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All right, you guys.
H.
Con Res 81 House Concurrent Resolution 81 is on its way to the House floor.
To invoke the War Powers Act to halt America and Saudi's war against Yemen.
On the line, I have Kate Kaiser.
She is director of policy and advocacy at Yemen Peace News.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing, Kate?
Good.
Thanks for having me.
Very happy to have you here.
And so listen, tell me, I guess, everything you know and what people can do about this resolution that's going to the House right now.
Sure.
So H.
Con Res 81 would end U.S. military support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen that's been conducting unlawful airstrikes in the country that killed civilians and destroyed the country's vital infrastructure for nearly three years at this point.
And that U.S. military support is really essential to the coalition continuing its military operations in Yemen.
So the bill's co-sponsors, it's a bipartisan group of members in the House who have introduced this resolution, are hoping that this bill will really be used as leverage to push for peace in the conflict and end the U.S. role in potential war crimes there.
So it's supposed to come up for a vote as early as Friday, November 3rd.
So there's about a week right now where constituents can weigh in with their members, asking them to co-sponsor as well as vote in support of the resolution when it comes to the floor.
Cool.
And now, so I only heard like kind of a background kind of tale about this, about it was supposed to already come to a vote this month.
Right.
But then the bad guys tried to kill it and the good guys got a delay.
Is that right?
Yeah, basically, Republican leadership attempted, was trying to pull some procedural gymnastics to kill the bill and prevent it from coming to the floor.
So because the bill invokes the War Powers Resolution, it's called a privileged resolution, which means in theory, under the law, it's guaranteed a vote.
But Paul Ryan was trying to force the House Rules Committee to pass a resolution to restrict the bill of privilege.
And to prevent that from happening, there was a deal that was made to delay the ripening of the privilege or basically delay the timeline in which members could call the bill to a floor vote.
So that is why it's now at the end of next week.
So there's still ongoing attempts and pressure from both Republican and Democratic leadership to prevent a vote on this bill, because I think there is widespread concern about just voting on war and peace, especially in this Congress.
So we're likely to still kind of see more of that maneuvering and preventing a vote.
But I think there's growing widespread bipartisan support for not only the bill, but also questions about what it is the U.S. is actually doing in Yemen.
And what's the date that it's scheduled for the debate and the vote now?
The earliest it could come up for a vote is Friday, November 3rd.
OK, that was what I thought.
So it could be that day or it could be the following week, depending on what happens.
But we'll know more early next week.
But now time is on our side on this, right?
Because more and more people are signing up and joining on, joining in, co-sponsoring the thing.
And it's getting more and more publicity all the time.
So if it gets delayed a little bit longer, it'd be bad for the Yemenis, but it actually might be better because maybe we could even get the thing to pass.
What do you think?
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, I think the more time that we have to, you know, lobby members of Congress and educate them on the situation in Yemen and the U.S. role there, that's really to our advantage.
I hate to say that because, you know, every day Yemenis are dying for no particular reason.
So except for, you know, the Saudi kind of proxy war against Iran or the purported proxy war in the country.
And so, you know, we just saw Raul Labrador, who's a Republican from Idaho, just signed on to co-sponsor.
So I think it's gaining more and more traction the longer it's delayed, actually.
Right.
Well, and now here's the thing, as you've alluded to here, people just really don't know that much about it.
It seems like once it gets to the House floor, this could be the most exciting episode of C-SPAN 2 in a long, long time.
Yeah, I think, you know, the Senate had their vote in June about blocking arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
That was like the first, really first Senate vote on war and peace issues since Trump came into the office.
And the House has tried to have such debates, you know, around the NDAA and other appropriations bill that have come down the pike.
But so far, House leadership has been able to prevent such a debate.
So I think this is really important to push for the debate and vote that this resolution deserves.
And particularly in light of the fact that, you know, more and more members on both sides of the aisle are starting to learn about what we're doing in Yemen.
Many are just not aware.
And they're also receiving conflicting information from the State Department as well as the Pentagon on what the exact U.S. role is.
So in addition to just needing to end the U.S. role there, I think this bill also speaks to the need for additional congressional oversight on war powers in general.
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Well, so I'm interested in the technicality of the invocation of the War Powers Act here.
I know that almost universally, the War Powers Act is misunderstood as allowing any president to start any war he wants whenever he wants, but only for 60 days.
Then he needs permission when, in fact, it explicitly forbids such a thing.
And the 60 days part is that the president may defend, may repel an attack and defend the United States from attack by somebody else.
But even then, he has to come back for permission within 60 days.
An entirely different reading.
That's the plain English reading of the text.
After all, they passed it with supermajority votes in both houses to override Richard Nixon's veto and shove it down his throat.
Is that because it was a massive grant of new power to him to start a war?
Of course not.
But anyway, so I'm wondering what exactly is the spin in this text, because it's virtually universally misunderstood.
And I wonder whether this resolution says your 60 days are up or whether it says, hey, you can't do this, President Obama slash Trump, start a war when there's no pretext even that this is authorized under the AUMF.
Because, in fact, we're fighting against the Zaidi Shia on behalf of al-Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen right now in this war.
