Sorry I'm late.
I had to stop by the Wax Museum again and give the finger to FDR.
We know Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri, is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America.
And by God, we've kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very, very much.
I say it, I say it again, you've been had.
You've been took.
You've been hoodwinked.
These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as fact.
He came, he saw, he died.
We ain't killing their army, but we killing them.
We be on CNN, like, say our names, say it, say it three times.
The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world.
Then there's going to be an invasion.
All right, you guys, introducing Representative Ro Khanna from the Bay Area there in Northern California.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing, sir?
I'm doing well.
Good, good.
Happy to have you here.
Thank you for having me.
So I've noticed here, last, I guess, at least year, maybe longer, you've been working as hard as you can in the U.S. House of Representatives to stop the war in Yemen, including heroically and historical precedent-settingly passing the War Powers Act resolution, or resolutions invoking the War Powers Resolution of, what, 1974 or whatever it is, to try to force an end to this war.
So I was wondering, first of all, could you explain to the audience, what's the big deal about the Yemen war anyway?
And then where we are on that effort now in Congress?
Well, first of all, thank you for bringing it up, and thank you for speaking about it so passionately for the past year and a half.
I know you've been a very loud champion, and many of the peace groups have praised your program when a lot of the mainstream media was ignoring it.
On a personal level, it's a humanitarian disaster.
You have 14 million people who may face famine.
I was talking to Special Envoy Griffiths, who I'm often in touch with, and he said that every month that is passing by is increasing the likelihood of that kind of a famine.
And I grew up with a great sensitivity towards human rights.
My grandfather had spent time in jail during the 1940s with Gandhi in the Indian independence movement.
And, of course, 1943 was the year of the awful famine in West Bengal that Amartya Sen writes about.
Three million people perished, and that was because of British indifference at a time where India didn't have the ability to have self-rule.
It would be horrific for the world because of indifference to see a famine that is on orders of magnitude even worse in Yemen in the modern age, especially when we know that all it takes to prevent it is for the Saudis to lift the blockade and allow food and medicine in.
We saw some progress when we passed the War Powers Resolution.
Martin Griffiths was able to use that to get a ceasefire in Hodeidah.
But the blockade continues, and we need to continue to put pressure on the administration to tell the Saudis to allow food and medicine into the country.
All right, now, so a big part of this, right, is that they've dressed it up as the Saudi-led coalition, and yet it's America that is the global hegemon and Saudi Arabia that is our satellite.
So what exactly is the role of the United States in this war?
The United States has been refueling Saudi planes that have been bombing Yemen.
The United States has been providing intelligence assistance both to the United Arab Emirates and to the Saudis in their war in Yemen.
It's important to understand this is completely unconstitutional.
The United States has never authorized the military to get involved in a war in Yemen, in a civil war.
We have authorized going after al-Qaeda in 2001, and I think that authorization of force is too broad, but that's at least authorized.
So to the extent American military are in Yemen in counterterrorism fighting al-Qaeda, that Congress has signed off on.
Our War Powers Resolution made it clear that we weren't even trying to prohibit that.
What we're trying to prohibit is supporting the Saudi invasion of Yemen and supporting the Saudi bombing of Yemen, which is completely unconstitutional.
Well, that's certainly true.
I mean, they can't even really pretend to spin this as, say, the Obama drone war against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, when this is in fact the war against their worst enemies in the country, the Houthis.
And I'm not sure if you are familiar with this, Congressman.
You may have heard it, but I'll even send a link to your staff if you need me to.
But there's a piece in the Wall Street Journal from January of 2015, where Central Command explains that they're passing intelligence to the Houthis to use against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
And they say, we don't care about the Houthis.
They want to take over the capital city.
That's none of our business.
But if they want to kill al-Qaeda guys, we'll help them.
Well, just a couple of months later, Obama turned around and switched sides in the war.
And so, if that was the war against AQAP, then this is the war for AQAP.
Isn't that right?
Well, you're absolutely right.
And there have been reports recently that the Saudis have been assisting al-Qaeda.
In fact, al-Qaeda in Yemen has been getting arms from the Saudis, and they've been using some of that against our own troops.
So it is a twisted logic in terms of why we're even there.
It's not in our national security interests.
And it has to do with the United States' longstanding relationship with the Saudis.
That has to be reexamined and questioned.
But at the very least, we ought to tell the Saudis to knock off what they're doing in Yemen and the humanitarian crisis.
That's the least they can do.
We should probably reexamine the alliance more broadly and our military sales and our economic ties.
