Zack, Jenn, and Alex discuss the Senate’s historic War Powers vote on Wednesday, the first step toward reining in US participation in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. The US has been supporting Saudi Arabia with weapons and intelligence for years, but the Senate just took a major — unprecedented, in fact — step toward stopping it. On Elsewhere, they run through the UK’s deal with the EU on the terms of Brexit and why Parliament might end up rejecting the deal in December. Zack does a terrible ...
Zack, Jenn, and Alex discuss the Senate’s historic War Powers vote on Wednesday, the first step toward reining in US participation in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. The US has been supporting Saudi Arabia with weapons and intelligence for years, but the Senate just took a major — unprecedented, in fact — step toward stopping it. On Elsewhere, they run through the UK’s deal with the EU on the terms of Brexit and why Parliament might end up rejecting the deal in December. Zack does a terrible British accent, Jenn manages to repeatedly work the word “omnishambles” into the conversation, and Alex talks about a “garden of unicorns.” References: Alex Ward wrote a great explainer on the recent Senate vote. The full clip of Sens. Mike Lee and Bernie Sanders speaking about the war in Yemen on NBC. For a deeper dive on the Khashoggi murder, you can listen to our last episode, or read our latest Khashoggi coverage here. Trump offered his full-throated support for Saudi Arabia in an (as Alex put it) childlike statement. Jenn paraphrased Sen. Chris Murphy’s reaction to the Senate vote, but his direct quote is here: "I’ve been at this for 3 years, and I am blown away by this.” Zack interviewed Murphy in 2015 and he discussed similar themes. A top Saudi Arabia expert told the New York Times that the Senate vote was an “unprecedented setback” for the US-Saudi alliance. A little nuance to add to Jenn’s point about Germany’s support of the war in Yemen. Directly after Jamal Khashoggi’s death, Germany announced that it would stop exporting arms to Saudi Arabia, but then approved an arms sale anyway. Jenn mentioned that other Western countries support the Saudi-led war in Yemen, including the UK, Germany, and France. Alex mentioned that the senators wanted to hear from CIA Director Gina Haspel before their vote, but couldn’t. Here’s some backstory on that. Jenn walked through a couple of things that did not push us to break our relationship with Saudi Arabia, including Saudi involvement in 9/11 and the Saudi coalition bombings of school buses. She also offered Vox’s Brian Resnick’s piece about psychic numbing as a possible explanation for the impact that Khashoggi’s murder has had. Zack noted that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is actually destabilizing the Middle East, despite US assurances to the contrary, and Jenn offered the Qatar blockade as an example. For further reading on our Brexit Elsewhere, Jenn recommends this explainer on the Brexit deal and this explainer on the economic effects that Brexit will have.
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