Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 6/3/22 Hassan El-Tayyab: Some Good News on Yemen

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

Hassan El-Tayyab came back on Antiwar Radio to give an update on the effort to end the war in Yemen. First, Scott and El-Tayyab discuss the last-minute extension of the two-month ceasefire. El-Tayyab reports that airstrikes have stopped completely and crucial fuel supplies have finally been allowed into the country. That said, there has still been some difficulty getting medicine in, although relief teams are working on the issue. They then turn to Congress, where some resolutions invoking the War Powers Act are gaining momentum. El-Tayyab shares some resources that can help you press your representatives to pass legislation that would make this ceasefire permanent.  Discussed on the show: “Yemeni Civil War Unleashes a Plague of Locusts” (Antiwar.com) 1-833-STOPWAR 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; EasyShip; Free Range Feeder; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt and Listen and Think Audio. 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, June 5th, 2022, I'm Scott Horton. This is Anti-War Radio. All right, Shell, welcome the show. It is Anti-War Radio. I'm your host, Scott Horton. I'm the editorial director of anti-war.com, and author of the book, enough already. Time to end the war on terrorism.

You can find my full interview archive for the 5,700 of them now, going back to 2003 at scothorton.org and at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton's show. You'll follow me on Twitter at Scott Horton's show. All right. Introducing this week's guest again,

for very good reason, it's our friend Hassan L. Taiab from the Friends Committee on national legislation. That's the Quaker Peace Lobby in Washington, D.C. Welcome back to the show, Hassan. How are you doing, my friend? Thanks for having me.

Really exciting week for people that care about Yemen. All right. Well, two major issues. The most important aspect, I think. I'll just go ahead and cover real quick. And that is the ceasefire, which has been on for two months, has been extended. Now, I don't know how perfect that is,

and you can elaborate all the detail you want. want. It's not perfect. I know that there's been some problems at the ports and whatever. It ain't paradise. But it's better than the horrible, horrifying war we've had for seven years. So then the point is now your role in this is pressing our advantage in Washington, D.C. And you are here to report to us this morning that we have an advantage to press. So what is it? And how does it work? And how can we help? Yeah. Well, again, really appreciate you continuing to beat the drum on this and give folks like me a platform.

So at the 11th hour, this went to the very last day, parties to Yemen's eight-year war, you know, have decided to extend the two-month truce. And obviously, fantastic news. Was the truce perfect? No. Were their violations? Yes. But they stopped doing airstrikes. you know, the Saudis stopped doing air strikes, the Houthi stopped their drone attacks, we saw the blockade ease, we saw flights from Sana Airport, so really important, you know, progress. And while some I saw a report reported that the reasoning is unclear, like, hey, what was the thing that actually pushed them over the edge? I think we have to look at what's going on in D.C. a recent introduction of a war powers resolution by Congress, I think, can easily be viewed as a key factor in the extension.

And now in order to make the peace truly permanent, Congress needs to pass this bill and finally end all U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's brutal war. And we've seen this pattern. When Congress reasserts itself where they try to cut off this military aid, go figure, in 2018, they agreed to the Hededa ceasefire. In 2019, the UAE drew down their military. You know, so and then, you know, right as they announced the, you know, right as Jayapal and, you know, their colleague Sanders and DeFazio announced that they were going to do it, they agreed to the first truce. And then right as they dropped the bill, they extended the truth.

So if you see this pattern time and time again, you know where we need to put our pressure. And that's on the U.S. Saudi relationship, on U.S. support for the war. All right. Well, Biden's on his way over there to kiss the king's royal pinky finger. So where does that leave us? Well, while Congress is trying to use its advantage and use its leverage, it seems like Biden's actually adamant on abandoning his. You know, for the sake of oil price concerns, President Biden is, you know, breaking his rule

of not dealing directly with, you know, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, the guy that brought you the gruesome murder. of Jamal Khashoggi. And Biden plans to travel to the region to not only meet with MBS, but to formalize a U.S. security commitment to the Saudis as well as other Arab partners. You know, it's kind of a complex thing. But, you know, Congress is making clear that any deal, any arrangement needs to end the Yemen war. So that's just absolutely critical. You know, worth reminding people that the president on the campaign trail promised to make Saudi Arabia a pariah. The DNI released an intelligence report implicating MBS for the killing of Jamal Hashoggi.

