Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 11/18/22 Hassan El-Tayyab on the War in Yemen and What We’re Doing About It

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

Hassan El-Tayyab was back on Antiwar Radio Sunday to discuss the effort to end the war on Yemen. Scott and El-Tayyab have been advocating for the passage of two War Powers Resolutions (H.J.Res. 87 and S.J.Res. 56) in the two houses of Congress. In this interview, they discuss where things stand and what needs to get done. El-Tayyab argues that this lame-duck period in the House is the best time to get these resolutions passed. Discussed on the show: 1833stopwar.com  “State and DOD Need Better Information on Civilian Impacts of U.S. Military Support to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates” (Government Accountability Office) 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. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. 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, November 20th, 2022. I'm Scott Horton. This is Anti-War Radio. All right, y'all, welcome the show. I'm your host, Scott Horton. I'm the editorial director of anti-war.com and editor of the new book, Hotter than the sun. Time to abolish nuclear weapons.

Find my full interview archive, more than 5,800 of them now going back to 2003 at Scott Horton.org and at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton's show. And follow me on Twitter at Scott Horton's show. All right, I'm happy to welcome back to the show, our good friend Hassan El-Tayeb, from the Friends Committee on National Legislation, quantitatively, the most important anti-war group in world history. uh the great quakers friends committee welcome back to the show hassan how are you doing thank you scott appreciate uh listen really happy to have you back on the show now here's the thing

as we've discussed many times even though the war in ukraine threatens all of humanity the actual worst war going on in the world is not the war in ukraine it's the american saudi ua e a qap war against the people and the houthi regime of yemen It's been going on since March of 2015, if not a little bit earlier than that. And now we have a real chance to end the thing. So you are here as an expert on two major issues. One, the war, and two, what we're doing about it. I want to start with what we're doing about it, because this is where people, I hope,

can feel like we have a real opportunity. It's true. We have a real opportunity to do something here to end a war. We, regular people of the country, have an opportunity to really, really do something about it, and then maybe we can talk a little bit about what's going on in the war and then get back to the activism at the end, something like that. But can we just start off, tell the people about the resolutions and what we're doing now? Well, yeah, thank you so much.

This is such an important issue. Yemen is considered one of the world's worst humanitarian crisis on the planet. It's being driven by, you know, a horrible civil war that has turned into a proxy war led by, you know, Saudi Arabia, the United States. Arab Emirates, and they've been doing just horrible airstrikes in the country. We'll get into the war in a second, but on the resolutions, Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Warren, and Senator Leahy introduced Senate resolution S.J. Res. 56. This would end all U.S. military support for the Saudi-led war on Yemen. This is logistics, activities. This is spare parts maintenance and

intelligence sharing for offensive operations in Yemen. And there's also a House Resolution, H.J. Res. 87, that's being led by reps, Jayapal, DeFazio, Schiff, and Mace. That, you know, the effort combined has about 130 plus members of Congress. This is bipartisan, Republicans, and Democrats. It's being supported by 100 plus national organizations from across the political spectrum. And I think it is, you know, it's a really important resolution. It also has a real chance to get enacted before the end of the year. You know, it's a targeted common sense step to end blank check support for a regime that's brutalizing Yemen, manipulating the global energy market and murdering journalists. I mean, I really think this is an important resolution

towards accountability. Yeah, absolutely right. Now, again, it's in the Senate, at S.J. Res. 56. And in the House, H.J. Res. 87. And, you know, the fact of the matter is, I say this a lot because I really believe it, and I think this must be how people feel about it, too. That call your congressman, young man, is some pretty lazy advice most of the time. But not when we're all doing it together. Not when we have a massive campaign of leftists, progressives, liberals, libertarians, and conservatives, too. together to support this thing all across the country in the 50 states. Everybody's picking up their phone to be part of this wave. And it takes a lot of individuals to take part. So that means that

people listening, they have their opportunity, but they also have their opportunity to get their partner to do it too. And their boss at work and their co-workers and their friends and family and their next door neighbors and their mom and dad. Hey, let's all call and just let them know we really support these resolutions. They're war powers resolutions. The famous War Powers Act, everybody's heard of that, no matter what your politics.

