VOTE THURSDAY: Save 30,000 Yemenis from the Saudi Regime

Call your Senators:
202-225-3121

Report your calls in the comments below my post at Daily Kos, to inspire others to call

The last report Tuesday evening from DC was that a vote was expected in the Senate Thursday afternoon on overriding Trump’s “veto” of the Bernie Sanders – Mike Lee – Chris Murphy Yemen War Powers Resolution to end unconstitutional U.S. participation in the Saudi war-blockade-famine on children in Yemen. 

If that’s all you needed to know, please call your two Senators now at 202-225-3121 and urge them to vote to override the “veto.” When you’ve made your calls, please report them in the comments below this post, in part to report what happened, and in part to inspire other people to call. Note that the first comment is from me. I made my two calls. You can too. I’m not asking you to do anything I didn’t do. 

[I put “veto” in quotes because under Article I of the Constitution, reaffirmed by the War Powers Resolution in 1973, Congress, not the President, decides when to use U.S. military force, so if Congress says U.S. participation in the war is unconstitutional and should stop, which it did when it passed the Sanders-Lee-Murphy resolution, that should be the end of the matter, and Trump’s so-called “veto” was unconstitutional. But the question on the table right now is the Senate vote to override.] 

The distance from our slingshot to the Goliath of the Saudi war in Yemen on the override vote is not small. In order to win the override vote, we need all the Democrats to vote again with us, plus the seven Republicans who voted with us in March, plus a bunch of other Republicans. 

Here’s some reasons why we should try to end the war now, although the distance to Goliath on the override vote is far: 

- If we don’t end this war now, thirty thousand more human beings in Yemen are likely to be killed by the Saudi war and blockade by the end of the year. Congress can cut off funding for the war in the Pentagon authorization/appropriations bills, which are very hard to veto, since they “fund the troops.” But those are not likely to become law until the end of the year. Meanwhile, thirty thousand more Yemenis would die, many of them from starvation and preventable disease. So we should try to end the war now. Isn’t it worth two short phone calls to DC to try to save thirty thousand lives?

- We’ve never been at this juncture before, since the War Powers Resolution was passed in 1973, so nobody can really say exactly how it goes. Senate Republicans who vote to sustain the “veto” now would be ostentatiously voting against Article I of the Constitution. 

- The fact that seven Senate Republicans voted with us last time proves that it’s not impossible for a bunch of Senate Republicans to be with us. The issue of unconstitutional war doesn’t divide neatly along partisan lines. We have Republican friends on this. We just need a bunch more of them, and we need them now. 

- Phone calls can move Members of Congress, including Republicans, on the issue of unconstitutional war. It happened in August 2013. 

- Most Republicans outside the Beltway don’t like unconstitutional war or the Saudi regime any more than most Democrats do. So it’s not like there’s big grassroots Republican punishment for Republicans in store if they vote for the Constitution and against the Saudi regime now. 

- When you call a Senate office, they don’t know if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. If a Republican Senator gets a bunch of phone calls from their district on unconstitutional war, they don’t know if they were Democrats calling. Maybe they were Republicans calling.  

Please call now: 202-225-3121. Ask your two Senators to vote to override the “veto” of the Sanders-Lee-Murphy resolution. And please report your calls in the comments below this post at Daily Kos. 

You can also sign and share our petition to Senate Republicans urging them to override the “veto,” so children in Yemen may live.  

Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just, 

Robert Reuel Naiman
Just Foreign Policy

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