So just really important that we keep the pressure on because if U.S. pressure on the Yemen war evaporates, I'm worried that the Saudis, the Emirates and their proxies are likely to push to escalate the fighting once, you know, if the truce ends in early August or they could even just break the truce before that. So, and then we get into this thing where the Houthi's responding kind, and then we've got the civilians always paying the price. 400,000 of them have already died due to the war. So we can't let that happen. Well, I mean, I don't know. The Saudis have thrown in the towel on putting Hadi back in power there. You know, and Biden is just absolutely desperate to get them to crank up oil production to bring down the price of energy here right now with all this monitoring. and price inflation in the United States

that is, you know, destroying his political prospects. So it seems like they can get whatever they want out of him almost. It really depends on absolutely, as you're saying, our pressure on the Congress to keep pressure on him to not give in on this. And it really matters too a lot of what the Saudi's goals even are at this point.

I mean, they have not lost. It ain't like the Houthis have invaded Saudi and taken Riyadh, but they sure as hell have failed to win this war after seven straight years. And apparently were brought to the table by the Houthis increasing range and accuracy at hitting their oil facilities inside Saudi. And so do you have a very informed speculation about just what it is you think that they'll be asking of Biden here? maybe they want us help to end it more than to continue it. Yeah, I mean, that's really critical. You know, I think we have to look at this in a couple different ways. It's not, you know, it's not just one thing.

There's this effort to normalize between Saudi and Israel. So that's going, you know, that's part of it. The U.S. has dangled arms deals in the past for the UAE to normalize under the Abraham Accords. So that's definitely a part of it. You know, I will say that this WPR, this war powers resolution, it would effectively ground the Saudi Royal Air Force and significantly limit their capacity to keep fighting. And I think one thing MBS wants is to avoid the humiliation of being able, you know, being unable to operate his own air force. That would be really a political disaster for him. And so that's a real threat.

But I've heard a lot of people say, hey, you know, the Saudis won out. the Saudis won out, well, you know, this truce obviously indicates that there is momentum towards ending this conflict. But really, I mean, this is the South, we call it the Saudi war on Yemen for a reason. If you look at the comparison of airstrikes to Houthi drone attacks, it's like 20 to 1. So what are we actually talking about here? We're talking about getting the Saudis to stop bombing Yemen and to stop their blockade. The Houthi's. are not Boy Scouts. No one's claiming that. But, you know, it's really, the way I see the power dynamics, it's the Saudis, you know, they're really in a lot of the driver's seat right now and have the

best capacity to actually end this conflict. Hey, can you tell me what are the latest numbers from the UN on their estimated casualties here? So when they said it was a quarter of a million, that was at the end or maybe even the beginning of the summer of 2018, I think? Yeah. Over 400,000 people have already died due to this war. That's the U.N. numbers now? Yes. It was 377,000, you know, at the end of 2021. And they, you know, there was a massive escalation in January of this year and February.

So, yeah, we are over 400,000 now. And I'll just point out that 60% of that number, Unfortunately, they died from indirect causes, like the blockade, like not having medicine, not being able to fly out of Sana' airport because of the Saudi no-fly zone and head to Amman to get cancer treatment. So these are indirect causes too, like cholera as well. COVID-19, we don't even really know the numbers of COVID because there's not really good reporting, especially in the north of the country where the Houthis are governing.

So it's just absolutely horrific. But, you know, the UN saying we've got like 160,000 people right now living in like famine-like conditions. They say the famine numbers could increase fivefold by the end of 2022. Yemen imports about 30% of its wheat from Ukraine, 8% from Russia. So the hunger crisis, you know, despite this respite in fighting, despite, you know, an easing of the blockade. the humanitarian crisis looms large and is still it's bad getting worse so you know that's why it's just again so critical that we you know keep the truce in place and hopefully turn it into a lasting deal all right now uh i want to get to the politics here in washington dc real quick because there's

so much that can be done really here but while we're still talking about the yemen side of this conflict i'm not sure if i've ever had a chance to bring this up all over one in the middle of your interviews before Hassan, probably. But I think it's just so important to mention, as I think people probably heard. You know, it was made the mass media pretty regularly about a year ago. There was a locust plague in East Africa, a really bad one that decimated crops in Eritrea and Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, and, you know, right all around there. I don't know if they have crops in Djibouti or just military bases.

But anyway, the locust plague, it was just absolutely horrible, and the excess death rate in East Africa went up. I don't know exactly what it was, but it's absolutely increased, you know, famine and people dying. And that means little kids and old people and, you know, the most helpless people first laid down and die. And this was the direct result of Barack Obama and Donald Trump and Joe Biden's war, because he was vice president back when Obama started it, too, his war all along. their war in Yemen because what happened was and they finally figured out what causes grasshoppers to become locusts. It's when they're so overpopulated that the male's back legs rubbed together and it causes the change and help harmless little grasshoppers turn into a biblical plague and decimate your population. And what it is though is at the university in Sana'a, they used to have a program every spring

where the graduate students would go out there and commit mass genocide against the grasshoppers. They had a massive grasshopper eradication campaign. But with the war, the grasshopper eradication campaign at the university was canceled, and the grasshoppers got out of control, and they turned into a locust plague that decimated probably millions of people in East Africa.