They pass it over Richard Nixon's veto. It says that after 60 days of an undeclared illegal war that Congress can force the president to end a war. That's what this is. It's a huge opportunity. And if we all do it together,

well, you tell them, because I'm much more the show host and you're much more the rubber meets the road, activist on the ground, on Capitol Hill, and dealing with these people, And I know, because you told me before, the effect that it has when people are really willing to all come together and take part in something together like this, right? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the original WPR passed in 1973, like you said, over a Nixon veto.

And this provides Congress with a framework to check the executive use of military force without congressional, you know, authorization. And why this bill in particular is so important is because it has a pathway to get. on the floor in the lame duck. So we've got a short window at time, you know, where we have Democrat majorities in the House and Senate. And, you know, there is a window here that we need to take up. Obviously, this is a bipartisan bill. But on the whole, more Democrats support this than Republican. So I think this is a very important window. Certainly, you know, there is an opportunity in the 118th Congress, but I think our best opportunity is in the next couple months, well, sorry, not next couple months, the next few weeks here. And this is so important that

people pick up the phone, call their members of Congress, make sure that they hear from you, that you want them to actually jump on this bill, you know, not only co-sponsor it, but vote for it on the floor. You know, Chairman Adam Schiff of L.A., I think a lot of people here might actually be in his district. You know, one, he should be thanked for being one of the leads on the bill, but he should also be asked by constituents to bring this up for a vote. We really need this on the floor. We need members to say yes. We need to cut off military aid to the Saudi-led coalition. And I think this is so important that people pick up the phone dial 1-833 stop war. If you have more questions, go to FCNL.org. We have a whole bunch of resources so you can dig into the background of how this whole

things started. But basically, all you need to know was that the United States is supporting one of the warring parties that's committing mass war crimes. And I'm not saying that there aren't other parties that are also bad actors, but we really have to take responsibility for what our government's doing here. Yeah. Well, and look, it's important to note, too, that we have a sort of kind of ceasefire. Right now, we have a lapsed, failed agreement to continue a ceasefire, but we have a de facto those ceasefire still. There's been some violence and violations, but it's, I don't believe, been decided that like, all right, bets are off. Let's go back to war yet. The airstrikes have not resumed. So this is, just think about this. We've got the worst war in the world. We got a ceasefire

sort of kind of that could go right back to fighting at any time now. And we have actual, real, no fooling, active war powers resolutions in both houses of Congress. And we're We have a society of 350 million people. And if just a few of us give a damn enough to get involved in this thing, it'll make all the difference. So all we need is the margin. That's where the action is, right? And so somebody out here listening on the radio in L.A. on Sunday morning knows Mark Ruffalo or his agent. Hey, buddy, they were talking about you on anti-war radio on KPFK on Sunday morning.

And they were saying it's time for you and your left-wing Hollywood activist pals to speak up and retweet and get involved on this issue. This is one that you can make it the headline that it deserves to be the major level issue in the news cycle where it can be in the attention of the people of the country. And we need a boost like that. We need a rock star. We need some movie stars. we need some, we need Bernie Sanders to give an entire speech about Yemen and why this is the most important thing in the world. We need to raise the level of awareness of consciousness about this in the society right now. There's not a single cable TV news host that's decided that this is their issue, right?

So this is all from the bottom up. This is only happening because of activists all across the country with no real stake in it other than they want peace pushing for this thing. So it's just going to take more of us. We've got to do it. And then as Hassan was saying, you can call 833 Stop War, but that's also the website. And we got bullet points, and we got talking points for you to use on your congressman there. It's the greatest idea in the world. I don't know who thought of this, and I don't know why I didn't think of it.

833 Stopwar.com. That's it. The phone number is the website, and it's got everything you need. It's a minute and a half worth the reading. And then a call to action for you. and you can share it with your friends and your family and post it on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all these things and like let's really everybody come on let's make a movement out of this thing and that goes for other KPFK hosts in the audience too let's work really hard on Yemen right now

833 stopwar dot com go ahead asan yeah so i did want to bring up what's happening on the ground in Yemen why this is still important little update on the truce if that's all right so in april of this year, we had the unprecedented step where the warring parties actually agreed to stop attacking each other. The Saudis said that they would stop airstrikes. The Houthis said that they would stop cross-border attacks. And luckily, that has actually persisted all through that time period, from April 1 to now. And so that's a really good step forward. That wouldn't have happened without past congressional efforts to cut off military support. In 2018, 2019, there were other war powers resolutions that prompted the Biden administration

to come into office and take a different tone with the Saudi-led coalition. Unfortunately, critical aspects of U.S. complicity remain, including the logistics activities, some of the spare parts and maintenance that really keep this war effort going. So I wanted to put that out there first. The Saudis also agreed to ease the blockade. That has allowed more fuel and commodities to get through the ports. So that's a positive step. It's not 100% of what Yemen needs.

