The US military is also supporting the Saudis in a variety of other ways, including providing intelligence, weaponry and midair refueling, as well as sending U.S. warships to help enforce a blockade in the Gulf of Aden and southern Arabian Sea. The blockade was allegedly to prevent weapons shipments from Iran to the Houthis, but it also stopped humanitarian aid shipments to beleaguered Yemenis.
Moreover, while an executive order stopping a weapons deal is a positive move, a Trump administration might well restore all sales. That's why it's important for Congress to step forward and take a stand.
Congress has the right to stop any weapons sales authorized by the State Department but normally lets the deals go forward uncontested. Congress came close to stopping a Saudi purchase of cluster bombs, a particularly egregious weapon banned by the international community, with a vote of 204 for the ban and 216 against it. President Obama eventually called for a halt to the cluster bomb sales and soon thereafter, the only US company still producing cluster bombs, Textron, announced it would stop production.
In September 2016, the Senate, led by Senators Chris Murphy and Rand Paul , introduced a bill to stop a $1.15 billion sale of hundreds of U.S.-made tank structures, machine guns, grenade launchers and armored vehicle structures. Only 27 Senators voted in favor of the ban.
It's clear why U.S. weaponsmakers want to keep selling weapons to the Saudi regime. For them, it is all about profits. But the US Congress should take a moral stance. Selling weapons to a repressive regime should never be allowed. And today, when these weapons are leading to the death of a Yemeni child every ten minutes, the sales are simply unconscionable. The time to stop them is now.
Medea Benjamin, cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, is the author of The Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the US-Saudi Connection.
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