Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 10/7/22 Hassan El-Tayyab: Don’t Forget About Yemen

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

Hassan El-Tayyab from the Friends Committee on National Legislation was back on Antiwar Radio to talk about the Yemen War Powers Resolutions in Congress. Despite the ceasefire agreement coming to an end, El-Tayyab says the campaign to pass these resolutions still has momentum. He and Scott explain why and how you should join the effort to end this horrific war.  Discussed on the show: Friends Committee on National Legislation Scott’s Interview with Nasser Arrabyee 1833stopwar.com  Hassan El-Tayyab is a musician and peace activist, who works as the lead lobbyist on Middle East policy for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; and Thc Hemp Spot. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For Pacifica Radio, October 9th, 2022. I'm Scott Horton. This is Anti-War Radio. All right, y'all welcome the show. It is Anti-War Radio. I'm your host, Scott Horton. I'm the editorial director of Anti-War.com, an editor of the new book,

Hotter than the sun. Time to abolish nuclear weapons. You can find my full interview archive, more than 5,700 of them now, going back to 2003 at Scott Horton.org and at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton's show. All right, you guys, on the line, I've got Hassan L. Tayyab from the Friends Committee

on National Legislation. That's fcnl.org. Welcome back to this show. How you doing, Hassan? I'm well, Scott. Thanks. man i've read this great book about the origins of world war two and had so many things about the friends committee and all the heroic work that they did to feed starving people on the other side of the horrible blockades and the war and all of these things and it wasn't really in depth but it was

just a bunch of different anecdotes it was like man those quakers got courage and i guess you're not a quaker but you're working with them and it sure is a one hell of a organization to be proud to be associated with, I would say. So anyway, I appreciate that. I feel really lucky to be, you know, working for this org and, you know, as part of that legacy. Yeah, man, that's great. All right. So here's the deal.

I just talked with Nasser Araby, my reporter friend in Sana'a half an hour ago. And so what he's saying was he's still optimistic, even though the ceasefires failed, that he thinks that there's still going to be peace. because Saudi and UAE they want out now and I think he said they're taking at least some recognition of the fact that there's a debate in the Congress which is what we're going to be talking about today here but he said you know

he talked about the hoot these demands about lifting the blockade and here I have the list salaries for the public employees that they're way overdue opening up the airport all the way the seaports the roads and around ties and all that

and shipping and this and that so in other words just lifting the restrictions of war, right? They're not asking for a giant welfare payment or a light water reactor or any kind hyperbolic demands. They're just saying, hey, let's really get to, you know, they think they have a strong hand to play, and maybe they do in order to insist on normalization along these lines, further normalization along these lines here. So I don't know. He didn't think it was a deal breaker. The fact that the ceasefire is over now, he thinks it'll be back on soon enough and this and that.

So the point of having you here on the show again today is so that we can help to educate the people so that as many of us as possible can do everything that we can to intervene on this question. And I've got to tell you, it feels weird, Hassan, for 20 years of this, to actually have something that we can do about it other than radio shows. So please tell me about. House Resolution 87 and Senate Resolution 56 and why this audience is desperately dying to hear what's so important about them. Yeah, well, thank you again for continuing to raise this issue up. It is sad news that the U.N. brokered truce between Yemen's warring parties expired on Sunday, but Congress still has tools to get this back on track. And I really think now more than ever it's vital to support things like the Yemen war powers resolution.

And by making clear that the U.S. won't provide military support for more Saudi air strikes on Yemen, Congress will keep the pressure on the warring parties to renew the truce and lift the blockade as a humanitarian act. And we've got some great momentum on those two resolutions you mentioned. The House bill has 117 sponsors. and the Senate bill has 11 sponsors, but I think with this news about OPEC slashing oil production, you're seeing a ton more people speak out against, you know, what Saudi Arabia is doing and really, you know, cutting off, you know, oil at a really critical time right before these midterms. I mean, you know, it shows the efficacy of fist bump diplomacy.