We're about 40 to 50% of Yemen's monthly fuel needs through the Red Sea ports are being met. And that's, you know, causing, you know, still perpetuating the world's worst humanitarian crisis here. That plus the fact that grain prices are escalating and skyrocketing because of the war between Russia and Ukraine here. So the humanitarian crisis is still great. We still have food, you know, coming through, but medicine and medical equipment is not. We have flights now finally from Sana Airport to Amman Jordan, but they were supposed to allow flights from Sana Airport to Egypt. And so that's another stumbling block. There's also different blockades by the Houthis and other, you know, the presidential leadership council. So there's also a lot of problems like on the ground. Now, one thing to me, it's really important to make clear to the Saudi-led coalition that air strikes on Yemen should be off the table. That cannot be a bargaining chip. And neither can the blockade.

They need to not go halfway or half measures. They need to really lift the restrictions on these ports of entry so humanitarian aid and commercial goods can get through to the Yemeni people in need and people that need a medical evacuation should be able to get medical treatment, you know, in Amman or in Cairo or wherever they need to go. So that to me is the pressure that we need to be leveraging right now. And also bottom line, taking off, you know, the table future U.S. military participation in Saudi airstrikes. That needs to be a, you know, that needs to be buttoned up. So this administration or any future administration can never start that up again.

right now listen i saw a guy on twitter say oh come on we just sell the saudi's weapons is that true no i mean you know we've sold there was just a government accountability office report on this very question what's happening right they said that we you know we've sold the saudi led coalition 60 plus billion dollars since the start of the war in 2015 so that's the weapon sales But the U.S. military has a footprint in this as well. We have Attaches, you know, military officials that are overseeing the transfer of spare parts, maintenance, and repairs of Saudi warplanes that, you know, that have the ability to fly over Yemen and do airstrikes. It's also, they're critical in the no-fly zone that's over Yemen right now that's enforcing the blockade. So it's not just private contractors and weapons sales, but it's also a U.S. military footprint. But either way, to me, they're both bad. They're both sending a message of impunity to Muhammad bin Salman and the Saudi Arabian government and even the United Emirates that what they're doing in Yemen is okay.

That occupation of Yemen, you know, blockade and some of these starvation tactics, you know, deserve our support. And I think that's the exact wrong message to send to Saudi Arabia. Give me just a minute here. At the Libertarian Institute, we published books, real good ones. So far we've got Will Griggs's No Quarter, Sheldon Richmond's coming to Palestine, and what social animals owe to each other, and four of mine. Fool's Aaron, enough already, the great Ron Paul, and my brand new one, hotter than the sun, time to abolish nuclear weapons.

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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. And man, there have been credible reports, too, names and faces and pictures and everything of American generals, I think two stars, but still serving as mercenaries in the UAE's militia, Also, you know, they call the Giants Brigade. That's AQAP. That's formerly al-Qaeda in the same militia as American officers serving as mercenaries in this thing. It's completely crazy.

And I just saw one the other day where U.S. Navy intercepts supposedly Iranian ship bound for Yemen. Well, what does that mean? That means the U.S. Navy is enforcing Saudi Arabia's blockade against this country is what that means. as it has been this whole time yeah so this is not this is not just we sell them weapons and they're doing a thing this is what the Obama people in Libya

called leading from behind we're pretending that this is a French and British war against Libya when everybody knows that America is as they say number one the superpower the world empire

and these are our client states it's been like that since 1945. So everybody's snapped to the real world here. Yeah. So there's just a whole bunch of dynamics. And, you know, I think, you know, I don't want to see any weapons going to Yemen or any, you know, Yemen to be a proxy war. And I think the best way to do that is to end U.S. military support for this war, because we are, you know, helping it be a proxy war right now through our ongoing, uh, participation in the Saudi-led air fleet. Now, a couple of things about the Yemen war powers resolution, like why this vehicle, why now, why do we think it can work, right? To me, there's a lot of anger,

you know, in the House of Representatives, in the Biden administration, and the Senate over a few different issues, you know, the recent decision by the Biden administration to, you know, grant clemency or immunity to Muhammad bin Salman for the murder of Jamal Jhiji is one of them. the decision by OPEC plus to cut off oil production, you know, weeks before a major U.S. election, it's another reason why people are really angry. And I think there is a window here to kind of use this to actually, you know, button up U.S. military support for more Saudi airstrikes. So I think that's really key. You know, we've got the momentum.