And nobody makes the connection except a young woman named Morgan Hunter in a great piece for anti-war.com a couple of years back. But otherwise, this made no notice. It's just the, it's like the sun and the moon in the sky. It's just the weather. I said it's not just the weather. It's the United States of America unleashing a literal locust plague on top of our cholera plague on these poor people in the name of fighting terror, you understand.

even though in this case, of course, we're on al-Qaeda's side against the Shiites, because that's what Israel and Saudi Arabia want. Wow, Scott, I had no idea. That's a really fascinating and devastating connection to make, you know, and it just, I think you're saying it right. Like, there's so many interconnected pieces, and, you know, this is just all the more reason to just bring this war to an end. We just, you know, God, eight years, we can't do this. We cannot keep doing this. This is just ridiculous. Yeah, sorry.

Hang on just one second. Hey, guys, anybody who signs up to listen to this show by way of Patreon will be invited to join the Reddit group. And I'm going to start posting stuff over there more. That's patreon.com slash Scott Horton's show. Thanks. Hey, y'all, Libertasbella.com is where you get Scott Horton's show and Libertarian Institute, shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and stickers and things, including the great top.

Lobstice designs as well. See, that way it says on your shirt, why you're so smart. Libertas Bella, from the same great folks who bring you ammo.com for all your ammunition needs too. That's libertasbella.com. You guys check it out. This is so cool. The great Mike Swanson's new book is finally out. He's been working on this thing for years. And I admit, I haven't read it yet. I'm going to get to it as soon as I can, but I know you guys are going to want to beat me to it. It's called Why the Vietnam War? Nuclear bombs and nation building in Southeast Asia, 1945 through 61. And as he explains on the back here, all of our popular culture and our retellings and our history and our movies are all about the height of the American war there in, say, 1964 through 1974.

But how do we get there? Why is this all Harry Truman's fault? find out in why the Vietnam War by the great Mike Swanson available now. So let's talk about, as you mentioned previously, in your discussion of the situation there, about the flights in and out of Sana'a Airport. And I wonder if you could just give us your best update on, for that matter, Hodata and Aden and what kind of traffic, commercial traffic, and humanitarian aid traffic is getting in there.

And is it your understanding that it's a real increase over the last couple of months compared to previously? So let's first by look back to where it was. You know, at the beginning of the Biden administration, we saw about anywhere from like three to six percent of Yemen's monthly fuel needs, which, you know, Yemen needs about 544,000 metric tons of fuel per month. And they've created a UN tracker that tells us each week. I look at it almost, you know, I look at it,

weekly and to see, okay, how much fuel got in this month. And we're talking like maybe like 40,000 metric tons, 50,000. That was sort of the average that I was seeing. We've gotten in the past, you know, month, two months here, we've got about 300 plus thousand metric tons of fuel. And so the World Food Program, they're claiming that, you know, that's actually helping a lot. We've got 12 fuel ships, you know, into Hedek. data port, probably more on the way. They originally agreed to do 18 during the two-month truce. They've got about 12, so not quite what they agreed to, but still progress. And I'm hoping that, you know, we'll continue to see that steady flow. Unfortunately, medicine is still a problem. I spoke with some colleagues that have operations going, and that's still tricky, you know, so it's not a perfect situation. The other piece is flights at a sauna airport. Port to Jordan. We saw three flights. So that was, you know, we were hoping for a lot more, but again, we'll take it. And just on Wednesday, they agreed to open up flights to Cairo. So that's another, you know, another win. Obviously, these flights are critical for a number of issues, but, you know, very importantly, Mercy flights, people that have medical conditions that need to, you know, get cancer treatment, you know, get, for all, you know, a number of diseases or whatever they need.

