Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 9/17/22 Hassan El-Tayyab: Our Yemen Campaign is Working, It’s Time to Double Down

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

Hassan El-Tayyab of the Friend's Committee on National Legislation was back again for last Sunday's Antiwar Radio show. El-Tayyab was fresh off a strategy call between many of the organizations and activists leading a campaign to pass War Powers Resolutions through Congress that will withdraw U.S. support from the war in Yemen. He talks with Scott about the progress that’s been made. With the truce’s end date fast approaching, El-Tayyab and Scott emphasize the importance of reaching out to your representatives now to keep the momentum going.  Discussed on the show: 1833stopwar.com Demand Progress 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, September 18th, 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. editor of the new book, Hotter Than the Sun. Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. You'll find my full interview archive and sign up for the podcast feed at

Scott Horton.org. And you can follow me on Twitter at Scott Horton's show. All right. Introducing our friend Hassan L. Tayeb from the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Welcome back to the show. Hassan, how are you doing? Good. Thanks for having me.

Very happy to have you here. And listen, very importantly, I missed. the giant meeting on Thursday, the big Zoom meeting conference call between all the anti-Yemen war activists right at the heat of our massive push to get these war powers resolutions passed through Congress. So I wanted to hear from you, especially to start here, what was it that I missed? And I know that your answer is going to include a lot of things about how other people can get involved with this great effort to end the Yemen war. Well, of course, we miss having you on there,

but thank you so much for checking in about that. We had a great turnout. Lots of people are fired up. We have an impending truce deadline. October 2nd is when the current Yemen truce expires right now. The basic terms of the truce are the Saudis have stopped airstrikes. The Houthis have stopped cross-border attacks. The Saudis have agreed to loosen the block.

But unfortunately, only 40% of fuel leads are getting in. And that means food is really expensive. That means the humanitarian crisis is still raging. There's also other issues like roads to Taz and other governance. And there's a lot to be resolved here. But in the U.S., I think what we've got to do is keep the pressure on and make sure that Saudi understands that there's going to be no military aid for any resumption of hostilities. So that's what we talked about.

there was, again, a lot of enthusiasm. We've added a few co-sponsors on the Yemen War Powers resolution. That was one of the key updates. We just added Representative Jason Crow. That's a very important Democrat on House Armed Services Committee. And we're really grateful to have his support. Representative Cleaver also joined. And we got two senators, Senator Stabenow and Senator Murray from the great state of Washington and great state of Michigan. So, Really happy to get some momentum and build up support as we head towards that truce deadline. Great. Now, a few weeks back, I was on the Zoom call with the Yemen war activists, Hassan. And one of them said that essentially was relaying response that they're getting from the other side of this on Capitol Hill. And the staffers are saying, hey, we're with you. And we really like this stuff. But we need more phone calls from you and that kind of thing.

Did you hear any more about that? about what kind of effect we're having. What kind of numbers are we actually turning out here? What difference is it making? Well, yeah, so it's already made an incredible difference. We have 116 co-sponsors in the House and counting, and a lot of folks were off for August recess. They're just getting back checking their inboxes.

We've got a nice target list of folks on the House side and the Senate. There's a whole bunch of Congressional Progressive Caucus members, in particular, like Rep Norcross and a bunch of others that we have, you know, we have our sites on and are hoping to have jump on. We see them as low-hanging fruit. So we've already done something great by getting as much support as we've already gotten. So there obviously is, you know, ways to go. We, you know, there's lots of grassroots support and, you know, those phone calls, those emails, those lobby meetings, the town halls, they all matter. And we need to keep the pressure on, especially in the next couple weeks here.

I can't stress that enough. We've got, you know, just under three weeks to go for this truce deadline. So that's what we're trying to, that was really the message of the call is, you know, everything that you're doing, just double down now. And let's see if we can actually extend this truce. Right. So far, we've been getting two months at a time. So they agreed in April that they would have a two-month truce during Ramadan.

that got extended through, you know, from June through August, and then we got from August to October. Now, that's well and good, but what we really need is a six-month or longer extension, and that's why we need to keep the pressure on. All right, it's Scott Horton, anti-war radio here, talking with Hassan El-Tayeb from the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

That's the Quakers, Peace Lobby, in Washington, D.C. And look, all the wars in the world are important. There's not too many of them, thankfully. But we're not just talking about a war that's going on. It's a war that, as you all may intuit, at least, we don't have the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marine Corps on the ground, marching around or driving home vs around, fighting like in the worst of Iraq War II, that kind of thing.