We've got 130 bipartisan sponsors. We've also got folks like Chairman Adam Schiff, the chairman of House Intelligence. We got Senator Blumenthal on Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Brown, Senator White House, Senator Durbin, Senator Peters on SAS. And so I think there's actually a lot of robust support on both sides of the aisle for this. Obviously, Rep Nancy Mace is our Republican representative from South Carolina, you know, and, you know, Biggs, Gates, Marjorie Taylor Green, you know, Hawthorne is also on the bill and a bunch of others. So it's, I like when I present about Yemen, sometimes I say, what do the Coke Institute,

the Raging Grannies, Code Pink, the Quakers, Senator, sorry, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green and AOC all have in common. Apparently, they all want to end military aid to the Saudi-led war in Yemen. And this lame duck period, you know, just a couple weeks away, it's going to, you know, it's going to be over. Democrats and Republicans have a chance to actually codify this end to military support, and I think they should take it. Yeah.

And listen, I mean, it's just true, too, that when you have such a broad group of people, you could look at that like, oh, I don't want to get the cooties of those people I disagree with on other things, or you can look at it in a positive way that, look, if these people who are known as more right-wing members of the House, if they can be anti-war, then that should be a permission slip for any other Republican to be anti-war too. And so not everybody lives in a Democrat district. A lot of people live in a Republican district, even if they lean left or even if they lean, you know, away from the Republican Party, they might need to communicate in a way that

their Republican congressman can understand. Hey, Margaret Taylor Green and Thomas Massey and I think Gates and a few of these others, they say it's cool to take an anti-war position here. Donald Trump said, let's get out of the Middle East. Not that he got us out of Yemen or the Middle East, but he said that. So, yeah, it's all, look, I have a bias toward this because I studied social psychology for one semester in junior college. So that's the way I look at it. It's got to be okay for people to support this and not feel like, you know, boo-hoo, they're compromising their identity

somehow by agreeing with people they don't like to agree with or something like that. Right? So that's why we need somebody prominent of every different persuasion, just like you're naming here, to just say like, look, this is wrong. You don't have to have an ideology at all. If you have human

decency, man, we've got to end support for this war in Yemen. It's the bloodiest, damnedest thing. And so let's just stop it. That's it. Anybody ought to be able to sign on to that, but they need to be able to see that it's okay. That's somebody that you like and respect also already thinks this too, you know?

I completely agree. And I think that that broad coalition, I mean, it's, you know, I think that's really important that people are coming together, you know, putting aside differences and actually working on, you know, shared values. And we are at such a fragile moment. The truce last in October. So we no longer have this Yemen truce. The airstrikes haven't started up again.

But there has been escalations. The Houthis have launched drones. The blockade is still in place, preventing the flow of commodities into the country, which is perpetuating the starvation. And so, you know, we really need to take action before this breaks down even further. And we end up in a situation where Saudi bombs are starting to fall again or Houthi drone attacks are starting to land in Abu Dhabi or into Riyadh. And, you know, this is preventable. I really believe that we can make a difference. We already have.

And, you know, these next couple weeks right now is probably our last best chance, not our only chance. You know, I think we, you know, I think we, you know, should keep pushing in the 118th Congress when folks get back, you know, the next, you know, next session starts. But really, like, right now, the situation is so urgent. The humanitarian situation is so desperate. The truce expired. You know, we have a relative calm, but it's so urgent. fragile. So this really is our window. And I would be so grateful to your listeners if they did call and, you know, try to get other folks onto the bill. You know, Senator Padilla has not co-sponsored

the bill. Senator Feinstein has not co-sponsored the bill. And we need to build up, you know, more support across the board. Obviously, we'd love Chairman Adam Schiff, very grateful that he supported the resolution. And, you know, he's done a lot of great work on this particular issue. But would love to see him prioritize this during the lame duck session and get it to vote. And I think this is just such an important moment right now. We have a narrow window. We need to keep the message out there that, you know, continuing any more U.S. military aid for Saudi airstrikes is just not okay. It makes us complicit in a horrible, horrible humanitarian crisis.

