Yemen Resolution Doesn’t Get a Vote Despite Activists’ Wishes

The United States is funding its ally Saudi Arabia in its war against Yemen.

The civil war in Yemen has left over a hundred thousand dead from armed conflict and many more Yemenis dead from starvation. Most of these deaths were civilians killed directly or indirectly by the Saudi military. The United States has given both arms and intelligence assistance to the Saudis in their War against Yemen.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt)  recently expressed interest in getting a vote on the floor for the “Yemen War Powers Resolution,” a bill that attempts to stop aid going from the United States to Saudi Arabia for the purpose of assisting Saudi Arabia in what has been called their genocide against Yemen. Senator Sanders then agreed to drop his resolution promising to instead work with the White House to end the American role in the conflict.

Not everyone was happy with Sanders dropping the resolution.

“Biden has had two years to end this war if he wanted to. It’s pathetic that you [Sanders] caved, and this is a B.S. excuse,” comedian and Libertarian/antiwar political activist Dave Smith said via Twitter. 

The crisis in Yemen has long been a topic of interest for anti-war activists, virtually all of whom view the United States as being partially responsible for what is happening in Yemen.

“The United States currently provides intelligence sharing, logistical support, spare parts transfers, and maintenance to the Saudi Royal Air Force that is waging war on Yemen and cutting it off from the world. We [the United States] still sell deadly weapons to Saudi Arabia on a regular basis,”  Co-director of CODEPINK Danaka Katovich said.

“Despite Biden’s announcement in February of 2021 that the U.S. was ending offensive support for the war, the U.S. has not ended support for the war at all. Congress needs to pass a War Powers Resolution to force an end to U.S. involvement,” Katovich said later.

It is also a commonly held belief among those seeking to end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia that the mainstream media does not give enough coverage to the war.

“[Mainstram media gives] nowhere near enough [coverage] given the horror of the crisis,” linguist and longtime political activist Noam Chomsky said in a personal interview with The Tiger Times.

The war in Yemen is a crisis that evokes strong opinions and emotions from individuals who have researched the war and those who let it happen.