President Donald Trump decided late Tuesday to continue America’s complicity in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis by vetoing the historic Yemen War Powers resolution.
“Donald Trump’s veto today is reckless and shameful,” Stephen Miles, director of Win Without War, said in a statement. “Sadly, it is also to be expected from a president who has pretended to be a champion of peace while actually expanding every war he inherited and putting us on a collision course to war with Iran.”
Trump’s veto — the second of his presidency — came nearly two weeks after the House of Representatives passed the Yemen measure with an overwhelming bipartisan vote, marking the first time Congress has sent a War Powers resolution to the president’s desk.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who helped lead the House effort to end U.S. military involvement in Yemen, denounced Trump’s veto on Twitter.
“With Trump’s veto of Bernie Sanders’ and my War Powers resolution, which passed with bipartisan support in Congress, he is risking the lives of millions of Yemeni civilians to famine, deadly airstrikes, and the war crimes of the Saudi regime,” Khanna wrote. “We must override his veto.”
In a separate tweet, Khanna challenged Trump’s claim in his veto message that the Yemen measure represented “an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken [his] constitutional authorities.”
The War Powers Resolution to end U.S. involvement in Yemen has nothing to do with weakening Trump’s constitutional authorities.
It’s about both houses of Congress taking back our authority outlined in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to decide on matters of war & peace.
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) April 17, 2019
Trump’s veto was immediately praised by Anwar Gargash, foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a key Saudi ally in the years-long assault on Yemen.
According to a report published by the humanitarian group Save the Children last November, 85,000 Yemeni children under the age of five have died of malnutrition over the past three years, as the U.S.-backed Saudi coalition has relentlessly bombed the impoverished nation and restricted access to food and medicine.
The United Nations has estimated that 14 million Yemenis — half the country’s population — are at risk of famine as the Saudi bombing continues with the help of American-made weapons and aircraft.
“The people of Yemen desperately need humanitarian help, not more bombs,” tweeted Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who led the Senate effort to cut off U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia.
Amid the worsening humanitarian crisis in Yemen, Peace Action executive director Jon Rainwater urged Congress to “keep the pressure up and continue the fight to stop U.S. complicity.”
“They must pull out the stops to confront this president who thinks starving millions of Yemenis is a price worth paying for high arms industry profits,” Rainwater said in a statement. “Congress should work to block arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition and cut off funding for U.S. military involvement in Yemen. They should raise hell in the run-up to the 2020 election and lay each new casualty of this war at Trump’s feet where they belong.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy