This week, the Senate is to engage in a floor debate and vote on a War Powers Act challenge on the legality of US involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The war was never authorized by Congress, and while that and the many war crimes were enough to force some challenges in the past, this week’s is the first liable to pass.
But while all the same war crime issues are there, worse than ever, the vote is less about the Yemen War itself this time around than a referendum on US-Saudi relations, after the Saudi kingdom murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Despite the CIA having “high confidence” that the Saudi crown prince was behind this murder of this US resident, the Trump Administration has defended the kingdom, and the prince, and argued it isn’t worth risking US-Saudi ties, or lucrative arms deals, over the killing of one journalist.
For Senate leaders who have historically had little interest in Yemen war crimes, anger at the Saudi Crown Prince getting away with murder has become the new driving force of this vote, and has made it for them a challenge to the White House decision to do nothing over Khashoggi’s death.
Those wishing to call their senators should do so in the next few days before the matter comes up for vote. You can do this by calling the Capitol switchboard at (202)224-3121 or by finding individual contact information here.
Let’s play realpolitik here. The Saudi’s can easily find another patron if they need to. They can drop the arms contracts. They can pull their 100s of billions out of their US investments. They can send home the 10’s of thousands of US oil service workers. They can buy oil drilling equipment from elsewhere. Russia or China can provide them with arms and protection if needed.
I don’t give a **** about this WAPO flunky. Trump is right.
Then let them find another patron. I thought you Trumpsters were all about MAGA. That can’t possibly mean maintaining the status quo.
OK, you are perfectly entitled to your point of view.
That now means that US must stop playing the innocent purveyor of democracy. Stop pretending to be the World’s Policeman. Admit that US joins allies for its own benefit and invades or supports terrorists in foreign countries for its own geopolitical gains.
I am perfectly willing to admit all those things.
I greatly admire your honesty, a quality not found very often these days.
Sure, maybe trump could finally get to off some journalists here for your very same reasons.
Unlike the US and the British, the Chinese, Russians and Europeans are smart enough to anticipate the disastrous consequences of supporting a barbaric absolute monarchy that will be overthrown by its own people when oil runs out or perhaps sooner if the Royal Family continues butchering and disappearing journalists and dissidents. The Russians and Chinese would support a UN arms embargo on the Wahabis in a hot minute. R&C would see the demise of USA’s major Arab ally as a strategic gain. Both of them are building long term ties to Iran, the most stable regime in the region. The UN and the US/EU dominated global financial system as well as the Chinese and Russian capacity to see further than the USA ruling class will guarantee that Riydayh would be isolated. China and Russia are playing for the long term and will not get into bed with the House of Saud or the other doomed medieval despots in the Persian Gulf.
The best possible scenario is in 2020 T.Rump will step aside do to low approval and Pence will take the helm and a far worst consequence that will follow.
As shown in this article, one leading American think tank believes that there is an upside to Saudi Arabia’s killing of Jamal Khashoggi:
https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-atlantic-council-and-leveraging.html
Washington’s pandering to the Saudi royal family is nothing short of pathological.
No one bothered charging the Saudis for refueling. Few reps seriously questioned the president’s involvement in the Saudi invasion until now, or the military’s pretense that this isn’t really a war. Top US senators on intel / armed services committees didn’t know the extent of what the US military was up to in Africa until soldiers started coming home dead. For almost 30 years, congress has mandated the military account for how they spend money, and military officials have refused to do so.
What we need is to restore civilian oversight of the military, because without it we live in a dictatorship.
If those kids didn’t want to starve they should have got jobs with the Washington Post.