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war powers
What's Needed for True Peace in Yemen
A halt to the fighting in Yemen would be welcome news. But it won’t last without addressing the warring parties’ crimes against civilians.
Apr 15, 2023
The news that Saudi officials, who have been leading a bombing campaign in Yemen for eight years, met with the Houthi officials who control much of the country on April 9 to possibly renew a truce that ended in October is positive. But a renewed truce that does not address the harm that warring parties have caused to Yemen’s civilians will not be sustainable without accountability.
The talks come weeks after reports that Iranian officials might stop sending arms to the Houthis and that Saudi Arabia, which has ostensibly been involved in the conflict on behalf of the country’s ousted government, are looking for a way out. This has led international actors — including the UN Yemen mediator — to express optimism about the possibility of a truce, or even an official end to the war.
The absence of Yemenis civilians from these discussions demonstrates the lack of agency Yemenis have had in determining their own circumstances throughout the conflict. It also demonstrates international actors’ willingness to end the war without discussion of justice and accountability for the widespread harm that civilians have suffered.
The warring parties have caused nearly 20,000 civilian casualties and carried out widespread violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law. Today, two-thirds of the Yemeni population needs humanitarian assistance.
The conflict in Yemen has been marked by the involvement of a multitude of foreign actors.
While the full extent and nature of Iran’s relationship with the Houthis is not clear, Iran has provided the Houthis with large quantities of weapons, as well as political support.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) became parties to the conflict in March 2015, leading a coalition of countries in the region that has launched airstrikes against the Houthis. The coalition has received significant support from powerful Western countries in the form of arms sales, especially by the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France.
From 2015 to 2020, U.S. weapons agreements with Saudi Arabia amounted to over $64.1 billion, while the UK has sold over $23 billion in weapons to the country since the start of the war. The U.S. has also provided the coalition with in-air refueling and tactical support, while the UK has provided coalition forces with training. The U.S. has separately carried out airstrikes against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, also making it a party to the conflict.
The coalition’s airstrikes have caused most of the war’s accounted civilian casualties. They have destroyed and damaged civilian infrastructure, including homes, medical facilities, schools, markets, and water and food sources and infrastructure. Some of the coalition’s airstrikes may amount to war crimes. Human Rights Watch and other groups have documented cases of torture, enforced disappearance, and arbitrary detention by coalition forces, particularly by Saudi Arabia and UAE forces, and as well as Yemeni forces backed by the UAE.
The Houthis have fired mortars, rockets, and missiles into densely populated areas both in Yemen and in Saudi Arabia which have killed and wounded civilians, constituting other possible war crimes. They have also laid landmines in civilian areas across the country — including internationally banned antipersonnel landmines. The UN Group of Eminent Experts also detailed the Houthis’ widespread use of torture.
Both the coalition and the Houthis have blocked and impeded access to humanitarian aid. During the last truce, the Houthis refused to reopen the roads to Taiz, which have been blocked since 2015, to allow in critical humanitarian aid, despite a proposal from the UN special envoy.
Despite the severity and pervasiveness of the violations, there has been almost no accountability or reparations to victims or their families. On the contrary, Saudi Arabia successfully lobbied member countries of the Human Rights Council in 2021 not to extend its Group of Eminent Experts investigation — the only independent monitoring and reporting mechanism that had previously existed for Yemen.
Calls for a new and more robust investigative mechanism at the Human Rights Council since then have been largely ignored, including by powerful countries with major arms sales to Saudi Arabia, such as the U.S. and the UK.
Other countries have pointed to the Yemeni government’s National Commission of Inquiry, an ineffective domestic investigative body that lacks independence, to avoid establishing a much-needed investigation. Meanwhile warring parties’ promises to provide reparations for the civilian harm they’ve caused have been almost entirely unrealized.
Last fall, five months into the six-month truce, 50 civil society organizations wrote a joint letter stating that even with the truce in place, parties to the conflict had made “little to no progress… to address ongoing and widespread violations and abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law or remedy the harm they have inflicted on civilians throughout the conflict.”
The letter called on the international community to “not stand by and allow” the vote to disband the monitoring group “to be the last word on accountability efforts for large scale human rights abuses and war crimes in Yemen.”
