Top priority for 116th Congress: ending criminal Yemen war

For three and a half years now the Congress has punted on ending US war crimes in Yemen. Under the War Powers Act of 1973 (50 USC 1541-1548), Congress reasserted its Constitutional right to declare war and empowers Congress to end unilateral presidential war by invoking that law. Next Monday the Senate begins debate on the Senate version which will end US support for Saudi Arabia's merciless criminal war in Yemen which has devastated several million in that hapless land bordering Saudi Arabia. But even though likely to pass, since senators voted 63-37 to proceed with debate, passage in the House will have to wait till Democrats take control there in January. Tragically for peace, House Republicans will not even debate ending our Yemen war crimes, tacking on a motion to quash debate to a favored bill to allow hunting of gray wolves last month. But incoming House Democratic leaders, including likely new Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are determined to end US involvement they have enabled till now. A joint Senate-House resolution to end our Yemen war crimes is veto proof. If Trump ignores it the Senate can simply defund military operations there to end the madness. Sadly, it wasn't millions of dead, wounded, disease ridden or starving Yemenis that galvanized Congress to act, but the grotesque murder and dismemberment of US based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government. End of US support will likely end the war since the incompetent Saudis can't even prevail with our support. If Congress acts as expected in January, the 116th Congress will make history, serving the cause of peace, which, despite the myriad of domestic problems requiring action, is and always will be their Job One.

Guantanamo gulag a bitter legacy of US Cuban takeover 120 years ago

Most Americans remain oblivious the US still maintains a gulag for suspected bad guys at Cuba's GITMO (Guantanamo Bay Naval Base) prison, opened in 2002. Some were tortured there; some died from ill treatment; some committed suicide. None got US justice they were entitled to. Of over 500 sent there only 40 remain, none newer to America's concentration camp than 2008. That precludes any providing actionable intelligence about current terrorist activities. All are heading to geriatricville, with its expanding costs in medical care for what will eventually turn into a nursing home for hapless souls swept up in the hysteria following 911. Congress has been sitting on an $89 million request for upgrades needed for these old-timers because, well, the voters might revolt if their congressman spends a penny to aid the folks long demonized into non-humans. Obama made closing the GITMO detention center an early goal, but was thwarted by congressional Islamophobia. Trump, reversing every decent Obama policy, has applauded GITMO incarceration as an "enduring mission."

In a bitter irony we're housing these aging detainees in an area swiped from Cuba after we pushed Spain out in 1898. We set up a naval base at Guantanamo's harbor to prosecute the war and maintained it during our four year occupation. In 1902 we granted Cuba their independence with the caveat we could intervene militarily anytime for any reason. We did that three times in the next eight years with GITMO a vital resource. We also forced Cuba to grant the US a permanent lease to the 45 square miles needed for our military presence. In 1949, the UN, it its Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Nations, declared such unilateral land grads illegal. The US, claiming grandfather rights to GITMO, has told Cuba and the UN to take a hike. We dutifully send Cuba a check for $4,085 every year to pay our imposed rental, and every year Cuba rips up the check in protest.

GITMO, and its American gulag; just another example of the US saying, "Do as we say...not as we do."