But back on Yemen, you know, from my sources, on the ground, it seems like there is a feeling by many that, one, the request to lift the blockade, open up the airport, pay salaries, seem fair. And, you know, there's also a general feeling that the extension of the truce is still under consideration despite the expiration on Sunday. You know, that was the truce began April of this year. We've seen a relative calm. You know, we haven't seen air strikes from the Saudi-led coalition. We haven't seen cross-border drone attacks. We have seen an easing of port restrictions. We've seen, you know, over a million metric tons of fuel enter the port of Hededa. We've seen about 50 plus flights

to Jordan. But still, imagine 50 flights for six months for a population, you know, like 30 million people. It's just, that's, that's just not going to do it. And there's also something that it's not in the press enough is that medicine and medical supplies still really are restricted heavily through the Port-to-Put data. So the humanitarian is still suffering with the, you know, fuel price increases. So you do have more fuel getting than the country, about 40% of Yemen's fuel needs right now. But with the price inflation, because of the Russia-Ukraine war, you're seeing, you know, the humanitarian situation still escalate because fuel is too expensive. And, you know, without fuel, you can't power hospitals, you can't deliver food, not to mention the,

you know, impacts on grain prices. So we still have a massive humanitarian crisis with millions of people depending on humanitarian aid and food assistance for survival. So like you said, it's more important than ever, I think, to keep the pressure on the Saudi-led coalition. We have a ton momentum right now. I've seen statements from people like Malinowski and Blumenthal and others who aren't on the Yemen War Powers resolution but are now calling for an end to military support for Saudi Arabia. And so I think this is a perfect time to re-up our request for members of Congress to join that bill. And hopefully I'm crossing my fingers and toes that we push for a vote in the coming weeks. And possibly I could see a good chance.

of this getting on the floor of the of congress after the midterms man what do you think about somehow getting one of these people to have a hearing held get y'all on C-SPAN have a few experts up there maybe get that guy Michael horton from the jamestown foundation to talk about how the war is helping al-Qaeda and then get somebody from you know the aid groups doctors without borders whoever to talk about the cholera epidemics and the humanitarian starvation and the crisis and And then you or whoever to talk about the diplomacy and the possibilities for this, that, whatever, do we have any allies powerful enough to make that happen? I mean, I think that's a great idea. You know, we need more people talking about this situation, be it in Congress on the floor, making statements, hearings, briefings, C-SPAN.

You know, I've seen you talk about this on Fox News, so I appreciate that as well. And I think it's going to take all of us to really end this conflict. Yeah, I mean, it's election season, too. So some of these people are going to be doing town halls. Yeah. And it's such a basic deal. We're like, look, man, you know, it was that terrible drone war against al-Qaeda. Everybody hated that, man.

It didn't work. It only made them more powerful. But this is the war for them. We switch sides. This war is treason. And that's just the fact, Jack. You can look it up on the internet. CNN covered it during Obama times.

They weren't attacking Trump with it. They were reluctantly admitting that, hey, our allies are giving our weapons to the guys that helped to coordinate the September 11th attack. We call them the Giants Brigade now. Speaking of people raising this up, I think it's worth noting that 40 members of Congress in the House sent a letter to the Biden administration on Friday, and there was some press coverage this week, urging that they press Saudi Arabia and its allies to lift the blockade on Yemen. And I think this is really a helpful letter that we should try to amplify. They said things like the blockade should be lifted as a humanitarian act and decoupled from the larger conflict.