Yeah, it's a really complicated situation.
And I think, you know, the War Powers Resolution was passed.
Every administration since it was passed, first of all, has said it's illegal and it's an overreach by Congress against executive power.
But I think that's why it was passed in the first place.
What it was passed to do is to prevent another situation like Vietnam, where we're essentially, quote unquote, sending advisers to advise and assist.
And that's the only role.
And slowly but surely, those forces or advisers get introduced into areas of active hostilities and ultimately get the U.S. bogged down in a quagmire.
And I think that's exactly what's happening right now in Yemen.
You know, since the Obama administration lent support in March 2015, it's always been talked about that the U.S. role is just advising and helping the Saudis, that our armed forces are not directly involved in hostilities.
But if you read Section 8C of the War Powers Resolution, it actually defines what the introduction of armed forces is.
And it says, you know, if our troops are deployed to a war, but then it also has a corollary definition that says if our troops are introduced into a situation to assist or help in the movement of foreign armed forces that are involved in active hostilities.
And so, you know, U.S. refueling, U.S. targeting assistance to the Saudi Arabian coalition, that is literally helping them move about the country to hit targets and bomb the country, definitely falls under that reading of the War Powers Resolution.
But unfortunately, House leadership on both sides of the aisle are basically trying to argue, as well as the Pentagon, that, oh, well, that doesn't actually count or they just leave that entire reading of the law out.
So I think, you know, again, this resolution basically says, like, this has never been authorized.
And under this section of the War Powers Resolution, it's pretty clear that what we're doing in Saudi Arabia meets the threshold to invoke the War Powers Resolution.
And that's why it's a privileged resolution and guaranteed a vote.
Mm hmm.
Now, of course, it's interesting.
And I noticed, oh, it was a article in Fox News about this where they had a quote from not sure if it was Walter Jones, but it was one of the Republicans staff making it clear that this is not in regards to the current and ongoing CIA.
And now, apparently, according to good journalism, Special Operations Forces war against al Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen.
This is the war that we're fighting for them against the Houthis and the old Saleh regime that have now joined forces and control the capital city.
So if this was to pass unanimously in both houses, the CIA and Special Operations Forces war against al Qaeda and ISIS there would still continue.
This is much more limited in scope.
And it seems like, well, I mean, the reason I'm excited to see it all unfold on C-SPAN is because the best the war party has is a pretension that the Houthis are just a front for Iran, like they're a new Hezbollah and all of this, when it just isn't so.
And Obama himself even admitted on TV out loud that the Iranians tried to warn the Houthis not to take the capital city back at the end of 2014, beginning of 2015.
And they did it anyway.
And when they're allied with Obama's old buddy, Saleh, who he armed and financed to the degree that he became the tyrant, he became bad enough that people overthrew him in the first place.
Anyway, I'm going back too far.
The point is, what a wreck.
And 700 something thousand, according to The Independent yesterday, 700, almost 800,000 people now have come down with cholera.
It's, you know, the miracle workers at Doctors Without Borders.
I guess they're keeping them all from dying, but still thousands and thousands have died.
We don't really know.
It's a horrible, horrible war.
It's probably the worst war that America has going on now.
And that includes Afghanistan and Iraq War 3 and, you know, East Syria and all that as well.
It's really, really bad.
And so anyway, can you talk also a little bit about the coalition of the Congress people who have come together to support this?
I'm familiar with Walter Jones and Thomas Massey, but I'm not familiar with the Democrats whose names have come up here.
And and I'm not familiar with the story about how they came to work together on this.
I don't know if you are.
Can you help with that?
Yeah, sure.
So, you know, it's Walter B.
Jones from North Carolina and Thomas Massey from Kentucky, as you mentioned, who have been real leaders on limiting the executive war power.
And just also calling into question why we're involved in all of these foreign conflicts and on the Democratic side for in terms of the leading co-sponsors is Mr. Ropana from California and Mr. Mark Pocan from Wisconsin.
And Mr. Pocan is the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
And Mr. Cona is a leading member of that caucus as well.
And both of the Democratic members have been leading voices in linking the dire humanitarian situation to U.S. support and actions by the Saudi coalition.
So and they've also been trying to attempt legislatively throughout the year to limit U.S. involvement and provide some type of oversight.
And so I think it just speaks to no matter if you're looking at this.
And I think they also see it as a national security issue because the longer these civilians are put under such dire circumstances, the better opportunity groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, which now has an affiliate in Yemen, are able to basically exploit the grievances of the population to grow in strength.
The State Department's own report in July of this year said the main benefactor of the war is al-Qaeda.
And so I think both sides argument is basically if we want to limit al-Qaeda's influence, limit Iran's influence, we need to end the war.
And so I think it's really important that no matter if you are looking at this from a humanitarian perspective or from a national security perspective, there's widespread agreement that ending the war and ending the U.S. role in allowing the coalition to continue a military only course in the conflict is the way forward here and the way to push for peace, which is exactly what this resolution does.
All right.
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OK, well, the most important political win by the American people against the war party in our era was in August, September of 2013, when the American people just absolutely insisted.
