Where do Maine’s senators and congresspeople stand on the war in Yemen?

Only one member of Maine's delegation has been vocal on the US role in this conflict. Changing that is one of the key goals of Maine for Yemen.

But since the US has not directly engaged in the war, there have been only a few instances when our congresspeople have had the chance to be on the record at all.

The first instance was the resolution (SJ Res. 39) was put forward by Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT), Rand Paul (R-KY), Al Franken (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT) in September, 2016. It would have blocked sale of Abrams tanks and other military hardware to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. However, the Senate voted to table the resolution and the sales went forward.

Senators Susan Collins and Angus King both voted to table the resolution. At this key moment they did not oppose arming a military accused of grave human rights abuses. The "defensive" nature of some of the weapons in question does not change the fact that they are part of Saudi Arabia's ruthlessly violent war effort in Yemen.

The second instance was a bi-partisan letter from April 5, 2017 to President Trump that calls on him to end military support to Saudi Arabia, re-focus US policy in Yemen on defeat of Al Qaeda and ISIS, and refrain from attempting to involve the US directly in the Saudi-led coalition without Congressional approval. The letter was put forward by Mark Pocan (D-WI) and signed by 55 congresspeople. Among them was Maine's Chellie Pingree. But Bruce Poliquin did not sign the letter.

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. Image: Huffingtonpost.com

Congresswoman Pingree deserves credit for this move, and at Maine for Yemen we hope to encourage her to deepen her activity.

The record of Collins and King is distressing. Both sit on the Senate Special Committee on Intelligence and are considered authorities on national security. If they have learned something there that justifies their acquiescence to the brutal policies of Saudi Arabia, their constituents should at lease understand the contours of the threat to our national interests.

Senator Angus King. Image: CNN.com
When the war broke out in April, 2015 Senator King went on CNN to discuss how US national interests were involved. He made a prescient statement about where our priorities should lie: “We may not be sympathetic to the Houthis or Iran, but nobody likes ISIS.” But with this war pushing Yemen towards failed state status and President Trump weighing military operations against the Shia Houthi forces, bitter enemies of Al Qaeda and ISIS, why have we heard nothing from Senator King?

We could find only two public statements by Senator Collins that refer to Yemen, both in the context of the nuclear deal with Iran (which she opposes). She mentions the Houthis as an example of malign Iranian influence, stating:
Whether it is Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Shiite militias in Iraq, or the Houthis in Yemen, Iran’s proxies are terrorizing innocent civilians, forcing families to flee their homes, and causing death and destruction.

Senator Collins is right to note that the Houthis have been incriminated in the death and displacement of civilians. Does her concern for those civilians extend to their victimization at the hands of the US-backed, Saudi-led coalition? If so, why has she remained silent?

Senator Susan Collins
In our next post we will discuss how Mainers can influence a crucial upcoming vote in the Senate: whether or not to block billions of dollars of smart bomb sales to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why conservatives should be against US support for the war in Yemen

Image
The war in Yemen has pushed 7 million people to the edge of famine. For three years the United States has supported the side which is most guilty for creating this tragedy: Saudi Arabia and its military allies. At Maine for Yemen we will publish a series of posts on why Mainers of ALL political persuasions should protest this war. Today we start with why we believe this war violates CONSERVATIVE values: 1) No threat to US security We have waded into a brutal civil war that we have no direct stakes in. The Houthi rebels who control most of Yemen’s populated areas pose no serious threat to US military personnel in the region, or any terrorist threat to the US. If they tried to restrict free movement of US shipping in the Red Sea our Navy could easily defeat them. 2) We are not fighting terrorists, and we could be helping them The Houthis are Shia Muslims. This makes them the bitter enemies of Al Qaeda and ISIS, who are Sunni Muslim extremists who want to drive Shias off the
Read more

Welcome to Maine for Yemen

Image
This site is for Mainers who want action on solving Yemen's terrible humanitarian crisis, and fixing the mistaken American policies that are helping fuel it. More than 10,000 civilians have died since the war began in Yemen in 2015. Both sides - the Houthi rebels and the Saudi-led coalition - are complicit. But the United Nations and leading human rights organizations have implicated the coalition in systematic attacks on civilian objects such as schools, hospitals, factories, markets and civilian objects with no discernible military target nearby. Worse still, the coalition has severely damaged transport infrastructure (ports, bridges, highways, mountain passes) for a country that imports 90% of its food. As a result more than 7 million people are in severe food insecurity, with the threat of famine looming in the coming months. The quiet death toll from starvation and preventable diseases is consuming tens of thousands of Yemeni lives. Destruction caused by airstrikes
Read more

American complicity in Yemen's humanitarian catastrophe

Image
This op-ed was published on April 7, 2017 in the Bangor Daily News. It offers a brief summary of the unfolding tragedy in Yemen, America's role in it and the questions we must pose to our leaders. We will get into more detail on each of these topics in later posts.  Jamal Mujalli al-Mashriqi, 4, who suffers from malnutrition, sits on a bed at a hospital in the northwestern city of Saada, Yemen April 4, 2017. Naif Rahma. Reuters Without most Americans noticing, our country has become deeply complicit in a humanitarian catastrophe. In Yemen, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia is ruthlessly bombing civilian infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals and the bridges that bring food from seaports to the desert interior. Not only have thousands of Yemeni civilians died in these airstrikes, but millions have been pushed to the edge of famine. On the one hand, American diplomats are working admirably to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table, and the United Stat
Read more