They also said, we urge you to make clear to the Saudi-led coalition that bicameral war powers resolutions have been introduced and that Congress will not hesitate to act in support of the administration policy of ending support for offensive military operations by prohibiting U.S. participation in the war. There's your magic words right there, right? is see all we're doing is helping joe biden do what he wants to do democrats you know every democrat house member and every democrat senator needs to hear that Biden needs your help to make this stick he's got to deal with Mitch mccanell he needs you to have his back um so i got two more points

one completely agree about debates town halls getting in there and getting your questions heard about yemen are fantastic i just wrote up a series of questions questions for the FCNL advocacy teams. A big shout out to all the Quaker lobbyists and actually everybody that's been lobbying on this around the country, we, you know, we've seen hundreds and hundreds of lobby visits by the Quaker FCNL advocacy team. So huge shout out to them. And they're going to be going to town halls all over the country asking their lawmakers who are seeking re-election or potentially people that are seeking election for the first time. what's your stance on Yemen and unauthorized military participation, including spare parts, maintenance, logistics, intel sharing, and weapon sales to the Saudi-led coalition as they bomb and starve Yemen.

So I think that's fantastic. One other thing is I just read this in Politico yesterday. This was from a Biden administration official responding to the fact that OPEC on Wednesday agreed to impose deep output cuts on, you know, oil. prices and we're going to see oil prices increase. They said that while the White House is willing to be aggressive on Saudi, it's going to look to Congress to take the lead. We, we will assess what other measures make sense on the breadth of our relationship. We want to see what Congress can pass and we'll go from there. Well, guess what? We've got a bill. We've got resolutions in the House and Senate right now. The House bill has 170.

co-sponsors. I mean, you've almost got as many co-sponsors as you need to pass this bill. And we've got, you know, a bunch of prominent senators on the Senate side, hoping to, you know, just a little nudge to Senator Mike Lee, our good buddy who actually really cares about constitutional war powers. We need him on this bill as soon as possible. So if you're out there in Utah, please let your voice ring out. So, so again, we've got a lot of work to do. It seems like administration is almost asking for Congress to keep the pressure on. And I've seen actual resolutions from folks like Rep Malinowski, Wilde, and Kasten. They introduced a bill. It's like probably the shortest bill I've ever seen, basically just, you know, no security

wage, national security waiver or anything, just asking that the, basically just would force the administration to pull all weapons and troops out of Saudi Arabia. So, and again, And Kasten and Malinowski are not on the war powers resolution. So there is a new space that has opened up since the OPEC decision and the Yemen truce expiration. Yeah, you know what? Let me complain about that. Oh, I want to say real quick, before, I wasn't really evangelizing for Biden like he's that great on it. I was just saying that's a great spin for the Democrats.

I don't want someone to take that out of context. Like, geez, I never knew Scott loved Joe Biden so much. I'm saying he's been basically supporting diplomacy here. He and Blinking have been supporting the U.N.'s attempted things. So give credit where it's due, and that's a great way to spend it to Democrats. But anyway, I want to complain a little bit about— Oh, go ahead. I said, I knew what you meant.

Yeah, I know. I was just worried that someone in the audience was going to be like, geez, Scott. But like, no, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying what you say to them to make them think right, you know. But now I want to complain about this whole, oh, man, we're going to pull everything out of Saudi, which, of course, that's exactly what I want. to tell you. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of people go, oh, defund the police. Or they go, or a prosecutor actually indicts a cop for first degree murder for somebody they

kill on the job. And it's like, listen, in other words, you're getting nothing. You're asking for the moon. Oh, we're going to abolish all security forces and replace them with nothing. I don't know. Okay, that's not going anywhere. We're going to charge this cop with first degree murder when We could have got a manslaughter conviction, right? Now, here, you and I have this very reasonable ask. We're trying to end this war right now. And they're going, oh, we're going to reverse 30 years of policy, which is, again, my wildest dream comes true.

