basquebromance
Diamond Member
- Nov 26, 2015
- 109,396
- 27,011
- 2,220
- Banned
- #1
i completely disagree with Crazy Justin. he's a Palestinian so he's obviously biased against Saudi Arabia. i like libertarians though!
Justin Amash: Why are we giving the Saudis $1 billion in weapons with zero debate?
The United States government has an unfortunate history of ill-conceived arms sales to nations around the world. But it’s our longstanding arrangement with Saudi Arabia that has become particularly troubling in recent years.
Weakbama’s latest announcement—that he intends to provide the Saudis with a rushed order of over one billion dollars in new weaponry—should provide the impetus Congress needs to seriously reflect on and re-evaluate the nature of our relationship with this supposed ally.
Last week, I joined a bipartisan coalition of 64 U.S. representatives in sending a letter to President Obama asking him to delay the weapons sale to Saudi Arabia. As my concerned colleagues and I note, “Amnesty International has documented at least 33 unlawful airstrikes by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition across Yemen that appear to have deliberately targeted civilians and civilian facilities, such as hospitals, schools, markets, and places of worship. These attacks may amount to war crimes.”
Despite the seriousness of this allegation, the Obama administration is attempting to push through another weapons sale in a long line of many—this time with a price tag of $1.15 billion. By law, Congress may block any such transfer within 30 days of being notified, but this notification came on August 8—and congressional business was not scheduled to resume until September 6.
That leaves a mere two days for Congress to debate and potentially vote on the sale—a tall order in the House of Representatives and an impossibility in the Senate. While it’s true that the United States has regularly supplied Saudi Arabia with weapons with little fanfare since at least the 1970s, it’s long past time to reconsider this arrangement.
As our bipartisan letter explains, “3,704 civilians, including 1,121 children have been killed during the conflict [between Saudi Arabia and Yemen]. 2.8 million Yemenis have been internally displaced by the fighting, with 83 percent of the population now dependent on humanitarian assistance for survival. Any decision to sell more arms to Saudi Arabia should be given adequate time for full deliberation by Congress.”
The American people deserve to know that their tax dollars are funding weapons that may be used by a foreign government against civilians. And as their representatives in Congress, we must not be afraid to question the status quo.
Members of Congress who support arms sales to Saudi Arabia must publicly justify this position when basic human rights questions linger. The lives of innocent civilians are at stake. At the very least, we owe them—and the people we represent—open eyes and a vigorous debate.
Despite apparent indifference from the White House, State Department, and many congressional leaders, I’m heartened by the strong bipartisan coalition questioning the continuation of this reckless policy.
An issue as serious as a Saudi-led coalition striking civilian targets with American weapons requires more than a passing glance. We cannot turn a blind eye for the sake of political convenience. Serious debate around the matter is a simple, albeit crucial, first step.
_______________________________________________
The civil war in Syria receives most of the region’s attention, but there’s another civil war raging in the Middle East, the one in Yemen. You wouldn’t know it from the media coverage (the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are notable exceptions), but the conflict in Yemen, the Middle East’s poorest country on the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has led to the worst humanitarian crisis in the region — worse than Syria and worse than Iraq.
The battle between Saudi Arabia and the Shiite Houthi rebels has led to a catastrophe of epic proportions: 14.1 million people are now food insecure, 2.8 million people have been displaced from their homes, tens of thousands of students are out of school, the country’s already-poor health care system has been destroyed, 21.2 million people require some form of humanitarian assistance (over 80 percent of Yemen’s entire population), and 320,000 children under the age of five are at risk of severe malnutrition.
The most disturbing part of this humanitarian tragedy, however, is that the United States is aiding and abetting it by selling billions of dollars worth of munitions and weapons systems to Saudi Arabia — despite overwhelming evidence by the Security Council’s Panel of Experts, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International that Riyadh has killed countless civilians, whether by negligence or design.
Congress has provided the Saudis with a blank check. Whatever Saudi Arabia requests from the United States, Washington is much more likely than not to provide it. Although Congress can block any proposed weapons sale to a foreign country under U.S. law, the institution has long refused to use that authority. The State Department approves the sale, and members of Congress nod along.
Senator Rand Paul wants this to change. In a short interview with Foreign Policy, the junior senator from Kentucky made it known that he is not at all happy with the Obama administration selling over $1 billion worth of tanks to the Saudis. To Paul, refusing to accept this evidence in deference to another weapons sale defies common sense. “I will work with a bipartisan coalition to explore forcing a vote on blocking this sale,” Paul said. “Saudi Arabia is an unreliable ally with a poor human rights record. We should not rush to sell them advanced arms and promote an arms race in the Middle East.”
This isn’t the first time that Paul has tried to get Congress to intervene on weapons sales. He and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy coauthored a bipartisan bill that would have required the president to certify to Congress that the Saudis were “taking all feasible precautions to reduce the risk of harm to civilians” in Yemen before any sale of air-to-ground munitions transfer could be approved. A month later, Paul forced a short floor debate on a proposed sale of F-16 fighter aircraft to Pakistan. Although his attempt to block the sale failed, he managed to achieve a much-needed discussion on U.S. arms export policy, which has been the strict purview of the executive branch for decades.
Unfortunately for Paul and his colleagues of like mind, blocking any further weapons shipments to Saudi Arabia will likely fail by a margin just as lopsided as the F-16 vote. Despite recent trouble in the relationship, the U.S. still views the Saudis as an indispensable ally in a region that seems to grow more turbulent by the day.
