Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Tuesday night withdrew his request to vote on the Yemen War Powers Resolution that would end US support for the Saudi-led war and blockade on Yemen, citing White House opposition to the bill.
Sanders said on the Senate floor that he was informed ahead of the scheduled vote of the administration’s opposition to the legislation, meaning President Biden would veto the resolution. The Intercept reported earlier in the day that The White House was pressuring senators to vote against the bill, and Democrats came out in opposition to Sanders’ resolution earlier on Tuesday, including Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA).
Sanders’ justification for not holding the vote was that the administration claimed it would work with Congress on ending the war in Yemen. He said the White House wanted to “work with us on crafting language that would be mutually acceptable” and insisted if that didn’t happen, he would resume his efforts to end the war through a resolution.
But even if the White House really wants to engage with Congress on the issue, or if Sanders chooses to reintroduce the resolution, the plan will take time, which Yemenis don’t have. There has been a cessation in violence in Yemen, with no Saudi airstrikes since March, but there has been a recent uptick in fighting on the ground.
A ceasefire expired in October, and without a real peace deal, the war could flare up again at any time. The resolution could have ended US support for the Saudi-led coalition, including maintenance of its warplanes, which would effectively ground the Saudi air force. Even if Biden vetoed the resolution, its passage through Congress would have sent a message to the White House and Riyadh to work faster on a real end to the war.
While Democrats started to fold in their support for the resolution, Republican Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Mike Lee (R-UT) both came out in favor of the legislation. In the House, a version of the resolution was also introduced that has gained 118 cosponsors, including 10 Republicans.
The US first intervened to back the Saudi/UAE-led coalition in Yemen against the Houthis in 2015. A few months earlier, the Obama administration was sharing intelligence with the Houthis as part of the effort against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. After the Obama administration switched sides against the Houthis, the US-backed coalition recruited al-Qaeda fighters, and US arms ended up in the hands of the terror group.
According to UN estimates, by the end of 2021, at least 377,000 people had been killed in the war. The UN said that about 150,000 people had died in violence while the rest were killed by starvation and disease caused by the war and blockade on the country. The US-backed coalition is notorious for bombing civilians, and civilian casualties spiked earlier this year, right before the ceasefire was reached in March.
That is sickening.
But not surprising.
Yup, not a bit surprising. Between moves like this and gung ho support of NATO’s proxy war, Bernie’s antiwar cred is going to be hard to maintain, not that he ever really earned it.
He should retire.
I agree he should be gone but do not worry the next one will be worse if there is a next one
Have you read left leaning blogs and forums and such???
Basically, Biden democrats call Russians orcs, make it clear that killing Russians is a virtue, expect Ukraine to take Crimea and even east from their by spring, and believe that we have nothing to fear from Russian nukes because they won’t work anyways.
Under Biden, BLM went from an active vibrant activist group to disappearing, and Medicare For All and the Green New Deal are politically dead. He put in spoilers for Green Energy requiring it to be all made in America. Auto companies since then have announced that EV prices will increase over the next few years, or that they won’t be making any EV factories in the US. Vigorous enforcement of Trump tariffs on parts for solar panels and Biden sanctions on Chinese products has reduced solar power production in the US. To counterbalance this, he provided Manchin style enticements to fossil fuel companies.
This bill was Sanders throwing in the towel. Biden completely defeated Bernie in the Senate and The Squad in the House.
As a Sanders supporter, I give him credit for trying. The point of this exercise is that he tried, he lost, he is irrelevant. His anti-war cred is also irrelevant.
Pretend opposition to the conflict in Ukraine will come from Republicans until 2025, when Peesident DeSantis is sworn in. This election was easing Trump out of politics, and republicans have 2 full years to get that support transferred to DeSantis. Masterfully done.
I wish I could credibly disagree with any of your observations or your substantive argument, but I really can’t. Well, one thing: Although I have been a Bernie supporter, I’ve never seen him as truly antiwar. He’s been very good at voting against the headline bills but later voting for appropriations and enabling legislation. And he certainly doesn’t oppose military spending that might bring jobs or cash to Vermont.
Other than that, you are, depressingly, on target.
I avoid left/liberal forums these days. They’re hopeless. Hell, not a few of my real-life liberal friends have been carefully avoiding me since they realized that I refuse to accept revealed truth about this disaster. They appear to be worried that they could be stained by association with me. At least two or three of them truly think I’m a traitor, maybe a Russian agent.
I have had the same reactions from “friends”. They are willfully ignorant of history.
As for the so-called liberal fora (Political Wire is a prime example), they’ve drunk all the kool-aid Biden and company have been able to pour. Their rhetoric in support of “Uncle Joe” is vomitous.
Yes. I visited that place once. Never again.
When I first started seeing your posts here, Bear, I just HAD to check out that website. All I could do was laugh hysterically at the comments and all those Ukrainian flags combined with usernames.
“Shitlibs”, as my favorite columnist Caitlin Johnstone would call them.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a faithful democrat. Then I grew up.
