In the early weeks of
the Biden Administration.
He signed a flurry of executive
orders, and
some of them had to do with the US
support for the Saudi war on Yemen.
Scaling back the direct us
involvement in that war,
which applied to certain areas.
But as time has passed, we
found out that there are more and
more areas where we're actually
going to be continuing support if
not directly.
And in one
of the most important areas
the ongoing blockade of Yemen,
Biden has been notably silent.
So what's going on there?
And is it possible to shift
the administration's position?
Or we're very lucky to be joined
once again on the program by
the legislative manager for
Middle East Policy of the National
Committee on national legislation.
Southside, welcome back
to the damage report.
>> Thanks for having me, John.
>> Always glad to talk to you about
this topic.
I hope that at some point there's
nothing for us to talk about there
but we haven't yet reached it.
So, tell me a little bit about some
of your most recent efforts
in this area.
>> Yeah, well I really appreciate
all the coverage you've given
Yemen over the years.
Most recently what we're really
trying to work on is ending Saudi
Arabia's blockade on Yemen, most
recently in starting in January.
This year Saudi Arabia has really
constricted the flow of fuel into
a data port, and
that fuel is absolutely essential
for the operation of hospitals,
the delivery of food.
So it's really exacerbating
the hunger crisis.
And the World Food Program is
predicting that 400,000 children
could die in the coming weeks or
months in 2021, as a result of
the war and blockade on Yemen.
And they're asking for it to be
lifted as a humanitarian act, and
one thing that the friends
committee on national legislation
is really trying to do is echo
the call of David Beasley at
the World Food Program.
And putting as much pressure as we
can on the Biden Administration to
use all the diplomatic tools they
have and all the leverage they have
over the Saudi led coalition.
To get them to lift this blockade
and finally allow food fuel and
medicine into the country freely
and decouple it from ongoing
negotiations that are frankly
really unstable.
We're just saying this is
a humanitarian issue.
It should be dealt with apart from
all of the complex negotiations
that are happening.
>> Yeah, unstable as you point out
and also let's say hypothetically
the negotiations go well if
the negotiations take weeks or
months not going to bring back
the people who have died in
the interim of course.
And so,
have you gotten anything out of
either President Biden himself or
any member of the administration
about the Saudi blockade?
>> So, one, I mean there's been
a lot that's been going on.
So FCL led this 70 plus group
advocacy letter signed by a bunch
of celebrities like Mark Ruffalo,
Marianne Williamson and others.
So, that spurred a congressional
letter led by reps Dingell,
Pocan and
Khanna about 76 members sign that.
And then there was another letter
by Chairman Doyle
from the house foreign affairs
middle East sub-committee.
So, got a lot of
congressional action,
a lot of civil society action.
And the administration response
was basically that
there is no blockade.
They admitted that there were fewer
restrictions, but
their legal definition means it's
not a blockade for
me it looks like a blockade.
It's a blockade and it's preventing
the free flow of all of these
important goods into the country.
So, that's a sign that our pressure
is working over the weekend though.
I think it's really important to
note that the Biden Administration
actually admitted for the first
time since the executive order you
mentioned, that ongoing maintenance
by US contractors for Saudi
warplanes was in fact continuing.
And that to me is a sign that we're
still involved in offensive
operations in the war in Yemen
via the Saudi blockade, so
that's a really critical issue.
I'm so glad we're
able to discuss this.
I mean the announcement was just
made, just a few days ago and
not that was critical.
And then just last week,
US envoy to Yemen, Tim Lenderking.
You know, as he was getting all
these questions from members of
the house and senate.
Said that I'm not in
the information loop on ongoing US
military support for the Saudi led
coalition, which is pretty I even
don't know what the word is.
It's just pretty insane to me.
It's just crazy that after this
point he doesn't know the the
person in charge of diplomacy
in Yemen for the United States
doesn't know, if the military is
supporting the Saudi led coalition,
and we need more action.
