Bernie Sanders to Bring Yemen War Powers Resolution to the Senate Floor

Call 1-833-Stop-War to tell your senator to support the legislation, which would end US support for the Saudi war and blockade on Yemen

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told The Intercept on Monday that he could bring a Yemen War Powers Resolution to the floor of the Senate for a vote “hopefully next week.”

The resolution would end US support for the brutal Saudi-led war and blockade on Yemen. According to the UN, the war and blockade have killed at least 377,000 people, more than half of which are children under the age of five.

A version of the resolution has been introduced in the House and Senate, and both have received strong bipartisan support, with over 100 co-sponsors in the House. When asked by The Intercept if he will have enough votes to pass the resolution, Sanders said, “I think we do, yes.” A similar resolution made it through Congress in 2019, but the measure was vetoed by President Trump.

Americans can call 1-833-Stop-War to get connected to their senators and representatives and urge them to support the legislation that could bring an end to the over seven-year war. Go to 1833stopwar.com for more information and for helpful prompts on what to say when connected.

Violence has been down in Yemen this year thanks to a ceasefire that was enacted from March to October. Since the ceasefire expired, there have been no reported Saudi airstrikes in Yemen or Houthi attacks inside Saudi Arabia. But there has been increased fighting on the ground, and while the blockade has been eased since the ceasefire, it hasn’t been fully lifted.

Sanders’s plan to bring the resolution to a vote comes after influential Democrats called to fundamentally change the US-Saudi relationship in response to the OPEC+ cuts in oil production that were announced in October.

Cutting off US support for Riyadh would effectively ground the Saudi air force since it’s so reliant on US maintenance. Since the war started in 2015, the US-backed coalition regularly bombed civilian targets in Yemen, and civilian casualties spiked earlier this year, right before the ceasefire was reached in March.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.