But the very least we can do is insist that they allow food and medicine into a nation that's literally starving to death.
Yeah.
When they do let any in, they try to take credit.
Like, all they're doing is trying to provide some aid to the poor Yemenis.
Tell me this.
Do you think that if, say, for example, I guess we know in the Senate last week, I'm skipping ahead here, but that the Senate had tried to override Trump's veto.
But let's say you had the votes in both houses to override the veto, forcing an end to American participation.
Do you think the Saudis and the UAE could or would continue the war without the USA, without our Navy and Air Force, and our, you know, Lockheed and Raytheon arming them and the rest?
Certainly not without our arms.
I mean, the arms we've already sold, they probably could continue.
But they would, if we put any pressure, if we said that this is going to jeopardize future arms sales or jeopardize their relationship with the United States, they would stop.
But they know that while the Congress has become skeptical of the relationship, the president continues to have a close relationship.
Now, they're miscalculating.
Presidents come and go.
The Congress actually is more critical long term in having a strong relationship with another country.
And I think they are really continuing to burn that bridge.
If I were offering them any advice, not that they would listen to me, I would say it's in your strategic interest to bring this war to a close.
Yeah.
Well, Operation Decisive Storm was supposed to be over in a couple of weeks, and now here we are four years later.
And it seems to be agreed, doesn't it, as far as you know, too, that they're no closer to achieving their goal, if their goal even still remains the reinstallation of Mansour Hadi on the throne there.
They're no closer to achieving what goal?
Of reinstalling Mansour Hadi back in power?
That's not going to happen.
I mean, you're absolutely right.
I mean, it's one of these endless wars.
They're not going to achieve their goal.
The only opportunity for them is to have some regional settlement.
The Houthis are going to have to be part of it and to have some governing coalition.
And they're going to need to sit down with the Houthis, with Iran, with the Saudis, and have a regional conference on what a coalition government would look like there.
Everyone knows that.
I mean, they are not going to be able to install their government in Yemen.
Yeah.
As has been apparent all along, and it's amazing to think we're four years into this, but I've got to say that other than the Friends Committee and Code Pink and the usual suspects of the great American anti-war activists, who are so few in number, it really has been incredible to see that some of the best leadership on this issue in this country are actually members of Congress.
And it doesn't seem like there's any real good reason why you would be.
The hate Iran at all costs lobby is very strong.
The defend the poor Yemeni civilians lobby is nowhere to be seen in any direction.
And yet, congressmen like yourself and senators like Bernie Sanders and Mike Lee and others have really worked hard to push this issue when there's almost no public demand for it.
So I want to give you credit for that, but I also want to ask you, I mean, you mentioned a little bit of your personal history there, but how do you explain that when it comes to the rest of your congressmen, especially when the excuse for this is that Iran is on the other side?
Well, that's why it was hard in the beginning.
When I came as a freshman, one of the reasons I introduced the War Powers Resolution is no one else wanted to touch it.
And so they said, give it to the new guy.
And of course, I had a personal connection because of my history and my grandfather's involvement in human rights.
And so for me, outreach to the human rights community was very natural.
And I understood from Yemeni Americans in my district how critical this issue was.
But I think what has happened, and Senator Sanders showed great courage in introducing this in the Senate, and he understands some of the issues.
I mean, he's spoken about Patrice Lumumba's overthrow and the ugliness of Belgian colonialism in the Congo.
So he has a very nuanced understanding of human rights and the importance of a just foreign policy.
But the reason we were able to build so much support is there is a wariness of war and interventions that is building in the Congress.
There is an understanding that this foreign policy of interventionism hasn't served American interests.
There is an understanding that our relationship with the Saudis has to be reexamined and that our first principle in the Middle East should be do no harm and not get entangled in other wars.
And given that that sentiment is taking hold in Congress, should give a lot of encouragement to peace groups.
They were the catalyst and they continue to be the catalyst, but now their voices are being heard.
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You know, there was a book a few years ago by a couple of former National Security Council staffers and a CIA analyst, a married couple, Flint and Hillary Mann Leverett, who had worked for Bush, worked with Iran after September 11th against al-Qaeda for a short time before Iraq War II broke out and all of that.
But anyway, so they wrote this book called Going to Tehran.
And they said even, they predicted the doom of a nuclear deal.
They said if Barack Obama does a nuclear deal with Iran, he won't be able to get it through.
And even if he does, it'll end up being sabotaged because there are too many other outstanding issues between the United States and Iran.
So what Obama should do is go to Tehran, shake hands with the Ayatollah, figure out a way to have a peaceful coexistence with the Persians.