So that's really critical. I heard that there was about 30,000 people stuck in Sana, you know, in the north of the country that just literally were either like waiting to get treated, needed like emergency help and just couldn't. So this offers them, you know, an important lifeline. And I'm hoping that we just continue to make progress in all these fronts. The, you know, the big sticking, there's several sticking points right now, but I'd be remiss, you know, the, we right now have a, you know, Hadi was deposed by Saudi, and they appointed a presidential leadership council, and they reflect really an unprecedented unity among the anti-Houthi camp. There's still a lot of, you know, divisions between them.

we don't know where this is going to go. And they're obviously being backed by the Saudis and the Emirates. You know, the Houthis appear poised to double, you know, potentially, you know, redouble their efforts to take Marib. You know, we don't know exactly where this is all going. So it's, we're not out of the woods yet, but the fact is we have to measure this in days, in flights, in ships, you know, and so far the ships are, you know, you know, we're in the green. We're heading in the right direction. So, you know, I'm feeling

cautiously optimistic at this point. But, but like we were talking about earlier, the, you know, pushing on this WPR, that is our main lever right now in the U.S. I mean, it's not the only thing that needs to happen. You know, ending U.S. support isn't going to magically, you know, bring back 400,000 Yemenis who have perished. And it's not going to unilaterally bring about peace. but it's just an absolutely critical piece of the puzzle that is needed to persuade Saudi Arabia and its proxies to state the negotiating table and to turn this truce into an actual peace agreement and nationwide ceasefire that ends the war. Yeah.

Well, I guess one good thing about being under blockade for seven years is they weren't getting any Ukrainian wheat to now be deprived of it. They can only go up from here, whatever's getting important. imported there. So at least that's good. Yeah, I mean, you know, they did import 30% of its wheat from Ukraine and, you know, before the war or during it even? During. Oh, okay. See, I was just being a smart aleck. I didn't realize. Go ahead. No, no. It's, it's all good. It's, you know, kind of complicated, but, you know, the UN ships, so here's a distinction. UN ships were like, you've got the humanitarian vessels that are getting in through OCHA, which is this UN, you know, coordinating, humanitarian

coordinating organization. And then you've got the commercial ships, which are going through, you know, Djibouti, they get inspected by this unvim mechanism, the UN verification mechanism, and then they get cleared. And a lot of the fuel and medicine were kind of coming through that process, through the unvim process. And a lot of that. And a lot of that, was not getting in. So, you know, even Sana Airport was receiving UN flights, but the commercial flights for people being able to exit for medical treatment and whatnot, that was completely stopped. So, again, you know, so humanitarians do have some access limited, but really it's like, you know, to have an economy, to have a stable currency, to have, you know, a population that actually has

medical treatment, you need to open up these ports. All right, so now we switch to Washington, D.C. We're on the radio. This show, you know, it'll be on the podcast on the internet everywhere, but we're on the radio in Los Angeles on Sunday morning on KPFK. And I just love radio so much.

You never know who's listening and what's going to happen. You never know what kind of power and influence people have that they don't even know they have until they try. But here, other than stopping the war in Ukraine, that threatens all humanity. This is the second worst thing

in the whole world. It's really the worst thing in the world happening now and we can move the margin on this. We have an advantage to press in the U.S. Congress here in order to bring this war to a grinding halt to make sure

a peace deal is pushed through and that American support for this war finally comes to an end. So tell us everything that you think we could possibly need to know about how to participate in the effort to pressure Congress, to pressure Biden, to pressure Saudi to end this damned war, Hassan. Thank you.

My favorite question. So we now have a live bill. It's H.J. Res. 87. It was introduced in the House on Wednesday. And we need as many co-sponsors on that bill as possible. I will say if Rep Schiff, Rep Adam Schiff, is your member of Congress, obviously thank him for for being a leader on that bill.

If your rep is a Karen, Rep Karen Bass, you know, I think she's running for mayor and say, hey, you know, I know you want to be mayor, but what about the kids in Yemen right now? You know, you're in a position to co-sponsor this bill. She's done it in the past. You know, obviously there's a lot of things. So I think, you know, it's only been live for a couple days here. But, but yeah, pushing Rep Bass to be on, Rep Sherman, these are all L.A. area people. I think that would be fantastic.

We set up a number, a 1833 stop war. I'll just say it again. 1833 stop war. You can make a direct call. through that tool, we'll tell you exactly what to say, and then you'll be connected. The other thing that's really important is that Senator Sanders, on the press release that the CPC put out, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said he was going to introduce a companion war powers resolution in the Senate. So that's another thing we need to support, you know, Senator Feinstein, Senator Padilla, you know, they are your, you know, they are your representative.

They're your senators. And they need to hear from you as well. So that number that we set up is going to call them as well. So I would just urge everybody speak out. You know, if you can do more, do a lobby visit. Actually, you know, start, you know, getting to know your member of Congress, their staff, go to town halls if they got them scheduled. Townhall.comptown.org is a great thing to do and just go on there.

see if rep Bass is going to be speaking to the community and see if we can get her on. Because a very critical member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. And obviously, you know, there's so many other, there's what, 50 plus reps. They all should be on this bill. We only have we have 50 reps right now. It's a bipartisan group. You know, really love to see the bipartisanship, rep Mace, rep Massey, Biggs, Gates, Buck, and others. So, you know, want to keep that.

that going, help us build up the co-sponsor list and call 1-833 Stop War. And listen, everybody, be creative to. If you're calling your Democratic congressman, think about what conflicting pressures they might feel. Like, what does the president want me to do, for example, right? That's a big one. So tell him, hey, if you do this, you can help Biden to do what he wants, which is what he said he wanted to do a year ago.

