so our first speaker today is and she is actually the mastermind behind this event she's a yemeni american who lives in the seattle area and is a health specialist working as a consultant on health related projects in yemen she regularly visits her home country worked at half the programs for appropriate technology in health directing an h p v vaccine project between twenty zero eight and twenty ten and before that she was at the centers for disease control and prevention since one nine hundred ninety five and  served she served as a consultant to c d c following aisha is the president of the yemen relief and reconstruction foundation one of the sponsors of this event which provides humanitarian aid in yemen the world and is a unesco world heritage site that's where i grew up that's where i went to school so in terms of foreign yemen i'll just give you a brief summary arab spring uprising occurred in january two thousand and eleven created the largest humanitarian crisis in the world there are about twenty million of twenty seven million people in yemen who are in need of some humanitarian assistance today humanitarian the situation in yemen deteriorated significantly after the hostilities escalated in march two thousand and fifteen all the information and presenting here are from you and reports our u s media because i wanted to be as numb by it as possible on this on this issue air campaign on yemen more than fourteen million people require immediate assistance to survive and famine is a canard credible risk for seven million people in yemen aid agencies a warn against that gets into yemen and the dark line is what is commercial imports into yemen the idea that humanitarian assistance is going to be enough to sustain a population in yemen is a misconception th darker darker bar is what's allowed in yemen and the lighter one is what yemen needs and you can see it fluctuates from twenty to forty eight percent but we know also in the most recent years it's less than twenty percent the capacity to receive large shipments and it's also close to the center of where the population eighty percent of the population almost lives so they and the saudis have been trying to they have a blockade on it but also they been trying to have air strikes and to attack it and they international community had said no president obama said no twice to them but now there is an effort again to bomb today that the humanitarian community to bring food through ports that they control that are very small but that also means that eighty percent of the population in yemen will actually have nothing to eat impact of th and this is these are all directors also of that blockade hidden cost of four in yemen thousands could die of kidney failure i get daily pleas from kidney centers in yemen for resources diseases to the collapse of the country's health system and two thousand and fifteen in yemen a child dies every ten minutes from preventable causes it's not bombs that is killing people that they are killing people but it's mostly the blockade the lack of medicine the lack there of clean water un naming and shaming armies that kill and maim children on the battlefield the side the side he was listed twice worth nearly one hundred ten billion immediately and three hundred fifty billion over ten years why should we be concerned because the levy laws says if we provide weapons to a country that why lease international law  then we are responsible we can ask that they stop supporting saudi war and yemen pressure saudi to end the blockade on yemen and use diplomacy for a political solution there are a lot of petitions out there please find them and sign them because it's very sad when i see the signatures that come our petitions for young men with hundreds of people signing a lot of it is because not many people know what's happening in yemen and that is because the sides have employed a lot of p r firms that are working for them kate gould is our next speaker she is legislative director for middle east policy for the friends committee on national legislation a quaker lobby in the public interest kate has spent nearly a decade as one of only a handful of registered lobbyists in washington d c working to advance human rights objectives and support diplomatic solutions in u s policy towards the middle east kate's analysis has been cited by the new york times the washington post and other national outlets kate is a graduate of fairhaven college and huxley college of the environment at western washington university so welcome home imagine that the entire population of washington state seven point three million people are on the brink of starvation with the port city of seattle under a naval an aerial blockade leaving it i'm able to receive and distribute countless tons of food and aid just waiting offshore this nightmare scenario is a king in to the obscene reality occurring in the middle east poorest country yemen at the hands of the region's richest saudi arabia with united states military support that congress has not authorized and therefore it's unconstitutional that's the opening paragraph of the new york times op ed published last october by a bipartisan group of members of congress as i should mention and those numbers have to be updated now very sadly soon now we're talking about eight point four million people who are on the verge of starving to death so i know we're throwing out a lot of numbers that you but just to try to imagine that's the entire population of washington state plus the population of portland oregon within the city limits plus the population of vancouver canada that are one step away from starving to death and it's happening in large part because our government is doing this is aiding and abetting saudi were crimes as a saudi led coalition bombs and blockades yemen so our government is actively facilitating the largest humanitarian crisis in