And this goes for all of right-wing talk radio land, too.
I mean, I don't know what Rush Limbaugh said, but I know that virtually all of the right-wing AM talk radio community of America were against that war.
And there were USGIs were holding up signs and doing viral YouTube videos that said, I didn't join up the Marine Corps so I could fight for Al-Qaeda in the Syrian civil war.
And I think the key, the key, Kate, was Breitbart.
That was the place.
And I guess Drudge, too.
This is where right-wing talk radio gets their information from.
Is the narrative, ooh, Assad, we got to get Assad.
Or is the narrative, hey, Assad's better than Al-Qaeda, at least.
And in this case, they got it right.
And it seems to me, I know I ain't the one.
They're going to listen to me.
And I don't know if you know a guy or what.
Somebody who gets along with these right-wingers has got to get them on board for this.
The narrative here for them is, again, as you just said, quoting the State Department, it's benefiting Al-Qaeda there.
We can blame it all on Obama.
Trump inherited this terrible war.
Let's give him a pathway out of it.
It's this horrible thing.
That's all Obama's fault.
Whatever it is, we have to frame it to get Breitbart on board for this.
So that they're then informing all of right-wing talk radio land.
That's how we stopped the attack in 2013.
Well, I don't know, we.
I was there.
But that's how the attack was stopped.
That was the coalition of strange bedfellows, that's for sure.
That's right.
So that's something that we really got to focus on.
And I'm not exactly sure how to do it.
But I know that that's the key to really get.
I mean, in fact, just highlighting the fact that it's Walter Jones and Thomas Massey and these Republicans who are leading this opposition in a way, makes it OK for right-wingers to be anti-war.
You know what I mean?
Absolutely.
And I think I think the key, you know, the key issue is just educating the public about this.
Most Americans have no idea where Yemen is on the map, let alone that the U.S. is intimately involved in a war there and also intimately involved in helping starve literally millions of people.
And there's no real strategic interest for the U.S. to be doing that, except that we need to support our ally, Saudi Arabia, and push back against this.
Hypothetical threat of Iran in the country, which really, when you talk to Yemenis on the ground, does not exist.
So, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, blasting this out to as many sides of different political currents is really important because there, you know, we don't just we don't agree on a lot of things.
But I think there are certain issues like this that all Americans can agree on and push for change together.
It's the most effective way to do that.
Absolutely.
All right.
So tell them some activism stuff.
Who do they call?
Who do they write?
How do they do it?
What's the deal?
So you can call the Capitol switchboard and they'll connect you with your representative.
And it's as simple as asking your representative to co-sponsor H.
Conrad's 81 and tell them that you want the U.S. to not participate in the war in Yemen.
You can also ask them to vote yes for the resolution when it comes to the floor next week.
And you can also go on your representative's Web site, which is typically their last name dot house dot gov, and send them an email through their contact page, which they also read.
So I think it's important to reach out as much as possible.
And the best way to do that is to get some group of your friends together and do calls together.
And you can also, in addition to calling your own representative, call any reps that you want.
And really, in this case, any member of either party is a real target.
I think progressive members of Congress on the Democratic side, as well as members of the Freedom and Liberty Caucus on the Republican side, are key targets to call because they have already voiced support for reigning in the executive's war powers.
And that is kind of a key aspect of this vote.
Mm hmm.
All right.
Now, but we're also jaded and cynical and we've been fighting the war party to hardly any avail all this time.
And so why should anybody really bother when we all know our congressmen and senators won't listen to us?
We're just regular people out here.
Oh, but they do listen.
I can't tell you how many meetings because I meet with directly with staff on the Hill every day and so many meetings.
They're like, yeah, you know, we're really we're hearing from a lot of constituents about Yemen.
And that's me.
That makes the staff pay attention to the issue.
It makes it so they actually read the bill and see what's going on.
And again, a lot of this is about education and getting the word out.
So the calls really, really do matter.
And I think there is you know, I think the Syria case is a really good example of that is when grassroots activists actually get involved and get loud.
It has a real impact.
And I think it's important that, you know, this is a key war and peace vote.
And this is the first time, at least in this Congress, for constituents really to hold their representatives accountable to voting the right way.
And it's not every day that you get a guaranteed vote on the House floor.
And this is kind of the situation we're in now.
And you have a week to do that.
Right.
Absolutely.
All right.
Well, thank you very much, Kate, for your time.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you, Scott.
All right, you guys, that's Kate Kaiser.
She is the director of policy and advocacy at Yemen Peace News.
Follow him on Twitter at Yemen Peace News.
And listen, everybody always says, and including me, too, what can we really do about it?
My answer is, well, do these interviews and stuff and try to spread the word around.
And hey, here's a real thing that we could really do that could really make a difference.
And especially for us ideological libertarians, here's a place where we can really help lead and help to get the left and the rights priority straight on the most important issue.
Our issues.
Genocide.
You heard that Nassar Arabi interview yesterday, right?
Yeah.
So serious business here.
H Con Res 81.
H Con Res 81.
Just let them know that it's important to you.
That's it.
Or more.
All right.
Thanks.
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