So it flies very much under the radar. As fairness and accuracy in reporting had it, the channel MSNBC did not utter the word, to Yemen a single time for 365 days back in, I think, 2018, 19, something like that. So, but what you all need to know out here in the radio audience this morning, listening to KPFK, this war is just as bad as Iraq War II. It's just as bad as the dirty war in Syria. It's just as bad as the worst things that our government has done in the 21st century,

aiding and abetting to the nth degree. the Saudi and UAE and frankly Al-Qaeda war against the Houthis in Yemen these last seven and a half years. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed in a war that began with an American green light and has been sustained by the American superpower this entire time. Now, in all the years that you've been listening to KPFK, how rare is it? Or all the years everyone in this audience has cared about American foreign policy. and how destructive it is, how often is it that we literally, actually, not just in a daydream, but no fooling really have active war powers resolutions in both houses of Congress that are up for debate, that are up for vote. It's not set. I don't think yet the date for it. But

we have the ability. When in your life have you actually had a cudgel to wield to end a war? This is it. This is our chance. And as Hassan is explaining, here. There are, you know, more than a hundred-something groups are already leading this effort. It's already on. It's all you got to do is help to make it viral with your friends and family, your coworkers, your neighbors. And let the world know, regardless of what TV says, this is what we, the American people, care about. Enough of these Middle Eastern wars. And if we can get this war powers resolution passed and in this war, well, that just sets us up to go right after the AUMF of 2001 or whatever else we want, demand negotiations in Eastern Europe,

back off in East Asia, whatever is next. Let's come together and prove that we can do this. So tell us, Asan, about the actual effort for, you know, the listeners out there, where they can join, where they can learn enough about this war to effectively oppose it and so forth. Yeah, thanks so much. So I'm going to start that by maybe just underlining what the current U.S. military role is and dive into a bit more about the legislative efforts in both the House and Senate. So, you know, the Saudi-led coalition war in Yemen, it's received almost unwavering military aid and weapon sales from the U.S., not just us, but the U.K., France, Canada, and other Western countries. It started in 2015, the Obama administration accommodated Saudi's request for military backing

so they could fight the war in Yemen. Again, that was targeting assistance, logistical support for coalition airstrikes, mid-air refueling for Saudi warplanes, spare parts, transfers, and again, billions in weapon sales. This support continued under Trump, but they actually, you know, Congress reasserted itself and got the Trump administration to end mid-air. refueling for Saudi warplains. And I just think that's worth just bringing up is that we've already had both chambers vote for similar legislation and they were successful. Granted, Trump vetoed the resolution, but they were able to get the administration and the DOD to end that midair

refueling. Now, Biden comes in in 2000, sorry, 2021, announced that the U.S. was going to end support for coalition strikes, the offensive intelligence sharing. That's really what they said that they ended. But they never really clearly defined the difference between offensive and defensive. And they said that there were important aspects of U.S. complicity that remain. The administration also verified that ongoing support included maintenance and intelligence sharing for warplains. So that maintenance, I think, is really important. important to underline, and it's exactly what the Sanders office and Rep. Mace and Jaya Paul and others, that's what they're trying to do with this bill is end the spare parts and maintenance

for these Saudi warplains. And again, they could not fly without this military backing. So it remains unclear, you know, what other forms of military support continues, you know, because there just has not been a lot of transparency. So what's going on in Congress? We've got to Two resolutions, as you mentioned, S.J. Res. 56. That was introduced by Senator Sanders, Leahy, and Warren. Hoping to get Senator Mike Leon board. The staff have told me that they're, you know, they're looking at it. And, you know, obviously more calls to their office would be great. He's been a great war power supporter in the past. And I think he's totally getable. So that's kind of what we're looking at there. We've got about 10 folks on, including the ones I mentioned at the top of the call.

And then on the House side, it's H.J. Res. 87. And that bill, again, has 116 co-sponsors. That is a really impressive number. You know, you need 218 to pass a bill. We've got, you know, very close, you know, we're getting closer and closer to that number that we need to pass this resolution just through the co-sponsors alone. That was introduced by reps DeFazio. He's from Oregon, reps Jaya, Paul. from Washington, Rep. Mace, from South Carolina. And again, we're so glad to have so many other folks on this bill. Obviously, I can't forget your L.A. Representative, Rep. Adam Schiff, intelligence chairman, so on the House Intelligence Committee, and really glad that, again, Jason Crow is on the Intelligence Committee. So we're building a ton of support, but really, we need to get those phone calls going. We need to get those emails going. Again, lobby visits. If you're member, you know, they're probably asking for your vote. They're probably asking for your donations right now. So this is a key time before this midterm election to get your voice heard.