I wrote a whole book about it's the only thing in the world we should do right now. But I'm just saying in this context, they're not going to do that. So they're sort of throwing a temper tantrum, but then we're going to go nowhere when all of that energy could be directed at this thing, which is what we're doing, which is what matters the most, which is enough of you're so ungrateful after eight years of war,

we're calling quits to this now. And we get, by all means, let's close our bases on, you know, on Christmas Day or whatever. I'm just saying, let's end this war today. Yeah, I think that's a good point, you know, a very good point. And one, we should never have started military,

participation in this conflict to begin with. Two, we should never have started it without an affirmative authorization from the U.S. Congress as required by Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which says Congress has the power to declare war. So absolutely critical points. And, you know, I think we have to get people to focus that energy and outrage onto something that's going to be very productive, like ending the conflict in Yemen. Again, we need to ratchet up the pressure. We have leverage, you know, by U.S. Congress has leverage to end, you know, logistics, spare parts, maintenance, prohibit further intel sharing for Saudi-led coalition air strikes. The administration has pressure diplomatically and through those weapon sales. You know, we've got

pressure through the U.N. And now is the time to really take a bold stand. and end participation in this conflict and prevent any renewed airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, not just because oil is more expensive, because it's a humanitarian nightmare where half a million people have already died, 60% of them because of the Saudi blockade. And it's just unfathomable, you know, and we need to get serious. We need to get focused. It's also, you know, it's good politics, too, right now before the midterms. I can't, you know, I can't imagine if you're running for re-election and your constituents ask, you know, do you support more Saudi bombings in Yemen? You know, if you answered that wrong, you know, that's going to be really problematic for you at the polls.

Yeah. Well, folks, sad to say, they lied us into war. All of them. World War I, World War II, Korea, Korea. Vietnam, Iraq War I, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq War II, Libya, Syria, Yemen, all of them. But now you can get the e-book All the War Lies by me for free. Just sign up the email list at the bottom of the page at Scott Horton.org or go to Scotthorton.org slash subscribe.

Get all the war lies by me for free. And then you'll never have to believe them again. At the Libertarian Institute, we published books, real good ones. so far we've got will griggs no quarter sheldon richmond's coming to palestine and what social animals owe to each other and four of mine fools aaron enough already the great ron paul and my brand new one hotter than the sun time to abolish nuclear weapons and i'm happy to announce that we've just published our managing editor keith knight's first one the voluntarious handbook an excellent collection of essays by the world's greatest libertarian thinkers and writers including me. Check them all out at Libertarian Institute.org slash books. And for a limited time, signed copies of enough already and hotter than the sun are available at Scott Horton.org slash books. Hey guys, I had some wasps in my house. So I shot them to death with my trusty

bug assault 3.0 model with the improved salt reservoir and bar safety. I don't have a deal with them, but the show does earn a kickback every time you get a bug assault or anything else you buy from Amazon.com by way of the link in the right-hand margin on the front page at Scott Horton.org. So keep that in mind. And don't worry about the mess. Your wife will clean it up. All right, now look, let's zoom out here a little bit and make sure everybody's on the same page here. We're talking about a war that has not been at the center of coverage, but is every bit as horrible as a Rock War II or the dirty war in Syria? Worse than Libya? Way worse. As bad as Afghanistan, 20 years of Afghanistan in eight years of Yemen. And the thing is just an absolute

atrocity, okay? And trust me on that, put my name in YouTube with Yemen and you'll find about it, okay? But so then the point is now, we have a pseudo-seasfire. It expired, but the fighting has not picked back up yet. And we have just extraordinarily, world historically, we literally have the war powers resolutions. You know, it was a big deal. They passed this over Richard Nixon's veto with supermajorities in 1973. It says, if the president takes us to war, after 60 days, the Congress can make him stop if he doesn't have authorization from them. And it's sort of a blank check to start a war in a way, but at least it also is, in a way, gives them teeth that they can enforce this to stop it. So, but then no one ever introduced one

of them throughout the 70s, throughout the 80s, throughout the 90s, throughout the entire Bush years, and into Obama. I believe it wasn't until 2018 and then 2019 under Donald Trump that some Democrats got this thing introduced, and some Republicans introduced in order to try to stop this war in Yemen. And it's just a testament to the power of grassroots activism. There is no Yemen lobby in this country, everybody. There's no oil power connected to them. They have no friends at the council on foreign relations. This is just regular people out here in the country who just have absolutely had enough of this and have been working together to push this and have been so successful in the scheme of things and getting Congress to care about this and champion this in this

