The content below comes from the newsletter This Week in War Powers News, provided by the Committee for Responsible Foreign Policy.
Creating the Problem So We Can Become the Solution
The United Nations describes itself in its charter as an international moral authority created to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” But activists who are trying to end the U.S. war on Yemen say that, in a dark twist on this mission, the international body is withholding criticism from the U.S.-Saudi military coalition, and effusively praising its leaders, to avoid jeopardizing donations to humanitarian funds aimed at helping ease the suffering created by that war. As Jehan Hakim, the chair of the Yemeni Alliance Committee, puts it, “The same hand we’re asking to feed Yemen is the same hand that is helping bomb them.” READ MORE.
Danny Sjursen: Tortured Legacy of the Mexican-American War
Danny Sjursen talks about the Mexican-American War, a seldom-discussed conflict that he maintains holds lessons for America today. Sjursen describes a pattern that by now—with our long experience of the war on terrorism—should be all too familiar: a U.S. president deliberately setting up the conditions for war, forcing another country to react, lying about America’s involvement, and then eventually having to remain in the country as an occupying and rebuilding force for years afterward. At the time, several prominent politicians and generals inveighed against the war as unnecessary and unjust, but to little avail. Despite its relevance, this war has been all but forgotten by Americans today. READ MORE.
Progressives Plan to Push Big Cuts to Defense Spending
Bernie Sanders will propose a sweeping 10 percent cut to Pentagon spending, with the savings redirected as grant money to “high-poverty” areas in the United States, according to the text of a forthcoming amendment his office shared with The Intercept.
Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are planning to use Sanders’s amendment as part of an effort to push for drastic cuts to military spending in this year’s budget in response to the coronavirus pandemic and its devastating economic impact. The group of legislators also wants to build support for the idea of reducing the Pentagon’s mammoth expenditures in anticipation of a future Democratic administration and budget rules set to change next year. READ MORE.