Yeah, that's absolutely right. And, you know, it's true too. You're going to have these Congress people going home and doing events and things like that. And they just need to hear from us all the time. They need to be absolutely annoyed. Geez, I don't know. Everywhere we go, everybody's just Yemen. Yemen, Yemen. I didn't even know Yemen was a thing. Now you're telling me it's the most important thing. That's what we have to tell them. We have to make them feel that way, that there's nothing they can do except get ahead of this parade. And, um, and it is working. It seems to be working. We need powerful voices and, and influential voices to get involved in this thing. And anybody can just Google my name and Yemen or Hassan al-Tayeb and Yemen. I'm Scott Horton. He's Hassan. Um,

and just look up and put that in YouTube and you can see all the background information that you need to know you can learn there to get involved, to understand why to oppose this war and how important it is and what we're doing here and then get involved in this thing, help make it essentially unavoidable that, you know, CNN and whoever else

they all have to discuss it too because I guess this is a thing now. People are really getting behind this war powers resolution. They're not going to do it for us. We have to make them feel like they essentially have no choice but to cover this, you know, burgeoning phenomenon in our country, right? So that's how it has to be. We have to make this thing so loud and so appealing for that matter that all the politicians feel like it's something that they want to do. So this is not that creative, Hassan, but it's worth to try. And I talked to you last time I told you about it called Ted Cruz's office and I tried to frame this thing in a conservative way as I could. But then someone showed me on Twitter, someone showed me a tweet from Ted Cruz from 2015 where he said, if we get rid of Assad, we would empower ISIS. And that is not good for American national security. So what I did was I called his office and I directed them to that tweet. And I said, that's perfect.

That's exactly right. And that's exactly what is going on here. We're fighting against the Shiites. and it's empowering al-Qaeda. And no matter what you think of the Ayatollah in Iran and his friendship with the Houthis, it can't be worth it if it puts us on the side of bin Laden's suicide bombers. Now that's, if Ted Cruz can say that, Mr. Pretend Macho, pretend tough guy, Republican security hawk, then that means anybody can say that, right?

You can just say, regardless of your opinion on any other thing, this policy is unwise. and contrary to America's national interests. These are the guys who tried to sink the USS Cole, who did help to coordinate the September 11th attack, who tried to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. And Obama, Trump, and Biden have us on their side? No, we refuse.

We can't go on like this. And anyone ought to be able to make that case to any congressman or any senator you got. It's the plain truth. They got us on the side. This isn't the war against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. This is the war for them. And so if you're a conservative representative, you don't have to move left to think that this is a bad idea.

And for that matter, if you're a liberal or progressive congressman, you don't have to agree with these America firsters to just know that this isn't right. If George W. Bush was doing this, we'd be opposing it right now. You know, I'm so glad you jumped into some of this, you know, bipartisanship that exists. I mean, we've got rep Nancy Mace from South Carolina, just won her primary election. like she's going to skate through the general election. Rep. Biggs, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green is on this resolution. And rep AOC, rep Ilhan Omar. So this is a really impressive coalition that, you know, they might not agree on everything. In fact, they might not agree on much. But it seems like they've been

able to come together on this. You know, if you're out there and you do have a conservative member of Congress, or even if you don't, I think it's, you know, what you just said really makes a lot of sense with, you know, the ongoing military support to the Saudi-led coalition and how there's some really questionable arms transfers that are happening in Yemen with al-Qaeda Arabian Peninsula. So these are U.S. weapons being sold to both Saudi UAE. And there have been lots of instances of these weapons ending up in the hands of groups like al-Qaeda and, you know, other extremist groups. So that is just bad on its face. Another really key point, though, is that Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution makes clear that the legislature is the branch

that holds the sole power to declare war. So in theory, you could say, I actually support you know, arming the Saudis, you know, for whatever reason. But you could also say that Congress needs to have a role in a decision making. That's obviously not my position that, you know, that we should be supporting the Saudi-led coalition. But just as a constitutional conservative, you should support the idea that Congress needs to at least vote and debate if we're going to be participating in any war overseas, you know, if we have boots on the ground, but even if we don't, even if we're just supporting these Saudi coalition airstrikes. And that's exactly what we're doing by giving them spare parts, maintenance.