Bernie is a just another slavishly party-line Democrat who happened to figure out that pretending to be an “independent” and a “socialist” opened up an under-exploited fundraising niche, as long as he threw in enough harmless gadflyism to convince people who didn’t bother to look closely.
Mostly, I’m afraid, although as usual, your assessment lacks subtlety. 😎
I admit to a somewhat simplistic analysis of Bernie in general.
But not so simplistic that I wasn’t quoted to the same effect in a biography of him 😉
I don’t accuse you of being simplistic, Thomas, merely unsubtle. 😎
It was me noticing that my analysis of Sanders is simplistic.
For example, that analysis mostly ignores his early days of e.g. honeymooning in the Soviet Union and briefly living on an Israeli kibbutz, which might hint at some actual commitment to “socialism” on his part rather than it merely being a fundraising/self-promotion gimmick.
Har! Red, has anyone ever accused Thomas of being “subtle”?
Me, I like a straight-shooter, unless he disagrees with yours truly 😉
Obama to Sanders in 2018, via
@AriRabinHavt
:
Sanders gets to say things. It doesn’t mean he creates change, and he accepted that.
BTW, what did disqus do with the blockquote symbol? It seems to have disappeared.
Whether he was a stooge that intentionally failed, or someone who tried hard and lost, is no longer relevant.
Either way the result is the same. Everything that he intentionally killed – your version – or fought hard to accomplish – my version – is history.
Either DeSantis, or a democrat with differences only on cultural issues, will be President in 2024. Oh another difference is that with a republican in power, democrats will be under continual House investigation or vice versa.
join the club Comradski
Sanders came up with the line that food lines in Nicaragua are good in a way in that that this way the poor get something.He is oblivious to the reality that when the food does come in,armed men escort the powers that be to the front of the lie and clean out the place. In a time warp singing around the campfire.
You’re a loser; Bernie lied to you and you’re making excuses for him. My god, Bernie Sanders *wrote* the Democrat Party’s manifesto for the Biden Government. He’s been working with and for Biden from the start. This is who Sanders always was. He’s not principled; he’ll support anyone who will let him into the halls of power. He’s always been that guy – he’s been apologizing for and enabling authoritarian regimes his entire life.
Biden has no problem opposing foreign aggression in Ukraine while simultaneously supporting foreign aggression in Yemen. That’s because he is far more concerned about control of resources than about 𝐚𝐧𝐲 of the people living on the other side of the planet.
Bernie probably thinks our policies should be consistent, and that our involvement in both wars should actually reflect the moral legend that Biden regularly advances when he wants to interfere in the affairs of other nations.
But Bernie also knows how to pick his fights.
He and the “progressives” went all in for Biden’s corporatism, neoliberalism and warmongering. They are not even hiding it well anymore.
Wars, Bernie at this point is just going through the motions. The real “”powers that be” have decided to pull the plug on the Anglo-Zionist Empire. Hopefully, we can somehow go back to being a “normal” nation that works for a living and pays its bills. We are more apt to go out in some nuclear blaze of glory that will be the end of the USA and most of the human race. The Powers are most likely not even human anymore, just some AI profit algorithm like what controls the hedge funds. At least they have no use for actual human beings. Maybe they’ll keep a few of us around as pets. I would make a very bad pet.
Same here, Thomas. I don’t follow commands, and I bite.
What powers that be are pulling the plug? Mother nature?
The same folks that Jesus threw out of the Temple back in the day have morphed into the current “powers that be.” They’ve never forgiven him for that.
Interesting claim. Based on other posts of yours, I’d have expected the opposite.
Real end of the war cannot come until all interests are satisfied or somebody gives up on their interests.
Sooooo — until Uncle Sam declares its interest, we do not know what is at stake. Saudis are clear — they wanted to maintaun ONE Yemen as it was since unification. Yemenis in the North and South want their independence back. But if Houthis get back their previous state, it leaves Saudis with a weak hand fighting Southern states for influence against US and who knows who else. This is why the war on the ground is around areas Saudis need badly in order to take pioelines out to Indian ocean, and out of danger posed by US ability to stir up closures of Bab Al Mandeb or Hormuz Straits. Whatever the excuse.
Wars Power Act would have beeb an open hostility to Saudis, Sudan and Egypt. Looks like there are some possible unforeseen repercussions to what looked like a simple solution.
Not a good day in world politics for me. Seems like the fix is in on almost every front. But I am listening to BBC on NPR, though there is almost as much bad news here on aw.c-m. Have any of you out there noticed how aw.c is linking to ever increasing MSN links, like & especially U.S News & World Report. Not only more empire friendly content but no comment or chance to debunk badly shaded or inacuirate content.
Nicey-nicey supposed antiwar opposition. What happened to introducing the bill reguardless?
What is wrong with you? We have a one party Democracy you do understand there are limits, and an opposition is not needed./s
Very sad that Sanders is a creature of the political class. His deepest beliefs never survive the elbows of his fellow Democrats.