the world and our taxpayer dollars are funding it so if you know that's the bad news the good news is that there's nowhere else on earth where the u s has more leverage to use to save more lives and to stop more people from starving to death the catastrophic war that's led by the saudis led by the saudis and the u a e but there's u s support there at every stage so it's f fifteen fighter jets that are made by boeing you know the largest employer in washington state and those f fifteen are mean are dropping bombs that were made by the u s and those bombs are being dropped on markets and weddings and funeral halls and water treatment facilities that are creating the kind of humanitarian crisis that i should talk about and windows bomber jets run out of fuel they don't even have to go down to the ground they don't have to ground to get to the ground level to get refueled instead they can just keep covering in the sky and then these giant air  tankers and the american tankers will the neat the saudis and refuel them pump them with more fuel so that they can just take a quick break from bombing yemen and go up get refueled and then continue the carpet bombing of yemen and so when those us fuel to us made bombers drop us made bombs on civilians or civilian targets like the doctors without borders hospitals that i was talking about four hospitals within a single year that were bombed then then we have seen over and over again that us diplomats have shielded saudi arabia from being held accountable at the united nations for being held accountable on the world stage but right now we have the best chance we've had throughout the entire course of this war it's gone on for nearly three years it'll be three years in march and we have the best chance we've had so far to actually end it so what makes this moment a point well i would say the most important factor in that is that we've seen this incredible tide of grassroots mobilization around this issue that even though there's been a near media blackout on this more people have been getting engaged in talking to congress and really putting this issue at the forefront of the policy agenda so we have people of course who've been doing this for so long every step along the way and working day and night to get out the word and then we have people who've never heard it may have never heard much about yemen before but are learning about it and getting engaged and realizing that this is so crucial to all war and peace issues we also have champions in congress and you guys are very lucky to be in seattle where you have to come members of members of congress one here tonight and also congressman smith and also congresswoman have really pushed this issue forward in d c and we've seen some exciting developments about that that has sent the message that it's time that the u s bring in this kind of blank check for saudi arabia and  y make sure that there is some accountability here and that the u s stop perpetuating mass hunger so we've seen one example of how congress has really made a difference and change the store and  have course how the grassroots have made the difference that of have made the national discourse change around this issue is around the legislation the number of it is conrad is eighty one so that legislation was introduced by congressman ro khana he's a democrat from california and he introduced it with a congressman from kentucky tom massey they introduced this bipartisan legislation that would end s military involvement in the saudi led war in yemen so they and that was the subject of that op ed that i mentioned earlier this legislation invokes the nine hundred seventy three law called the war powers resolution and that because it invokes that law which ensures that congress actually you know how it has to authorize any kind of u s military involvement that's a long term that it is required to have a vote on the floor it was required to have a vote on the floor of the house but we've seen over and over again that unfortunately the republican house leadership have often prevented congress from being able to vote on war and peace issues and this was another example of that so even though this legislation required by a lot that they could have and that was the republican house leadership went to such extreme measures that they actually violated the war powers resolution to stop that kind of debate and vote but instead of having a vote on that legislation which now has fifty co sponsors then the house instead passed a non binding compromise resolution and they worked it through negotiations to develop this language and that was passed on the crisis now and the good part about that piece that agreement was that there was it did provide a chance for the house to debate for the first time of the stream or war the u s role in the war now unfortunately though the legislation itself the language of the legislation was very problematic and i wanted to read actually just a sentence from congressman smith's powerful statement about why he opposed the resolution writing i believe the resolution did not go far enough to articulate saudi arabia's role in creating an perpetuating the ongoing humanitarian crisis instead the resolution placed a disproportionate level of blame on iran iran remains a detriment to peace and stability in yemen however saudi arabia should also the war now while we didn't get a vote what we what we wanted you know the vote on that legislation the good news is that that legislation helped lay the foundation for what is coming next so we have to really exciting initiatives coming up where all of you can really make a difference in pushing this these both of these initiatives forward to help end the war so the first initiative is and i should say that you all in this room are some of the first people to hear about this because this is very much a late breaking news that in