way. And then so now the point is, when have we ever had the chance, everyone, where we can end the war? we can it's not much of a slippery slope it is a little but we pass these resolutions we make it illegal i mean Biden could veto it but he probably won't i don't think he will and then it'll be illegal for him to continue the war and the Saudis will have to end the war and we haven't had a chance to do that over rock war two over afghanistan over libya and syria we couldn't say obama here's a law that's to stop backing al qaeda in syria there wasn't a law for us to support we have a war resolution in Yemen right now. So tell him Hassan how they can get involved, get their friends involved, get everybody on the same page, everybody's groups singing from the same book for just

the next few weeks here until we get this thing done. So what we need to do is just build up co-sponsors for these Yemen War Powers resolution. We've got, you know, a couple weeks before the midterms. I think, you know, folks need to email and call. We've set up a hotline so folks can call their member of Congress, 1833 Stop War. I'm going to say it again, 1833 Stop War. It's going to take you through all the prompts,

connect you to your rep and your two senators. If you live in Washington, D.C., it'll connect you to your rep. And you can thank her because she's already on. So I think that's going to be a really important thing to do. If you want to go the extra mile, do a lobby visit you know go through the

you know just go through the form on your representative's website try to set up some meetings attend a town hall go to town hall project.org ask a question about Yemen definitely find more information

out at fcnl.org and we've also set up another website just for this purpose 1833 stop war.com so if you if you plug those that information in it's going to really give you all the tools you need to have a successful interaction with your member of congress and i you know i think just piling that on right now

um it's going to give us the momentum we need to extend this truce for hopefully not just two months at a time like we've been doing but hopefully six months and longer to finally end the war for good yeah hey isn't it the case that's on that if you take all the religious groups and all the progressive and left-wing groups, and if you take all the libertarian and conservative groups supporting this, that you have over 100 important civic groups throughout this country who have signed on to this thing already, right? That's absolutely right. You know, not only do we have robust support in Congress, bipartisan support, I should say. This isn't just fun for liberals or conservatives. This is fun for the whole family on Thanksgiving. So, but we've got a ton of

support on the grassroots side, too, and national orgs from concerned veterans, the Libertarian Institute. Thank you, Scott Horton, to groups like churches for Middle East Peace, the Presbyterians, the Mennonites. We've got J Street on board. We've got Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation. So you are literally joining a coalition that makes up tens of millions of Americans, and I'm really excited about it. Yeah. And look, this is airing in Los Angeles on Sunday morning, and that means extremely wealthy and powerful Hollywood elite. with hangovers listening to us on the radio on their way to the coffee shop and they're thinking to themselves man i need to get involved with this stop the war in yemen thing with all my

millions and millions of dollars i wonder how i could support what the friends committee on national legislation is doing things like that what do you think i wonder if they think that about kpfk i would urge that they drink plenty of water to help with the hangover and make a quick phone call to make sure that Senator Feinstein and Senator Padilla get on this bill. We need their support. They've, you know, they've done good things in the past on blocking weapons to Saudi. They've signed good letters. But we need them to co-sponsor SJ Res 56. So again, 1833 Stopwar.com will give you everything you need to know. Yeah. You know, I don't really know a lot about Hollywood. I'm picturing Krusty the Clown's agent going, you know, there's mileage in this Yemen thing.

Calling Mark Ruffalo, you know, who are these, you know, left-wing activists in Hollywood. This is a huge one. Get your retweets going, man. 833 Stopwar.com. Is that not the brilliantest idea? Why didn't I think of that? 833 stopwar.com and there's your bullet points on the war. Get your head up to date on what's happening and, you know, hear your head around what we're doing here.

