We Need to Elect More Ilhan Omars

There was some good news yesterday. The House of Representatives invoked the War Powers Act to end U.S. involvement in the Saudi-spawned genocide in Yemen. Why it took the Democrats more than a month to hold the vote is a good question. Now it's back to the Senate, where it was already passed in December but by the previous congress. Supposedly it will take another month before it is brought to a vote, and the Trump administration has, in so many words, already promised a veto. I doubt the resolution will garner as many votes, 56, as the first go-round. There will be an attempt to de-link the Khasshogi murder from U.S. facilitation of the war on Yemen. But that's going to be difficult.

The other goods news is that recently AIPAC-admonished Ilhan Omar, Representative for Minnesota's 5th CD, sprang off the ropes with her confrontation of notorious ghoul Elliott Abrams during the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing yesterday. As Bill Van Auken notes in "Washington escalates military threats as Venezuela regime change falters":

In testimony on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, the Trump administration’s special envoy on Venezuela, Elliot Abrams was asked whether the US had increased its troop deployments in South America in response to the Venezuelan crisis and responded, “I don’t believe so.” He added that direct US military intervention was not Washington’s “preferred route.”

Asked by a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee whether the US was funneling arms to Venezuela’s right-wing opposition, Abrams said that his answer was “a simple and unequivocal no.”

The committee’s Democratic chairman, Eliot Engel, introduced Abrams citing his posts in the Reagan and Bush administrations and his positions in various think tanks. Unmentioned was the fact that he pleaded guilty in 1991 to lying to Congress about the illegal funneling of money and guns to the CIA-backed “contras” in their terrorist war against Nicaragua and avoided jail only because of a pardon by Bush senior.

One member of the committee, Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar, challenged Abrams, citing his guilty plea in the contra affair, stated, “I don’t understand why members of this committee or the American people should find any testimony that you give today to be truthful.” She went on to detail his defense of the El Mozote massacre of some 800 civilians in El Salvador and similar genocidal acts by the dictatorship in Guatemala.

Abrams treated the questioning with contempt, interrupting Omar and declaring that her questions were an “attack” that did not merit an answer.

That the same kind of operations that Abrams defended in Central America are ongoing in Venezuela was indicated by the Venezuelan government’s interception of a shipment of 19 assault rifles, 118 explosive charges, 90 military-grade radio antennas and six latest generation smartphones on a Boeing 767 cargo flight by the 21Air company to the Valencia airport.

“This materiel was destined for criminal groups and terrorist actions in the country, financed by the fascist extreme right and the government of the United States,” a spokesman for the Venezuelan military charged.

The air cargo company, 21 Air, had previously run flights between US cities, but in recent months had shifted its operations to Venezuela, with stop-offs in Colombia.

For the little bit of good news there is no indication that the U.S. is going to halt its commitment to perpetual war. The U.S.-recognized coup leader, Juan Guaido, has proclaimed February 23 as the day that "volunteers" will deliver humanitarian aid from across the border in Colombia. It's a provocation. The U.S. has been powwowing with Brazil and Colombia on the next steps in the flagging coup. The New York Times, while sticking to the script that the coup is legitimate, nonetheless gives voice to skepticism regarding its implementation. According to "Humanitarian Aid Stalls, Testing Venezuela’s Opposition," by Nicholas Casey and Anatoly Kurmanaev:

“The opposition has created immense expectations, and it’s not at all clear they have a plan for actually fulfilling them,” said David Smilde, a Venezuela analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America. “Furthermore, the opposition and the U.S. have not been clear that this aid, even if allowed in, will make a significant dent in Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis.”

Some Venezuelans have even put off buying medication, expecting that the American donations will arrive across the border soon, Mr. Smilde said.

We need to elect more Ilhan Omars.