response to grassroots demands from both conservatives and progressives we are expecting that a bipartisan group of senators are going to soon rebels unfortunately can't get into more details about that legislation but but if you would like to hear about it and hear about how you can get involved then please sign up for our list and your e mails will only be going to home state senators and to please spread the word to people across the country your family and friends we need everybody to get on board on this so that first legislation and i should say and what was really exciting about that too is that in the senate there's not the same kind of rules that the house has where it's so easy for leadership to block this kind of vote that each individual senator has more power to force a vote so we expect that there will be a vote finally  next month on ending u s military involvement in the war the second big coming initiative on yemen in congress is in the house and so congressman has recently announced that he will soon be introducing legislation that would not only end u s military involvement in the war but also stop any kind of transfer of bombs to saudi arabia and the other countries that are involved in this war until the blockade is lifted and until the war is over until those two things happen so this legislation would effectively end u s complicity u s military involvement altogether in this devastating war so we will also also by signing up with the list going around then you can get more information about that when the bill actually comes out and we'll let you know about key opportunities to make a difference and move the ball forward on that  excellent how many of you have visited either your members of congress met with them or met with their staff how many of you have been in a room with member of congress so much leverage and so as a citizen advocates where we have so much power to make a difference and if all of you who raise their hate raise your hands actually do go ahead and call and email that will certainly make a difference  there is an incredible amount of power in this room to stop millions of people from starving to death so let's make sure to use it and to end the hunger games in yemen thank you again and just so you know we are making a professional recording of this event today so there will be video clip of all the proceedings today that will be up on the facebook page for this event as well as on the h a i website and perhaps other places so look for that if you want to share it with your friends and neighbors and relatives ok so next we are thrilled to invite adam smith to the stage he was raised in sea tac washington probably before it was named sea tac washington yeah where he attended public schools and he graduated from the university of washington school of law in one nine hundred ninety and served as a seattle city prosecutor in the early one nine hundred ninety s he was elected to the washington state senate at the age of twenty five just remember that all of you congressman smith serves as the ranking member of the house armed it is this committee and is the co founder of the congressional caucus for effective foreign assistance which works to reform american foreign assistance to more effectively address global poverty thank you so much for being here today could be back at the university of washington certainly but i didn't enjoy my time here as a law student no i don't blame the school and for all those you don't remember the law school actually used to be at a different location just down the street in a rather ugly building the brand new law school all of us are graduating for they built at a really jealous of the quality of the law school but i do a very very fond memories of working with the jackson school here and teaching the taskforce class for five or six years that privilege resolution which was very strong on cutting that off but then there was sort of a negotiation and they did sort of a second degree offering which were agreed to and then kind of regretted agreeing to and we wound voting something that was really toothless and didn't do anything so that doesn't mean that we can't bring it back in a separate form as was described in the senate can bring it back and there's no way to add any details to what was  said i've been in once this was in two thousand and nine so this before some of this but even back then it is a struggling country and a huge humanitarian crisis that we ought to pay attention to and ought to try to do something about the statistics and fact shown in the slides i i can't say it any better than that it is a catastrophe and a humanitarian crisis and it's saying something that you can say that yemen is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world right now given all of the other places in the world that have wars and struggles it is a very very difficult situation that we ought to try to step up and help with and step one is cutting off what saudi arabia is doing to help i do just quickly before we get to other speaker and questions want to offer a little bit of context because i think it's going to be helpful for you in terms of lobbying congress to understand i mean if you if you would listen this is like saudi arabia just basically a bunch of bastards just doing this for you know for the sake of killing people you know what's the background here what's what's the reason for all of this and there are a couple of complicating factors in terms of moving forward on the policy one is it's not one hundred percent accurate to say that the war in yemen has been going on since tw fifteen it's been going on a lot longer than that there are deep divisions within yemen they've had a series of wars over the years between different tribal factions to who have been one of the main one not that long ago there were actually yemens because of the differences of