And then right there's a talking points for you to use on your conference. congressmen and senators, and to get your friends and family to show them, hey, look how easy this is for you to do this too. And this is something that, you know, it's obvious, but usually goes unstated, that it's the almost magical power of multiplication tables. If everyone is calling everyone's, you know, telephone trees, going through the list of people in their phone who they think might make a call, their friends and family and co-workers, their Facebook friends, hey everybody it only takes a couple of minutes get up to date at this website 833 stop or dot com and then just call that number and let them know and then that's it and it's great and then

but we could turn thousands into tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of calls if everyone who really cares about this we'll see if they can get six or ten people to also care about it enough to make a call to send an email to do a little something and i keep saying this but i really feel this way. If somebody just tells you, son, call your congressman, that that just rings so hollow, it doesn't mean anything. But if we're all doing it together like we are right now on this thing, it can really be effective. In fact, please tell us some anecdotes about your real experience on Capitol Hill and seeing the effect of the phone calls, because I got to tell you, I don't really believe that in my heart that democracy works, but you're telling me it sort of kind of does in a circumstance

like this. Is that really right? Yeah. So, I mean, it's a, it's a number of things, but the phone calls really do work, and there's staffers there logging them and, you know, making it, you know, making it known to the member, the chief of staff. And, you know, especially as they're thinking about what to do, you know, before the midterms and how they want a message, you know, this is a great time to do it. Because, again, this is such a winning political issue. You've got a majority of Republicans and Democrats that support this according to very recent polling. So, you know, this is a politically winning issue. Phone calls really matter. And I've seen, you know, phone calls plus lobbying. So I just want to throw that in there. If you can, if you have the bandwidth, again,

if you just want to make a quick call, that's great. But if you can, you know, actually schedule a meeting with some friends and allies and others in your community, you know, I've seen. I've seen, seen members just join the bill literally the day after they get some constituent lobbying going and after they've heard from constituents. So what I do in D.C. is one small part of it. I do lobby Congress, but what they really care about is what their constituents think. I can, you know, I can only take them so far, but they've got to hear from their own, you know, their people in the district. Yeah. You know what I've called my congressman a few times about this? And I've called Ted Cruz. I don't even bother on John Corny.

but I try to call a few times but you know what I am going to go ahead and try to schedule a meeting with my congressman John Carter he's a conservative Republican down here but you know what I think I tell him the facts of life on this I got to give him a chance right got to do it I'm going to do it

so everybody get yourself educated go watch some me on YouTube go read the bullet points on 833 stopwar dot com and get involved call your congressman write an email get your mom and your sister and your co-workers and friends and family to help and let's do this i think we can really do this i'm i um maybe i'm in denial about the impending thermonuclear war and i just want to like oh i just want to focus on this

thing where i mean not that i'm really ignoring it but i just here's something that we could be optimistic about here's something at 20 years of all this endless killing where we can actually, the people, can intervene and stop it. We have a cudgel to wield. Beyond our voice, we have a resolution to pass. In other words, a law. I mean, it's not just a resolution. I mean, it would make it illegal to continue this war.

So we have to take this opportunity. We have to do everything we can to push it. Well, crossing fingers and toes that, you know, saner minds prevail on, you know, preventing nuclear war. but yes we have we have something to do here we know it's effective we know it can put pressure in the right place we know that there's political will behind it and we just got to act so i appreciate it and again one eight three three stop war is exactly uh you know how to how to make your voice heard yep and by the way i went ahead and bought eight three three stop war and so it forwards that was just

easier to say uh but it forwards on to the official site um i just want to make it easier 833 Stopwar.com, and then that's the number to call again as well. And that is Hassan El-Tayeb. He is from the Friends Committee on National Legislation. That is the great Quaker lobby in the national interest for peace up there on Capitol Hill, doing such great workforce. Thank you so much, Hassan. Appreciate you again. Thanks, Scott. Appreciate it. All right, y'all. That has been Anti-War Radio for this morning. Thanks very much for listening. I'm your host, Scott Horton, editorial director of anti-war.com, and editor of the new book, hotter than the sun. Time to abolish nuclear weapons. Find the full interview archive

at Scott Horton.org, and I am here every Sunday morning from 9 to 9.30 on KPFK, 90.7 FM in LA. See you next week.