Demanding End to Saudi Arabia's "Blank Check" for Atrocities, Sanders to Give Senate Yet Another Chance to Stop US Complicity in Yemen Massacre

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Months before Saudi Arabia was accused of sending a murder team to torture and assassinate Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the United States Senate had an opportunity to withdraw American military support for the kingdom’s vicious, years-long assault on Yemen—but 45 Republicans and 10 Democrats joined hands to squander it.

“I plan to give the Senate another chance to vote on my resolution to end our support for the war in Yemen, to reassert congressional authority over matters of war, and to show the Saudis that they do not have a blank check to continue human rights violations.”
—Sen. Bernie SandersHowever, now that the Saudis’ latest atrocity has garnered international outrage and once more placed the spotlight on the brutal regime’s disdain for human rights, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced on Monday that he plans to reintroduce his resolution to bring an immediate halt to U.S. complicity in Saudi Arabia’s massacre of Yemeni civilians, with the goal of forcing senators who have expressed fury at Khashoggi’s murder to finally act on their indignant words.

“The Saudi-led war in Yemen has become the world’s largest humanitarian disaster. The recent disappearance and likely assassination of Jamal Khashoggi only underscores how urgent it has become for the United States to redefine our relationship with Saudi Arabia,” Sanders wrote on Twitter. “Next month, I plan to give the Senate another chance to vote on my resolution to end our support for the war in Yemen, to reassert congressional authority over matters of war, and to show the Saudis that they do not have a blank check to continue human rights violations.”

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Sanders’ announcement came just before CNN reported on Monday that the Saudis are preparing to admit for the first time that Khashoggi was killed, but they will insist that the killing was the accidental result of a botched “interrogation.”

Critics immediately cast doubt on the report, which is still in a preliminary stage:

As Common Dreams reported, the United Nations warned on Monday that if the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia continue their relentless attack on Yemen—which has been bolstered by bombs manufactured in the U.S. as well as American intelligence—Yemenis could soon face “the worst famine in the world in 100 years.”

“We predict that we could be looking at 12 to 13 million innocent civilians who are at risk of dying from the lack of food,” warned Lise Grande, chief of the U.N.’s diplomatic mission in Yemen.