Senate vote against war in Yemen is only a baby step to ending U.S. involvement

The U.S. has been encouraging and supplying Saudi Arabia’s war crimes in Yemen since March 2015. Now the war is the worst man-made humanitarian catastrophe on earth, with untold numbers dead, injured or suffering from disease and starvation, thanks to U.S.-made planes dropping U.S.made bombs sold to the Saudis.

On Oct. 2, the grotesque Saudis lured Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S.- based Saudi journalist and critic, to their consulate in Turkey and murdered and dismembered him. Big mistake. The senators and representatives, who helped the president cover up our war crimes with the Saudis, are now using the Khashoggi killing to expiate some of their guilt for enabling the slaughter in Yemen. Last Wednesday, a Senate committee voted 63-37 to advance a resolution to end U.S. military assistance to the war, with full floor debate to come.

Then it’s on to the House, which recently shut off debate on a similar resolution. Even if the House grows a conscience, the War Criminal in Chief has threatened to keep America’s bomb and plane factories humming while Yemenis are sacrificed to capitalism.

The Senate vote is just a baby step on the long road to peace. We must all demand our elected officials take back their constitutional authority to declare war. The infant anti-war movement must turn this first small step into a gallop. Walt Zlotow, Glen Ellyn