Wed 2/13: Barr and Yemen. Time to call again.

Action #1 –  Is there a minimum quota of deaths for war crimes? Asking for a friend…

Before the Nazi death camps were revealed to the American public, there were sporatic public protests to legislators to help Jews in Germany.

“Historians agree on factual explanations why most American protests against Nazism in 1933 died down within a few months…. Isolationism, economic concerns, racism, and antisemitism all led most Americans to focus on domestic problems rather than international ones. Reflecting the mood and situation of the country, State Department officers interpreted America’s restrictive immigration laws even more stringently, leaving the quotas far from filled. Nazi Germany owed American banks billions of dollars, and the Roosevelt administration was unwilling to issue a protest, in part because of the risk that Hitler would cancel his country’s debts. Nazi Germany was a sovereign nation, and most Americans did not consider intervention in Germany’s treatment of its own citizens the role of the United States.”

We can, with our modern technology, now watch a country’s people being annihilated in real time. Nearly 76% of the population of Yemen is in need of humanitarian aid. Food. Clean water. Medical care and supplies. Men are dying. Women. Children. Babies. The immigration issue of 1933 – we now have a similar travel ban stopping Yemenis from coming here, dividing families. Those already here under TPS status are now on an 18 month countdown until they are thrown back into hell.

The 1933 financial issue – we watch our president, citing “America First”, support the country orchestrating this tragedy, who just happens to be our largest customer of weaponry and supplier of oil. (The America First committee was a group founded in 1940 that became associated with anti-semitism.) However, unlike 1933, we cannot claim plausible deniability for what is happening to Yemen.

We’ve covered this issue several times on different aspects of war crimes that history will lay at our feet.

• Here on trying to last year’s H.Con. Res.138. (11.21.18)
• Here on 8/18/18 on how we became complicit in creating a “war economy” in Yemen.
• Here on a background on how we got into this mess with Yemen, lessons learned, and then ignored.

The Senate has finally acknowledged the scale of this tragedy, when it passed a resolution to remove US forces from Yemen at the end of 2018. They’ve renewed it this year with SJ.Res.7. At the time, outgoing and morally bankrupt Speaker Paul Ryan blocked the House from taking a vote, but it’s a brand new House and Representative Ro Khanna has introduced a war powers resolution (H.J.Res.37) to remove US armed forces.

THIS JUST IN! HOUSE RESOLUTION PASSED! 252-177 (here)

Minimal script for senators: I’m calling from [zip code] to thank Sen. [___]  for her/his support of S.J. Res. 7 to end all U.S. assistance for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

(Check here for your senator’s support. Senators Feinstein and Harris are already cosponsors.)

Minimal script for representatives: I’m calling from [zip code] to thank Rep. [___]  for her/his support of H.J. Res. 37 to end all U.S. assistance for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

(Legislator contact information below.)