changed.
You've seen a real increase in airstrikes.
You've seen new UAE involvement.
And that's sort of the tit for tat things going on by, you know, the Houthis attacking Abu Dhabi and the UAE.
It was in response to the UAE actually sending, you know, the Giants Brigade forces, their proxy forces into Houthi held territory and taking back some, you know, making some gains there.
But largely it's sort of, you know, you're still in kind of a stalemate.
And, you know, some have argued that we're no longer in a stalemate, that the Houthis are, you know, getting, you know, on the precipice of winning.
But, you know, this latest offensive by the Saudis, you know, airstrikes falling all the time.
So the violence is definitely escalating, but things seem to be stuck.
And I really do agree that without a lot of significant US pressure, you're not going to see this change in any dramatic way anytime soon.
And you're just going to see things grind on.
And, you know, and the US can't unilaterally bring about a ceasefire, but we have leverage here.
We have to get the Saudis to lift its blockade and end its airstrikes targeting civilians and civilians infrastructure.
And, you know, let's face it, Scott, after a year of Biden's failed Yemen policy, and, you know, you've got repeated, you know, congressional efforts to correct course, those have been rebuffed.
You know, lawmakers are really left with two options.
They can turn a blind eye to craven US complicity, or they can pass this Yemen war powers resolution and finally bring an end to our support and do what needs to be done here.
You know, and we don't have a lot of time.
You know, we've got the midterms coming up.
Ukraine is popping off and they need to get this done.
And I think, you know, what I would say is that folks could actually, you know, frame this as helping Biden fulfill his own campaign promise.
That's what Congress has the power to do right now.
And, you know, he's, you know, like.
It also helped him look less the blood soaked hypocrite while he's talking about how other people shouldn't launch and wage aggressive wars.
When he was the vice president, when Barack Obama launched this war of aggression against these people, never threatened us in any way.
And he's continued it for a year again like this.
Yeah, he could not agree more.
And it's about the liberal rules based international order, except that, oh, the Golan Heights.
Yeah, those belong to Israel and Western Sahara.
Yeah, Morocco can have that if they'll get along with Israel and Kosovo.
We'll just break that off because screw the Serbs.
They're friends with the Russians and we could break the rules whenever we want.
What are you going to do about it?
Oh, also, by the way, it's the liberal rules based international order.
Pardon me while I go bomb some children.
I could not help but feeling, you know, I just rub my eyes when I was watching Linda Thomas Greenfield at the U.N. and saying all this stuff about Ukraine and Russia's active aggression.
I'm like, how hypocritical do we, are we to say this in this moment?
And, you know, when we've toppled Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, we're helping the Saudis, you know, commit mass atrocities on Yemen.
And, you know, if not do it for like just like the basic human rights principles, do it so you actually sound credible.
So let's end this Yemen war and then let's stop other wars in the future and become, you know, actually supportive of human rights and the, you know, a rules based international order.
But Congress really is our last chance here.
This is where the buck stops.
Congress has to take back its constitutional war authority.
They need to, you know, cut off this ongoing logistical support for the Saudi warplanes and, you know, get this done because, you know, Congress has a role to play.
And I think that with this pressure, we can get the parties back to the bargaining table.
But without that, it's going to be really hard to bring this devastating war to an end.
Yep.
All right.
So web addresses, phone numbers, dates where things are happening, protests, lobbying groups, Zoom calls, anything that everybody needs to know here, please, sir.
Yeah, so we set up the 1-833-STOP-WAR number.
So if you dial 1-833-STOP-WAR, it's going to go right to your member of Congress and you're going to be and it's going to give you prompts and you're going to be able to say exactly what you need to and get the message across.
I think that's a great tool people can use.
I would say if you're listening and Rep Schiff is, if Rep Schiff is your member of Congress, and if this is the L.A. area, good chance that that's the case.
We need him to be out front on this.
He is part of House leadership.
He's super respected.
He's also been really good on this issue in the past.
So we want him to be an early co-sponsor of this bill.
And I can't stress that enough because, you know, we have a fight.
We got to get this through.
We got to get this through the House and, you know, the Biden administration.
They're probably going to whip hard against this vote when it does happen.
So having people like Adam Schiff on this bill is absolutely critical.
So 1-833-STOP-WAR.
Get your voice heard.
And yeah, you know, I just really appreciate you covering this issue so much, Scott, and for all your listeners out there.
All right.
Well, thank you.
We sure appreciate you too, Hassan.
Thank you very much.
Of course.
All right, you guys, that is Hassan Al-Tayeb.
He is at the Friends Committee on National Legislation, FCNL.org.
Oh, and his latest is Lawmakers Take Action on Biden's Failed Yemen Policy.
And that's at ResponsibleStatecraft.org.
The Scott Horton Show, anti-war radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in LA, APSradio.com, AntiWar.com, ScottHorton.org, and LibertarianInstitute.org.