For there to be long-term peace in Yemen, the international community should advocate for the establishment of an effective, impartial, and independent investigative mechanism. And we must ensure that any truce includes a comprehensive transitional justice process that includes civil society, and reparations by warring parties to victims.
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Congress, Do Your Job, End US Support for the War in Yemen
Online rally for Yemen this Saturday will stress the importance of action to end the war
Mar 24, 2023
Having just observed the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, the United States Senate is currently considering S. 316, a bill sponsored by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) to repeal the anachronistic Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Iraq, which date to 1991 and 2002. This action is long overdue, and part of a recent effort by Congress to reclaim its constitutional authority over matters of war and peace. The Biden Administration supports the measure, which is significant as Joe Biden, as a US Senator, voted for the 2002 AUMF, while he opposed the 1991 measure.
The Senate, and House of Representatives, should also soon take up legislation to end US participation in a current war, the tragedy in Yemen. March 25 will mark eight years since Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners including the United Arab Emirates began bombing Yemen with US military support. With the recent welcome deal, brokered by China, for Saudi Arabia and Iran to re-establish diplomatic ties, peace may be on the verge of breaking out in Yemen, but Congress still has work to do. Iran has agreed to stop arming the rebel Houthis in Yemen; momentum to end the suffering of the Yemeni people, who have endured the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe for eight long years, must be capitalized upon.
"While finally ending the war in Yemen is an urgent priority, there is also a broader need for the US to reset its foreign policy to focus on democracy and human rights."
Next month, the Senate will consider a bipartisan privileged resolution instructing the Secretary of State to prepare a report on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record under section 502(B) of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act. The bill, sponsored by Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Dick Durbin (D-IL), could result in cutting off all US military assistance to the Saudis. Even if that isn’t achieved, it will still put political pressure on the Biden Administration to reassess its relationship with the US’s biggest weapons purchaser.
Even more significant is the imminent re-introduction of a Congressional War Powers Resolution to end all US support for the Saudi-led coalition’s military actions in Yemen. If passed, as it was in 2019 (before President Trump vetoed it), Congress could order the president to end U.S. participation in the catastrophic conflict, which the U.S. has enabled for eight years. Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) sponsored last year’s bipartisan bill, which wascosponsored by over 130 members of Congress.
Despite the current pause in bombings in Yemen since April 2022, there is nothing to prevent Saudi Arabia from resuming airstrikes, nor to permanently end the Saudi-led blockade of Yemen. The U.S. has enabled Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to subject the Yemeni people toover 25,000 air raids. Activists describe the Yemen War Powers Resolution as the most effective way for Congress to stop enabling the war on Yemen, which includes a devastating Saudi blockade.
Starvation and disease are a daily presence in Yemen;millions of children are malnourished andtwo-thirds of the country is in need of humanitarian aid. Saudi Arabia’s blockade drives the crisis. For example, almost no containerized goods have been able toenter Yemen’s principal port of Hodeida since 2017, depriving the Yemeni people of needed medical supplies and other essential goods.
To help draw attention to the need to end the catastrophe in Yemen, this Saturday, March 25 at 12 Noon ET, Peace Action, Action Corps, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Yemeni-American groups, and others from the US and UK will host an online rally to build momentum to end our countries’ military involvement in the war in Yemen. Confirmed US speakers include Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rep. Ro Khanna, Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Dr. Shireen Al-Adeimi, Dr. Aisha Jumaan, and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, among others. Jeremy Corbyn, member of the British parliament and former Labour Party leader, will also speak.Amaani Yehya, Yemen’s first female rapper, will perform.
While finally ending the war in Yemen is an urgent priority, there is also a broader need for the US to reset its foreign policy to focus on democracy and human rights, including ending blank check support for Israel in its perpetual occupation of Palestinian territory, and to invest in smart diplomacy as China did in helping broker the Iran-Saudi agreement. The people of Yemen can’t wait, and Americans and people all around the world would benefit from a smarter foreign policy based on widely held American values.
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Progressives Back Bipartisan Push to End US Military Presence in Syria
"We strongly urge all offices to vote 'yes' on the Syria War Powers Resolution in accordance with the Constitution," said the policy adviser for the watchdog group Demand Progress Action.
