Stop the Brutal War in Yemen
By Tim Canova — Candidate for Florida’s 23rd Congressional District
In his Farewell Address, President Eisenhower warned about the rise of a military industrial complex — a permanent military establishment combined with an enormous arms industry. The grave dangers of which Eisenhower warned have only grown in recent years. Today, we have a permanent war lobby in Washington, D.C. — private defense and intelligence contractors with direct financial interests in fomenting hostilities around the world.
Ordinary citizens have paid the terribly high price for one disastrous and misguided war after another. We learned the wrong lessons from Vietnam and we seemed to have learned no lessons from our war in Iraq — wars that were based on lies and false narratives, from the Gulf of Tonkin to purported Weapons of Mass Destruction that never existed in Iraq.
I have opposed every war for regime change in the Middle East in the past two decades — from Iraq to Libya and Syria. Each of these wars showed a complete failure by Congress to fulfill its constitutional war-making responsibilities. Each has produced unintended but entirely predictable consequences — power vacuums that were filled by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Al Qaeda in Libya, and other violent extremist groups.
For the past three years, the U.S. has taken sides in a war in Yemen, and again without any Congressional authorization — a war that is part civil war, part religious sectarian war, and part proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The U.S. has literally fueled the war in Yemen by providing mid-air refueling to Saudi coalition jets, sharing intelligence for targeting air strikes, and selling bombs and other weapons to Saudi Arabia and its allies.
During these three years, the war in Yemen has inflicted massive civilian casualties — killing more than 10,000 Yemenis, wounding 40,000 more, leaving 15 million people without access to clean water and sanitation and another 17 million people — 60% of the total population — without adequate access to food and at risk for starvation. This is perhaps the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today.
Last week, a bipartisan group of senators — Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) — took action to end this U.S. military intervention in the Saudi-led war in Yemen with the introduction of the “War Powers Resolution,” S.J. Res. 54.
We applaud this effort. Congress has for too long abdicated its constitutional responsibilities. My opponent, Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been virtually silent on our unauthorized war in Yemen. Last year, when Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) introduced an identical resolution in the House of Representatives, Wasserman Schultz notably failed to join as a cosponsor.
When President Trump fired missiles into Syria last year without any Congressional authorization or oversight, Debbie Wasserman Schultz actually praised the action. She calls Donald Trump a madman even as she votes to give his National Security Agency authority for warrantless electronic surveillance of Americans.
Let’s tell Congress it’s time to assume its constitutional responsibilities, support S.J. Res. 54, and stop funding the war in Yemen. Please call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224–3121 and urge your senators to cosponsor S.J. Res. 54.
We need to push for peaceful diplomatic solutions to international conflicts — including through regional and global arms control agreements, backed by effective arms embargoes — instead of putting more American troops in harm’s way. None of this will be easy. It will require conversion of arms industries around the world to civilian use. It will require compromises between long bitter enemies. But the strategy of perpetual war has been a failure for the American people and for people around the world.
There’s a lot at stake in this election. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has taken millions of dollars from huge corporations, including the huge defense and intelligence contractors and Wall Street banks that profit from perpetual war. And she has supported these wars of regime change. Our campaign takes no corporate money, we rely entirely on small donations from people like you. And you can count on me to resist the drums of war and ask the tough questions. Click here to join our campaign to elect an independent-minded progressive to fight back against the military industrial complex.