And, you know, a year and a half ago, and a year before that, that he was going to end this war, but he needs our support and, you know, this kind of thing. Make it sound like what they want to hear. If you have to, tell them, hey, you can't let the Republicans embarrass us on this when we've got Republicans in the House and Senate who are good on this. We can't let them embarrass us by being more anti-war than us, right? Or, you know what I mean? It doesn't have to all be a protest and a direct challenge to them. It could be an encouragement in a way that maybe they didn't really realize that they wanted or needed some encouragement, but now they got some.

And those people are making a lot of sense. Biden did say he wanted to end the war. Maybe he does just need a ground swell in Congress to support the position that we all know we wanted all along, or whatever it is with the narrative. Maybe they don't want to be embarrassed by Rand Paul and Moller. Mike Lee being better on anything than them. You know what I mean? That's a good position for a Democrat to have.

What? Rand Paul's better than me on something? Can't have that. That's a perfectly legitimate way for a liberal Democrat to think, right? So I think that's a good way for their constituents to come at them, too. Yeah. Well, yeah, and that's a great point. You know, being creative, I love that.

You know, we've got, I just heard that there are children of, you know, folks in the FCNL advocacy team network around the country, they're doing lemonade for Yemenade stands and raising awareness about the war and trying to end support. You know, so, yeah, this is a team effort. There's a lot of bad things happening in the world. To me, this is a potential bright spot here. You know, we could end the world's worst humanitarian crisis and then show that, yes, we know how to end wars, and let's end some other wars, including Ukraine.

Let's end the war in Syria after that. You know, let's just keep it going. Yeah. The time is ripe for this. And, you know, for people who, anyone who's a part of any group, whatever your group is, even if it's not a political group, if you can claim credibly to speak for 15 people and not just yourself, that's important. Whatever your group is. Now is the time. All hands on deck for this.

Hey, love to hear that. Thank you so much. And thanks for, you know, continuing to beat the drum on this, man. It's really appreciated. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, everybody, again, it's 833 stop war. They'll connect you to your house.

They'll connect you to the House or Senate, whichever you need. Yeah, they'll connect you the both. Okay, great. And they'll connect you to your congressman or woman there. No problem. And as you say, Sanders is working on introducing concurrent resolution in the Senate as well. This is the War Powers Act of 1973, you guys.

It's a world historical thing that Congress would dare to introduce something like this, especially members of the president's own party, introducing a bill like this to force him to stop participating in this absolute atrocity of a war in Yemen. So all of us as just individuals aren't too much, but if we're all doing the same thing,

at the same time, can really make a difference. So it's 833, stop war, or just go to FC, n.org. That's the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the great Quaker movement for peace there in D.C. And this has been their great representative, Hassan al-Tayeb. Thank you, sir. Really appreciate your time on the show again. Anytime. Thank you, Scott. All right you guys. Again, one more time, FCNL.org, 833 Stop War, and one more bit of business for today. It's fundraising time again at KPFK. Got kind of a false start to our

summer fun drive but it's started back up again just go to kpfk.org or call one eight one eight five five seven three five that's eight one eight nine eight five five seven three five to pledge anyone who pledges seventy five dollars or more will get a copy of my book enough already time to end the war on terrorism and what would you do without kpfk you know it's the most powerful fm transmitter west of the mississippi river and And with its repeaters, covers all of Southern California, down to San Diego, up to Santa Barbara, and way out into the desert, too. I heard it almost all the way to Palm Springs one time. It's such an important station, as you guys all know.

But there's no commercials and no corporate sponsorships, and it's not funded by the big foundations. KPFK is supported by you. Without you, there is no KPFK. So it's members supported, listeners supported radio in the interest of the. the people of Southern California and the United States of America. So do your part. Help support KPFK, KPFK.org. And again, 818985, 5735, and get a copy of my book, enough already.

Time to end the war on terrorism for any donation of $75 or more. And thanks very much for your support. And this has been Anti-War Radio for this morning. I'm your host, Scott Horton. Check out the archive at Scott Horton.org and at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton's show. and I'm here every Sunday morning from 830 to 9 on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A. See you next week.