Mar 08, 2023
The leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and outside advocacy groups are urging lawmakers to vote yes Wednesday on a war powers resolution aimed at ending the United States' yearslong troop presence in Syria.
Led by Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, the resolution instructs the president to withdraw all remaining U.S. forces from Syria within 180 days of passage unless Congress debates and authorizes an extension of the occupation, which began in 2015 during the Obama administration.
More than 900 U.S. troops and hundreds of contractors are currently in Syria, and the Pentagon insists they are still needed in the country to prevent a resurgence of ISIS—a claim disputed by the official who served as the Obama administration's ambassador to Syria.
In a Tuesday note urging its more than 100 members to back the Gaetz resolution, the Congressional Progressive Caucus leadership wrote that "this measure to remove unauthorized deployment of U.S. Armed Forces in Syria unless a specific statutory authorization is enacted within six months is largely consistent with previous bipartisan efforts led by CPC members to terminate such unauthorized military presence within one year, for which 130 House Democrats voted yes last year."
Cavan Kharrazian, policy adviser for the watchdog group Demand Progress Action, said in a statement Wednesday that "while we are disappointed that Representative Gaetz did not consult the bipartisan group of organizations advocating for a Syria War Powers Resolution on the timing, language, and approach of this bill, and did not obtain an original cosponsor from across the aisle, we still fully support the policy outlined in H.Con.Res.21."
"Given that U.S. servicemembers remain in harm's way in Syria, triggering the need for a congressional vote under the War Powers Resolution, Congress owes it to them, their families, and the American people to have a serious, public debate and vote over our endless mission in Syria," said Kharrazian. "We strongly urge all offices to vote 'yes' on the Syria War Powers Resolution in accordance with the Constitution, the War Powers Resolution of 1973, and the broader bipartisan mission to reevaluate and end our endless wars overseas."
The advocacy group Just Foreign Policy echoed Kharrazian, noting that a similar measure led by Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York last year garnered 155 House votes—not enough to pass the chamber.
"We're hopeful that Rep. Matt Gaetz's [war powers resolution] will spur more House Republicans to oppose endless war in Syria," the group wrote on Twitter.
A vote in the Republican-controlled House is expected Wednesday afternoon.
"Given that U.S. servicemembers remain in harm's way in Syria, triggering the need for a congressional vote under the War Powers Resolution, Congress owes it to them, their families, and the American people to have a serious, public debate and vote over our endless mission in Syria."
Also backing the resolution is Robert Ford, the Obama administration's Syria ambassador who previously supported U.S. intervention in the country.
In a letter to Congress obtained by The Intercept, Ford wrote that "after more than eight years of military operations in Syria there is no definition of what the 'enduring' defeat of ISIS would look like."
"We owe our soldiers serving there in harm's way a serious debate about whether their mission is, in fact, achievable," Ford added.
While President Joe Biden has not added to the U.S. troop presence in Syria, he has authorized special forces operations and several airstrikes in the country without congressional approval, drawing criticism from progressive lawmakers and foreign policy analysts who argued the actions lacked legal authority.
"This is not an ambiguous case," Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said after the U.S. military carried out airstrikes in 2021. "The administration’s actions are clearly illegal under the United States' law and under international law."
Khanna, a member of the CPC, wrote on Twitter late Tuesday that he is a yes on the Gaetz resolution.
\u201cI am voting Yes.\u201d— Ro Khanna (@Ro Khanna) 1678248901
The Intercept's Ryan Grim noted Tuesday that "in 2019, Gaetz and a handful of other Republicans backed President Donald Trump's push for an end to the U.S. presence there and were joined by [Rep. Ilhan] Omar and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who bucked their party to back Trump's proposed withdrawal."
"Trump, while urging a withdrawal, also said he'd leave behind a force to 'keep the oil," Grim continued. "He suggested a major American firm like ExxonMobil would come in to exploit Syria's oil, but so far, no big American company has been involved, and the Kurds are exporting oil largely in collaboration with al-Assad's government."
Omar, the deputy chair of the CPC, told Grim that while she wishes "Gaetz worked more closely with the coalition of groups that have been working on this and the CPC," she plans to vote yes on the Syria war powers resolution.
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