opinion and that war was fulminating and it's going to be a challenge no matter what saudi arabia does to bring them back together and get into a coalition government i mean during most of this you had a battle between the current sitting president and the former president to ironically this was president saleh who had spent a fair amount of time as time is present fighting the who is once thrown out of power he th join them in alliance going up against president hati who was in charge of the country at the time so there is a lot going off that is going to take an enormous amount of work internationally as well as locally to bring peace and stability and some sort of government that can bring that peace and stability to yemen we garner lists of what we do with saudi arabia so that's number one we have to work on it it's regrettably somewhat similar to somalia in the terms of the way has fractured and lost any sort of sense of control the second thing that is important and the reason that it complicates in terms of what we're doing with saudi arabia is the reason that we fund and support saudi arabia well there are a number of them but to stand out number one of course because of our long time historical relationship our needing their oil and that is not to be understated but second is because there is a and it's believe me it is it is a mixed bag but saudi arabia has from time to time helped us as we fight against groups like al qaeda and isis they have also from time to time had a number of their citizens who have funded the very groups that form isis qaeda something that the new leader of saudi arabia is trying to train and they're trying to modernize their country but they have huge challenges just taking two pieces of it there's yemen and then there's the whole iraq of and on two occasions nearly was able to carry off successful terrorist attacks against the u s we always number the underwear bomber in two thousand and eight had a bomb on the plane going in detroit which fortunately did not detonate and that was operating and our initial presence in yemen was a relatively small group of special operations forces who were working with the solid government to try to contain the al qaeda element in yemen we could not operate in there without the permission of the government at least not easily so we had a relationship with solid based on that and there was a whole lot of bad stuff going on with the solid government at the time but we were fairly focused on stopping that terrorist threat that was coming out of yemen and it's still there it's been substantially reduced primarily because of the pressure campaign that we have led sometimes with cooperation from the  government sometimes not second thing is while we were dealing with isis and the chunk of territory that they had grabbed in iraq and syria a lot of those refueling missions and a lot of those bombers that were given the saudi arabia were used to bomb isis positions in syria in iraq there's a big problem with this which i'll get to in a minute but as a general rule i don't want to mislead you i am concerned about al qaeda and isis and about their ability to plot and carry out attacks against the u s and i think one they're certainly not our only national security objective should be to stop them from doing that so you know saudi arabia has been a partner in that now the problem with all this of course is that where is the congressional authorization for this war and that's a subject actually was one of the subjects that i taught was discussion of you know how do we handle al qaeda and these different groups after two thousand and one and basically the way we've handled it is whether it was president bush president o are now god help us president trump is is the president gets to do what he wants to do and they bootstrap it back to an authorization in two thousand and one whole bunch of other things our military is being operated by the commander in chief without the congressional oversight that i believe it should have it has an limited aperture to strike all across the world certainly within the middle east but they struck in other places as well so in addition to representative chronos legislation we should directing our support for saudi arabia's operations in yemen we need a new op authorization for the use of military force that limits and restricts that because to put it bluntly i  not trust this president didn't know anything of what we're talking about here and he sort of turns over responsibility to the military and i'm deeply concerned that we've had a tripling in civilian casualties since he's become president and not coincidentally a tripling in the number of bombing attacks that have been carried out in the name of this broader war against isis and al qaeda and indiscriminate bombing is not the way to solve this problem like i said i'm not afraid to confront these people but it also creates more enemies that undermines our legitimacy in the world and it kills innocent people which we should not be doing in the name of any war and there is not sufficient congressional oversight over that to be sure and we need to do that so that that is the complicating factor the rule of iran in yemen is somewhat debatable and while the who started before iran was supporting them it's  sunni thing as much of the middle east is these days and iran now however is clearly backing the who are these in a variety of different ways and is a proxy for the broader war in the middle east between saudi arabia and iran and they've already we're going to  situation where we have peace in the least we have got to figure out some way to broker peace between the sunni and the shia because you've got saudi arabia and the u a e and one side and iran on the other in there fighting all over the place it's not just yemen it's iraq it's lebanon it's syria and we have humanitarian crises that are