He knows that if Biden vetoes it, the Senate will be unable to override. It’s dead.
The US Congress has been neutered. There’s no reason for Americans to expect anything from the representative branch of government and there’s no reason for Americans to expect the administrative branch to be focused on the needs of the American middle and lower classes.
End of the Empire.
Yes, but it would at least show a stand.
If I had been in his shoes, I would have submitted it and let it fly. I’m only saying that it’s Ok with me that he withdrew it, while I agree with you that I would have loved it had he not.
You shouldn’t be ok with it. No one should.
You forgot to say that the End of the American Empire is probably tied to extinction and the death of our Planet
That actually has a valid ring to it…
Once again a law of nature, much like General Relativity validated under the most extreme circumstances, has survived another test: regarding US government it is not possible to be too cynical.
That is why I skipped the election and will never vote again.
What is the point?
I agree but for this idea; Get smart with the numbers.
Help stimulate the largest turnout ever seen and everyone writes in their friends. Picture the reported totals vs the statistically sufficient shadow exit returns recorded by poll volunteers. Then as yourself what the imaginations of freedom loving Americans will come up with next.
Without a free press democracy can’t survive. MSM is our problem, uninformed people are not likely to vote because there is nothing to vote for.
MSM does not allow anyone to say a word against the war in Ukraine, no word of critic of Biden, and not one objective word about Putin or Russia, in print or on TV or the internet.
Uninformed voters are the result of MSM coordinated public manipulation. Deceptions and omissions of pertinent facts is the tool to indoctrinate the public. It takes money to fight MSM. We have a few voices preaching in the wilderness.
We humans are what we are— Our genes tell us to be alert to warning cries, we are not yet programmed to see deceit.
BDS Yuckola or get what one deserves.
If enough people would just vote their conscience, one election cycle would completely disrupt the charade. Vote third party.
To vote ones conscience one needs honest media information and honest candidates, real public servants.
Democracy has disintegrated we have lobbyists writing the laws to suit their corporate bosses.
What we really need is a reformed electoral process and a system that deserves to be called Democracy.
We have a Potemkin village, we live in a fairyland. It is my conscience telling me to forget about voting, it is a scam.
The Germans voted for the Greens and they got …… another war party. Who knew that war was beneficial to the environment anyway?
Political parties rarely represent the interests of the populace. When they do, it’s more lucky coincidence than by design.
President ButtWipe. I guess he’s still getting off on killing children.
Afghanistan should have been but was not included in the bill either.
President Phil Abuster in my new story.
Our latest leader Sleepy,Senile Hawkish anti union Joe Biden is really trying to continue the policys that have brought us to the eve of destruction for the benefit of his masters the war loving Capitalists that run this country at the cost of a decent living standard for the majority of citizens and especially people of color.Jesus said they know not what they do.Wrong,the Bidenistas know exactly what they are doing.Trump was and is a moron knowing nothing about government. After 50 years serving{sic} the peopleHe knows better,he chooses not to.
Don’t call him sleepy or senile. His handlers are neither, and underestimating them makes him seem safe and not dangerous.
He is a seasoned political expert who has played the game very very well. His job was to crush the left, and he succeeded wildly. He has successfully worked to maximize the number of places that our military is involved in, eliminating any other way of resolving issues other than through military confrontation.
He has his agenda. He is moving towards it quite adeptly.
377,000 people dead, yet another number frozen in amber. Remember how long we maintained that only 15,000 were dead despite its implausibility.
I could go back to articles from a couple years back that said there would be 400,000 dead by the end of that year if nothing was done. Well, nothing was done and yet I keep hearing these 377,000 numbers.
It’s the last decent number we have. It is probably a lot higher now.
The traitor…!
Not a traiter. The article clearly states that Biden promised to veto the bill should it get that far.
Sanders fought. You can say not very hard. But he is the guy in the trenches.
He fought, he lost. This is his way of making it quite clear that Biden is 100% in favor of all of our military missions, and is unphased and unconcerned about collateral damage in the hundreds of thousands. Just like Albright, who was praised effusively by politicians from both parties. America has voted – 98% or so voted for a political party that agrees that 500,000 dead Iraqi children was “worth it”. The Yemeni death toll is not that high. Yet.
Not a traitor, but a quitter…! You don’t quit from what you started…Biden veto does not matter…!
Same quitting happened when he gave up his presidential ambition to Hillary back in 2016 letting Trump to get the best of of her…!
Sanders, the anti war traitor. No, you’re not a socialist or independent, just join the pro war party already.
Yep, once again, good ol’ Bernie shows his true colors. It probably didn’t occur to him to press for a vote so he would have Biden and the Democrats on record as opposing a peaceful settlement, just as they oppose negotiations in Ukraine. What a bunch of phonies!
First time in a while i am disappointed in sanders. Sometimes you just have to do what you know is right and see how it plays out.