I mean, these are DOD personnel, military officials that are overseeing defense contractors is keeping these war planes in the air. So this violates the Constitution, but it also, that violates Section 8 of the War Powers Act of 1973, which prohibits U.S. armed forces from being able to command, coordinate, and participate in the movement of foreign forces or foreign governments, you know, when these forces are engaged in hostilities, or even when there's an imminent threat of hostilities from occurring. So that needs to have authorization from Congress. And so if you have a conservative member, why not bring up constitutional war powers? Sorry, hang on just one second.

Hey, y'all, Scott Horton here for Tennessee Hot Sauce Company. Man, this stuff is so good. They get all different flavors. Garlic habanero, honey habanero, pineapple habanero, Pablo, jalapeno, and the blood orange ghost. They're all so good, I swear. And for a limited time, Tennessee hot sauce company is featuring official Scott Horton, Hotter Than the Sun Thermonuclear Hot Sauce. It's full of Carolina Reapers, Scorpion Peppers, Dr. Pepper, Hydrogen Isotopes, and all kinds of

things that'll burn your tongue clean off. Seriously, it's really good. Get yourself a hot sauce subscription. Spend $40 or more and use promo code Scott to get a free bottle of Hotter than the Sun hot sauce. That's tnhot sauceco.com. Hey, y'all got to check out these awesome busts of our hero, the great Ron Paul. They're made by the renowned sculptor Rick Casali, the 13 inches tall hand-painted bronze resin

based on Casale's brilliant original. You may have seen mine in the background on my bookshelf in some recent interviews. The thing is unbelievable. Check out this incredible piece of art at Rick Casali.com slash Ron Paul, and you'll see what I mean. Use promo code Horton, and you'll save 25 bucks,

and this show will get a little kickback too. That's Rickasali.com slash Ron Paul. Casali is C-A-S-A-L-I, Rick Casali.com slash Ron Paul. And there's free shipping, too. Absolutely. And listen in this war, we don't even have one of these phony authorizations like Congress passed 20 years ago to let George Bush decide than whether to launch the war against Iraq, which itself is unconstitutional. We don't even have that. Much less, much, much less a declaration of war by the Congress as the Constitution.

Constitution absolutely mandates. So this war is just absolutely illegal. Never even mind it's not authorized by the United Nations Security Council. I'm not that interested in that, but it is a treaty that we signed on to saying we won't start any wars. Not allowed to start a war unless the UN Security Council says it's okay first. Well, we don't have that. At least you could say that Hillary duped the Russians into supporting her UN resolution for the war in Libya, although it was a bait and switch and then she turned it into a full regime change war, which was not in the authorization. But anyway, there's no kind of legality here at all. In fact, it was Barack Obama's State Department spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan who declared war on Yemen back in 2015. She said,

oh yeah, by the way, press release, we're attacking Yemen now. And that was it. It's really sad. I mean, I think it's worth mentioning the humanitarian toll of what this has meant. We have over, you know, just about a half a million people that have died since the start of this war in Yemen. These are civilians. 60% of them have died from hunger and disease, which is just an awful way to die. I mean, this is just an absolute humanitarian nightmare. It's being perpetuated. by the Saudi blockade. This is the Saudi-led coalition, their Navy and their air fleet being sustained by the United States and other coalition partners, blocking the free flow of goods, you know, like fuel, medicine, food, blocking commercial flights. There are many medical flights that need to happen just to get people cancer treatments and other specialty treatments that aren't happening.

in Yemen right now. There are tens of thousands of people that need to leave. And since the start of the truce, we have seen about 42 flights, which are great. I mean, it's great to see, you know, a few thousand people get to leave the country and get those medical evacuations. But think about this. You know, think about the state of Texas, two flights per week. You know, think about the state of California, and you're just having like a couple flights per week. That's essentially what you have in Yemen, a population of 30 million people. And even though we've got some fuel ships coming in, which is obviously, you know, much needed, we, you know, we only had like 5, 10 percent of Yemen's fuel needs being met before the truce. But now we've got 40 percent of Yemen's fuel needs, you know,

and that's good, but it's still not resolving the humanitarian crisis. We've got 16 plus million people living on the edge of famine. That number by this winter, because of, you know, only the Saudi blockade and other, you know, warring parties still, you know, at odds, but the war in Ukraine and, you know, the lack of grain and wheat being able to get to countries all over the world, including Yemen. So they think that the hunger numbers, people are going to, it's going to be around 19 million people food insecure by December of this year, if nothing changes. So time is of the essence. October 2nd, truce deadline is right around the corner. You know, I would love it. If the folks listening, and I know many people probably already have done this, but

you know, jumped on the phone called 1833 Stop War. We have a script set up. You can call your legislature. Folks in Congress, you can call Senator Feinstein, Senator Padilla. They have yet to endorse the resolution, and we need them on. Also, if you're listening in Arizona, Senator there's Cinema and Kelly have yet to endorse as well. So we need your help. They need to hear from you. And we can really make a difference. Again, there's a lot of bad things happening in the world, you know, more and more every day, it seems.