not quite as large as yemen but syria and iraq have enormous problems as a result of that conflict as well so we've got to figure out a way to to to confront qatar is you know are important to us obviously because we have a substantial air base there but the problem saudi arabia has this guitar is also trying to be friendly with iran which i consider to be reasonably intelligent you know sandwiched between or two large powers you'd like to figure out how to get along with both of them saudi arabia is also attempting to blockade qatar in order to sort of browbeat them into distancing themselves from iran so all of that swirls around a broader peace effort to bring some type of stability to the humanitarian crisis that spreads throughout the middle east but as with all of these problems i believe you can look at the big picture and get overwhelmed by it or you can what these folks have done is look at a piece of it and say ok big picture notwithstanding this is wrong and we can solve it we can begin to turn it in different direction and actually puts pressure on saudi arabia to stop the actions that they're taking in yemen because the scorched earth approach that they have is that it's not in their best interests and it's certainly not in the best interests of yemen long term in terms of bringing any sort of stability to the region i mean since they've started this war have now been missiles that have been launched at riyadh which wasn't happening before they started bombing yemen so they have ratcheted up the possibility of violence in the region that they live it so i think we ought to try to cut them off i also finally say any action on this is going to have to come from congress i don't think the president trop is going to do anything to try to control saudi arabia the president's foreign policy is a little bit hard to decipher at times but one thing you can bet on if you look at the history of the trial business and you see the countries where he's done a lot of business and he's going to be friendly to them and saudi arabia definitely falls into that category so the notion that president trump is going to put any sort of pressure on saudi arabia is one that i do not buy into it is going to have to come from congress so the advice that you lobby your members of  congress that you push for them to make this a front and center issue is what it's going to take to really get some changes made and help at least with this first step of stopping with saudi arabia's doing in the humanitarian crisis but i will also remind you that if you're committed to this issue don't just take that first step the second step is it would stop with saudi arabia's doing how do we arrive at some sort of peaceful arrangement between the multiple different factions that are fighting for control and fighting for power in yemen that will not be easy no matter what saudi arabia winds up doing and i think the united states has an obligation to attempt to do to go all the way to bring some measure of peace and stability to yemen so i thank you for the chance to be here and i look for your questions ok all right  well we next have another kate and i just want to note that both kate's kate gould who spoke first and kate kaiser who is speaking now flew to seattle specifically for this event today and so we're really grateful to both of you for doing that work to have one more ok he will be right back you are welcome so kate kaiser is the policy director at an organization called win without war where she leads the organization's work to establish and advance a progressive foreign policy strategy for the united states you have a hard job kate has nearly a decade of experience working on human rights and u s policy towards the middle east previously she was the director of policy and advocacy at the yemen peace project there's an organization you can look up which seeks to establish a more constructive u s foreign policy for yemen kate is currently a master's degree candidate at georgetown university's democracy and governance program and she holds a b a in middle eastern and north african studies from u c l a thanks for being here to i would like to kind of talk about the work that i do in terms of democratizing foreign policy and how this bill that kate mentioned that's coming up in the senate in this next month and there will be a vote on is really an opportunity for the american people to finally have a voice in our foreign policy making process for decades at this point us foreign policy has been determined in closed back door rooms typically by old white  men who do not think about the people on the ground that their policies affect everything we do abroad will come back to us in some way we've seen this in the endless years of global war against al qaeda and other extremist groups and yemen is no different our role in this war is very apparent to the yemeni people when you talk to yemenis on the ground in yemen they ask why is the u s bombing us it's not why is saudi arabia bombing us sure they ask that question to you but they know that it's us made planes that it's us made bombs that are being dropped on their homes on their schools on their hospitals and they don't understand what they did to the american people so over the past i would say a year or so we started to see growing congressional attention and public attention to the situation in yemen but still most americans don't know that the u s is intimately involved in the civil war  yemen let alone where it is on a map which you know i've struggled with and this is a tension has really been pivotal to changing this national dialogue about what we're doing in the region and also what what the hell is going on in yemen you know when most you talk about the situation in the middle east most people automatically go to syria and syria the situation in syria is dire but this is even worse than syria if