Paul, however, should be saluted for making the attempt. It’s past time Congress considered whether the United States has any business taking sides in a Yemeni civil war whose combatants are violating humanitarian law and wantonly killing civilians without ever being held to account.
Justin Amash: Why are we giving the Saudis $1 billion in weapons with zero debate?
The United States government has an unfortunate history of ill-conceived arms sales to nations around the world. But it’s our longstanding arrangement with Saudi Arabia that has become particularly troubling in recent years.
Weakbama’s latest announcement—that he intends to provide the Saudis with a rushed order of over one billion dollars in new weaponry—should provide the impetus Congress needs to seriously reflect on and re-evaluate the nature of our relationship with this supposed ally.
Last week, I joined a bipartisan coalition of 64 U.S. representatives in sending a letter to President Obama asking him to delay the weapons sale to Saudi Arabia. As my concerned colleagues and I note, “Amnesty International has documented at least 33 unlawful airstrikes by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition across Yemen that appear to have deliberately targeted civilians and civilian facilities, such as hospitals, schools, markets, and places of worship. These attacks may amount to war crimes.”
Despite the seriousness of this allegation, the Obama administration is attempting to push through another weapons sale in a long line of many—this time with a price tag of $1.15 billion. By law, Congress may block any such transfer within 30 days of being notified, but this notification came on August 8—and congressional business was not scheduled to resume until September 6.
That leaves a mere two days for Congress to debate and potentially vote on the sale—a tall order in the House of Representatives and an impossibility in the Senate. While it’s true that the United States has regularly supplied Saudi Arabia with weapons with little fanfare since at least the 1970s, it’s long past time to reconsider this arrangement.
As our bipartisan letter explains, “3,704 civilians, including 1,121 children have been killed during the conflict [between Saudi Arabia and Yemen]. 2.8 million Yemenis have been internally displaced by the fighting, with 83 percent of the population now dependent on humanitarian assistance for survival. Any decision to sell more arms to Saudi Arabia should be given adequate time for full deliberation by Congress.”
The American people deserve to know that their tax dollars are funding weapons that may be used by a foreign government against civilians. And as their representatives in Congress, we must not be afraid to question the status quo.
Members of Congress who support arms sales to Saudi Arabia must publicly justify this position when basic human rights questions linger. The lives of innocent civilians are at stake. At the very least, we owe them—and the people we represent—open eyes and a vigorous debate.
Despite apparent indifference from the White House, State Department, and many congressional leaders, I’m heartened by the strong bipartisan coalition questioning the continuation of this reckless policy.
An issue as serious as a Saudi-led coalition striking civilian targets with American weapons requires more than a passing glance. We cannot turn a blind eye for the sake of political convenience. Serious debate around the matter is a simple, albeit crucial, first step.
_______________________________________________
The civil war in Syria receives most of the region’s attention, but there’s another civil war raging in the Middle East, the one in Yemen. You wouldn’t know it from the media coverage (the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are notable exceptions), but the conflict in Yemen, the Middle East’s poorest country on the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has led to the worst humanitarian crisis in the region — worse than Syria and worse than Iraq.
The battle between Saudi Arabia and the Shiite Houthi rebels has led to a catastrophe of epic proportions: 14.1 million people are now food insecure, 2.8 million people have been displaced from their homes, tens of thousands of students are out of school, the country’s already-poor health care system has been destroyed, 21.2 million people require some form of humanitarian assistance (over 80 percent of Yemen’s entire population), and 320,000 children under the age of five are at risk of severe malnutrition.
The most disturbing part of this humanitarian tragedy, however, is that the United States is aiding and abetting it by selling billions of dollars worth of munitions and weapons systems to Saudi Arabia — despite overwhelming evidence by the Security Council’s Panel of Experts, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International that Riyadh has killed countless civilians, whether by negligence or design.
Congress has provided the Saudis with a blank check. Whatever Saudi Arabia requests from the United States, Washington is much more likely than not to provide it. Although Congress can block any proposed weapons sale to a foreign country under U.S. law, the institution has long refused to use that authority. The State Department approves the sale, and members of Congress nod along.
Senator Rand Paul wants this to change. In a short interview with Foreign Policy, the junior senator from Kentucky made it known that he is not at all happy with the Obama administration selling over $1 billion worth of tanks to the Saudis. To Paul, refusing to accept this evidence in deference to another weapons sale defies common sense. “I will work with a bipartisan coalition to explore forcing a vote on blocking this sale,” Paul said. “Saudi Arabia is an unreliable ally with a poor human rights record. We should not rush to sell them advanced arms and promote an arms race in the Middle East.”
This isn’t the first time that Paul has tried to get Congress to intervene on weapons sales. He and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy coauthored a bipartisan bill that would have required the president to certify to Congress that the Saudis were “taking all feasible precautions to reduce the risk of harm to civilians” in Yemen before any sale of air-to-ground munitions transfer could be approved. A month later, Paul forced a short floor debate on a proposed sale of F-16 fighter aircraft to Pakistan. Although his attempt to block the sale failed, he managed to achieve a much-needed discussion on U.S. arms export policy, which has been the strict purview of the executive branch for decades.
Unfortunately for Paul and his colleagues of like mind, blocking any further weapons shipments to Saudi Arabia will likely fail by a margin just as lopsided as the F-16 vote. Despite recent trouble in the relationship, the U.S. still views the Saudis as an indispensable ally in a region that seems to grow more turbulent by the day.
Paul, however, should be saluted for making the attempt. It’s past time Congress considered whether the United States has any business taking sides in a Yemeni civil war whose combatants are violating humanitarian law and wantonly killing civilians without ever being held to account.
