Incipient Bipartisan Anti-War Caucus Stepping Forward in U.S. Congress

April 4, 2019 (EIRNS)—The U.S. House of Representatives passed today, 247-176, a bipartisan resolution that would end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s involvement in Yemen’s bloody civil war, under the 1973 War Powers Act. The same resolution had been passed by the Republican Senate last year, and the new Senate now needs to pass it again for it to go to the White House.

“This is important not just for Yemen, where 14 million children and women and civilians face famine, but it’s also important in Congress, reasserting our role in matters of war and peace,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), the bill’s leading House sponsor, said after the vote.

Despite the disgusting, dangerous fawning over NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg by the joint session of Congress the day before, there are glimmers of sanity. In an interview he gave to the right-wing website Breibart on March 31, Progressive Caucus leader Representative Khanna, co-chairman of Bernie Sanders’ campaign, spoke of “a wariness of interventionism and militarism overseas in the Congress. You have very thoughtful critics of this on both the Republican and Democratic side,” he said. His hope is that the passage of the resolution on Yemen, if the President signs it, “will go a long way in his recognizing the need for Congressional authorization prior to having military involvement abroad.”

“This coalition is also on North Korea,” Khanna said.

“I supported the President when he engaged in dialogue with Kim Jong Un, and also I met with President Carter who I also know supports that diplomatic effort, as do also 15 to 18 Democratic members of the House. This coalition on Venezuela, there are Republicans—I don’t want to mention their names because I don’t want to get them in trouble, but there are Republicans who have talked to me on the floor and said they are concerned about a military intervention there. So, there is an emerging understanding that often times military intervention makes things worse and not better.”