And, you know, we need to let our lawmakers know that this is unacceptable. Yeah, that's it. All right. So 833 Stop War is the number to call, but it's also the website. And again, you go there, 833 Stopwar.com. And it's just a nice, simple little website. It's got some bullet points so you know what you're talking about. And it's got some talking points so you know how to call and what to say to your senators and your congressman. And me and Hassan help, you know, fix it up a little bit so that the talking points are tailored. If you live in a Republican district or you have a Republican senator, That's the one you have on the line. This is what you tell them. And if you're talking to a Democrat, this is what you tell them. No matter what your politics are, make them feel like, oh, yeah, this is like the best version of myself and a good thing for me to do in my career. And what a great parade for me to get in front of right now and all the things that you want a politician to feel about, whatever subject it is, right, of yours. And really, you know what?

I know everybody has their pet issue but this is a genocide we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands well over half a million civilian people have been starved and deprived to death in this thing and that means mostly children under five years old guys that's what we're really talking about here

we're talking about the dirtiest war in the world and we can do something about it so how about we do that? Yeah you know I'm so grateful to you, Scott, for keeping this issue on the agenda, getting, you know, getting the message out. And, you know, I think if enough people make this call, you know, and make it soon, that we can actually make a real dent on this. I'm hopeful. I'm crossing my fingers and toes. We are pushing hard. We're going to re-up our national coalition org letter, hopefully soon. And, you know, getting the message out that we want to vote in the next couple weeks on the Yemen War Powers Resolution.

I think most likely it would start in the house. That's just my sense based on the conversations I've had. We should update the talking points on the website. We want you to call a vote on this thing. We want you to co-sponsor it and call a vote. We need to have that right there in print. Yeah, absolutely. And it's got to happen soon and it's got to happen now.

You know, I mean, this is just, it's just we have to, we cannot wait any longer. We need to bring this to the floor. And I think if enough people make the call, that's likely, likely possibility. Yeah, I think that's true. Look, I couldn't believe that you said earlier. I do believe it. It's 130 co-sponsors now.

You know what that means? That means it's working. It means the phone calls are working. I was on one of these Zoom calls with the activists where, I don't know if it was you or who it was that said, I just finished talking with the Senate staffers, and they told me to tell you, keep the calls coming. They need them. It's part of their set.

Imagine the setting of their office. they have to be able to say truthfully boss the phone keeps ringing they won't give it up yemen yemen yemen all day long we have to make that true so that they can say that to the boss that's it right absolutely let's do it absolutely yep i i love that can-do attitude we need more of it and i appreciate all of your you know all of your audience members here that have taken action whether it you You know, you're listening to it live or, you know, after the fact, you know, as a podcast or on YouTube. And I'm just so grateful for everybody's hard work on this all year long.

And, you know, let's finish strong. Yeah, absolutely. And a special emphasis on thanking DeFazio for doing this and urging him to go ahead and get this thing voted on now. He's really the boss here, right, in the house? That's right. Yeah, he's the lead sponsor of the bill. So he's the one that really would need to.

call this up, call the question. I mean, they have been asking for a vote, but, you know, now that, you know, the midterms are over, we're in the lame duck period. Now the rubber meets the road. Yeah. And look, everybody, you know, we've been covering Yemen on this show all along. I've been covering it since before this part of the war when it was, before they switched sides since 2009. When Obama was starting the war against them back then, we've been covering it. But, and I wouldn't just urge political action for no reason. The point is, this is doable. you heard them in 130 co-sponsors already that is enough to force this thing through and you know with enough people who aren't co-sponsoring to also at least vote along with it to get this thing through the house and that'll be huge and historic and it'll build the momentum we need to force it through the senate too and so everybody do it come on all of us and get your friends and family let's all do it it's 833 stop war dot com for the bullet points and the talking points and that's the number number to call, 833 Stop War. And it'll connect you right to Congress. And of course, any other

information you need, you just go to FCNL.org. That's the Friends Committee on national legislation, and they have everything you need there as well. And this is their best guy, Hassan Altayette. Thank you so much for your time, sir. Thanks, Scott. All right, you guys, let's do it, 833 Stop War. And that's it for anti-war radio for this morning. Thanks very much for listening. Full Archive, 5,800 of them now at Scott Horton.org for you and at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton's show. I'm on Twitter at Scott Horton's show and I'm here every Sunday morning

from 9 to 9.30 on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. See you next one.