We're not going to dominate them like it was from 53 to 79.
We don't have that option anymore.
We need to figure out in D.C., you guys need to figure out how you can be okay with that.
That they're going to remain independent from our empire, but still we can get along with them anyway.
Because otherwise it looks like, as you can see in the news just yesterday and today, we could get into a war with another country that didn't attack us.
Well look, I mean I of course believe in the American Republic, the American democratic tradition.
The British had an empire.
I think their form of colonialism was horrendous.
America I think has the potential to be a great force of good in the world in the 21st century.
And the way we do that is by having relationships with Iran that is based on fact.
First of all, they're a Shiite country.
Shiite Islam, as you probably know, was really a rejection of theocracy.
I mean it was a belief of separation of church and state.
And Bruce Ackerman, who was a constitutional law professor, has a terrific book about how many Iranians actually believe that there should be a separation of church and state and as part of their own religious identity.
Now the regime there in many ways has been a destructive force.
But what we need to do is figure out a way of de-escalating tensions of assuring Iranians that we don't have an interest in regime change and focus on developing our country and focusing on the largest competitor, which is China, to America.
And I think that Obama's step was the first step towards that pathway of normalizing relations.
Iran's a young country and many of the young people there are actually very pro-America.
I wonder if, just rhetorically speaking, if the best line shouldn't be to dare Donald Trump to be man enough to make peace with the Ayatollah, to go ahead and go to Tehran.
Obama was afraid to.
I wonder if you've got the courage, Mr. President, to go and put this thing behind us.
Because after all, I mean we're sitting here talking about essentially a genocide in Yemen.
You can't have millions of people on the brink of starvation for four years straight without having hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them drop dead, which they already are doing in huge numbers.
And we may find out after this thing that we'd be lucky if it's fewer than a million people dying of deprivation in this crisis.
And it's all in the name of the Houthis, our friends with the Iranians.
Same thing for American support for many years anyway.
For the jihadi fighters against Assad in Syria.
Because Assad is friends with Iran.
Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic.
That's right.
That's why we're doing it.
To help take Iran down a peg.
Well, if we could just make friends with Iran, then maybe we wouldn't have to fight wars for al-Qaeda against their friends in the region.
What do you think?
Well, I think the idea of telling the President that he needs to go try to make peace is not a bad approach.
I've supported him in trying to make peace with Kim Jong-un in North Korea.
I've supported efforts of bilateral diplomacy in general.
The problem is the President hasn't often followed through on his rhetoric.
We have endless wars still intervening now, possibly in Venezuela, escalating in Iran.
He still hasn't withdrawn from Syria.
His instincts originally as a candidate of getting out of bad wars were not bad, but his administration is being run by Mike Pompeo and Bolton, and the last thing they want is the view that you're articulating.
Yeah, and it really is a shame, and on the thing goes.
Now, real quickly, because I want to ask you about Venezuela, actually.
Yeah, I've got to get going, so maybe this could be the last question.
Okay, sorry, I'll leave it at this then.
So, Kenny, give us an update of where we are in the Congress, because I know the override is over, but the war's not over, so you have to keep fighting about this.
Well, we're trying to take this perhaps to court.
I've had a constitutional law professor write to Nancy Pelosi.
The Supreme Court actually has case law that suggests that Congress is the final arbiter of matters of war and peace.
This is still an unconstitutional war, so my hope is that we may take this to court and then have the courts resolve it, and we're continuing to push in the NDAA, which is the Defense Authorization Bill for no funding for the Saudi effort in Yemen.
We're continuing to put pressure, as Martin Griffith has suggested, on the Saudis in terms of arms sales that will get the Saudis to the table to stop the war and allow food and medicine in.
That's great.
Yeah, I mean, that's what we need to hear, and you know what?
Just keeping it creative and keeping it in the news is one of the most important things you can do, because otherwise they're just not going to pay attention.
You can't make them do it.
I completely agree, and this was a huge part of my priorities of the first term.
I introduced the War Powers Resolution three times before it finally passed, and this is not a clause that I'm going to let up on.
Right on.
Well, thank you so much.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
All right, you guys, that is Representative Ro Khanna from Northern California, Bay Area there, and you can check him out online at Khanna.
That's K-H-A-N-N-A.
Khanna.house.gov.
All right, y'all, thanks.
Find me at libertarianinstitute.org, at scotthorton.org, antiwar.com, and reddit.com slash scotthortonshow.
Oh, yeah, and read my book, Fool's Errand, Timed and the War in Afghanistan at foolserrand.us.