But this is one that we have leverage to end. One of these crises that we have the power, you know, with our voice, with, you know, by contacting our legislators, we can make a huge difference in the lives and millions of Yemenis. all right now do you think that it would be any more difficult for Biden to just turn around and veto the thing the same way Donald Trump did back in 2019 Hassan yeah good question you know that's a good point I think it's going to be a lot harder for a couple reasons and even if he does there's still a pathway so one Biden ran on ending U.S. military aid to the Saudi led coalition it was one of his first foreign policy speeches I think that's going to be a politically very difficult thing for him to go around and do the exact same thing that former president Donald Trump did in vetoing that resolution. So one, I think that's politically very difficult for him, especially with who he had, who was on the bill right now. Two, let's say he does make a disastrous decision and actually veto this resolution.

We can still make progress. I'll just remind you, I said this earlier in the call. call, but former President Donald Trump vetoed the Yemen War Powers resolution, and we still got them to end mid-air refueling for Saudi warplains. Now, that's kind of what I'm talking about. We amp up the pressure, and we're going to see good things happen, like hopefully a truce extension and the prevention of any, you know, resumption for military aid to the Saudi-led coalition. Yeah. Now, let's emphasize 833, stop war it's also 833 stop war dot com. Isn't that a great

idea? Why didn't we all already think of that for the last 25 years? Anyway, 833 stopwar dot com and we got bullet points up there for you so you got the background on the war what you really need to know. And then we got talking points for if you're

talking to a Republican congressman or senator, tell them this. If you're talking to a Democrat tell them that. Hey, and I hope they got the live link now. Click here to if your congressman is already a co-sponsor. And then if so, you can call them and shower them with praise and gratitude. And tell them, you know what, usually I don't like politicians, but I like you right now

for this and let them feel good about it. That, you know, hey, it's the right thing to stop doing the wrong thing. Hey, okay. And it's the most important thing to emphasize here for everyone listening to Pacifica Radio this morning or in podcast form later or anyone listening to you guys when you tell it to them. What's important is that we're all doing this together. If I just tell you, call your congressman, you could shrug and ignore me. But we're all calling our congressmen.

We're all writing emails. We're all getting on the same page with this. We have a real chance of war powers resolution, active war powers resolutions in both houses. That means we have a real chance to work together to end a war. And so we just absolutely have to take it. What are we going to do? not take it we have to take it so that's all you got to do you go to 833 stop war get right up to date and then that's the number 833 stop war and they'll connect you right to your congressman

and uh hasan i believe you told me that that phone number is hosted by a group called demand progress which is a progressive but nonpartisan group there's no kind of conflict of interest here it's just anti-war people like you and me trying to do the right thing that's it and there's nothing in it for them. They just forward you right on to Congress. 833 stop war. You type in your zip code, and next thing you know,

you're talking to your senator's staff and then your congressman's staff. Isn't that how it works, Asan? That's absolutely right. 1833 stop war. Make a quick call. You know, if you want to go the extra mile, try to schedule a lobby visit.

Get in there and actually, you know, talk to them face to face. Find the staffer that's working on foreign affairs or better yet, talk to your member directly. And, you know, we've got to strengthen this fragile truce and further incentive by of Saudi to support the negotiated solution that we need to end this war, end this blockade.

Congress has leverage, you have leverage, let's use it. Absolutely right. Okay, that's it for anti-war radio for this morning. You got your marching orders, everybody. Let's work together and end to war. 833, stop war, and of course you can go to FC. That's the Friends Committee on National Legislation, fcnl.org.

And they got all the information in the world for you due to the hard work of our friend here, Hassan L. Taya. Thank you, sir, for your time again on the show. Thanks, Scott. All right, you guys, you heard it. 833 Stop War. And that's Anti-War Radio for this morning. I'm your host, Scott Horton.

The book is hotter than the sun. The website with all the interview archives is scotthorton.org. And you can follow me on Twitter at Scott Horton. show. We're here every Sunday morning from 9 to 9.30 on KPFK, 90.7 FM in LA. See you next week.