I think what we're calling for
now is for Congress to take this
off into force the question, force
of vote, force more legislation,
to cut off this flow of maintenance
support and spare parts transfers.
>> Yeah, well look it certainly
doesn't seem like this is
an incredibly high profile issue
for the Biden Administration.
Unfortunately, if you have this
lack of information,
if they're only in a very
hesitating sort of fashion
releasing information about what
they're doing it doesn't seem like
something that really prioritizing.
But I think you pointed out
something important that continued
maintenance, is it's important that
people know about it.
Especially because it really
undercuts the idea that the US has
pulled out of support for
the offensive operations as you
say, but also even if Biden goes
through with his promises to
significantly cut back on arms
sales to Saudi Arabia.
That maintenance presumably
provides leverage, that in theory
they could ask for things like
the end to the blockade that they
don't consider a blockade.
If they have this very important
leverage that allows the Saudi
Air Force to continue to operate.
>> Yeah that's a good point.
I want to just
flesh that out a little bit.
The first thing is that,
that maintenance is critical for
the ongoing it's not even just
leverage.
It's critical for the daily
operations of Saudi warplanes.
If they're not getting replacement
tires for F15's those planes
are not going to be able to land,
and they're not going to be able
to, more importantly enforce
the Saudi blockade.
So that's really critical
not just as leverage, but for
the daily operations.
And it's also important to note
that the Biden Administration has
begun the approval process for
a whole batch of weapons sales for
Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
It was welcome that they did that
initial pause as they reviewed.
But they're now in the process of
approval and
to look at which of those weapon
deliveries that were promised under
the Trump Administration.
Are going to be followed through
with, we do have some time
to block those sales and
Congress can take action.
In the annual pentagon budget.
The NDAA that we've talked about
before, but
that's also really alarming that
selling weapons to Saudi Arabia at
this point is even on the table.
So, and that's another
question that Tim Lenderking could
not answer is, what?
Okay, they said they didn't want
the fuel restrictions to continue
and they wanted the free flow of
this fuel into the country.
But they didn't make
clear what they were using as
leverage to get Saudi Arabia to
stop the fuel restrictions and
to lift the blockade.
>> Well and now you've identified
two potential areas where
that could happen.
And in terms of the the arms sales
this is something that we've seen.
I think a lot of movement on over
the past few years where not only
a good number of Democrats have
been pushing for an end to that.
But there's also some Republicans
that seem at least a little
bit willing to question some of
the the military partnership
between the two countries.
So, presumably this is an area
where maybe pressure could be
successful.
You've mentioned,
what your organization is doing?
What Congress could potentially do
for people watching this?
What can they do to push for
either not doing the arm sales or
and or born into the blockade.
>> Yeah, so I think that's really
important that we keep the drumbeat
and I'm so happy to have a platform
on this show to discuss this issue.
A quick action folks can take,
is to go to endtheblockade.com and
they can right their members of
Congress, their representative and
their two senators and urge that
they make a public statement,
and call on
the Biden Administration to use
the leverage that they do have to
call on Saudi to lift the blockade.
So that's a really easy step folks
can take is endtheblockade.com.
One thing that I will let
folks know and now it's on the show
is that we're going to be getting
a senate letter circulated soon.
So, urging your members to sign
on, to that letter when it gets
circulated.
I mean, the blockade.com will have,
exactly what to tell your
legislator and call for
them to sign on to this really
important to your calling letter,
that's going to be starting to
circulate in the coming days.
>> I think that, that's great and
a great call to action for
people who care about this issue.
Please get involved as we've talked
about for more than three years
now, we've been talking about this
there's been a great deal of
needless suffering and
death already.
That is regrettably locked in, but
things are looking pretty bad in
the future too.
And so hopefully now with
the change administration, we can
have a change in our influence in
Saudi Arabia and Yemen, so
hopefully people do that as always
appreciate your work in this area
and for joining us on the show.
>> Thanks so much, John,
really appreciate everything that
the young turks have been doing on,
to try to end US complicity
in the war in Yemen.
It's really vital.
>> Thank you.
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