possible and we are playing a e and the rest of the gulf countries in exchange for them to accept the iran deal which is a very important nuclear accord that has prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon it was proposed as a two just three week intervention that would reinstall the legitimate transitional government of president hadi and then the saudis would leave and the transition process in yemen that began under the arab spring would continue now this intervention has been going on for almost three years it's killed thousands and thousands of people injured thousands more put more than eight million people on the brink of famine has let loose the largest fastest growing color crisis ever documented in modern history now there's a diptheria outbreak and the u s is playing a role in this in syria the u s has very little leverage to really affect realities on the ground yemen we've been intimately involved there through our work to counter since the early two thousand and now because of our de facto support we are creating a situation where we are in the process creating more enemies that we do not need while hurting children and innocent civilians who have done nothing to us except stand up for their rights in two thousand and eleven and call for democracy so the fundamental question for the american people is why are we involved in this war the u s plays a u s officials continually say this is not our war we only provide refueling will you provide logistical assistance to the saudis in this war it's not that big of a deal but the reality is that they could not continue the temple of airstrikes in the country without this vital military support from the u s and the second aspect of u s support is the political cover that we continue to provide in the international community that prevents any type of accountability from being had for these crimes that are committed and that don't get me wrong as person smith mentioned it's a very complicated situation any of the warring parties are not good  people just because i'm saying you know we need to cut off support to saudi arabia doesn't mean i support the who these are what they have done to the population because they have also created committed some pretty heinous crimes against civilians but it's really important to look at the fact that you have a voice in what the u s role is and so that's what this bill in the senate will do it essentially says congress has never devoted or debated on giving you authorization for the use of force in this war the war powers resolution of one thousand nine hundred three lays out what u s involvement in a war is most people just think it's deployment of troops on the ground boots on the ground that's a war but this law actually defines as any time u military personnel are assisting or participating according meeting the movement of foreign forces that are involved in active hostilities so the u s is literally providing cordon it's for air strikes for the coalition so they're determining where these planes are going in bombing were providing fuel to allow them to move to these places to bomb and so just by plane reading of the statue it is clear that this is an unauthorized war public will have to and congress will have to not only reassert its war making authority to start piercing open this debate about ending are endless global wars the problems and challenges that we face in this world often do not have military solutions but the de facto position of the u s under george bush under president obama under president trump has been to apply military pressure to these situations and often times the second order effects just make the situations worse and so this is an opportunity for us to voice our to our senators that we want them to think about this differently that we want them to actually stand up for the constitution and rein in the executive power to make war it's a pretty clear cut case when you can say ask them why are we sending bombs and giving fuel to a country that is continues to bomb civilians for three years there's been a strategy by both administrations to provide better weaponry to provide better targeting assistance to make the air strikes better to kill less civilians and we also have three years of evidence that that strategy hasn't worked despite this increased assistance we continue to see a systematic pattern of airstrikes that target civilian areas and vital civilian infrastructure that have directly facilitated and created the humanitarian crisis and don't take my word for it this is comes from the u humanity a perspective we want to be asking ourselves why why are we actively supporting such a brutal war i mean officials that i've heard in the pentagon has said this is this is really a fourth or fifth century war being waged with modern technology why are we doing so i want to finish with how actually this bill could push for peace as you mentioned it's actually there's a clear kind of theory of change and we've seen this work in other contexts so over the last year senator todd young who is a republican actually very hawkish from indiana has been hammering home the humanitarian opposition reached a fever pitch he's done letters he's done legislation he's done hearings we had a vote on sending more bombs to saudi arabia where he and some other republicans joined to block the sale because of the humanitarian situation and when saudi arabia implemented this full blockade last november in response to a ballistic missile strike to essentially collectively punish the population and try to starve yemen into submission  he was so outspoken and used his leverage with the administration to push them to actually take action he threatened to invoke a law to force a vote on the floor to end assistance it was a different law there's multiple ways to do this so be more opportunities but  what happened was that was why the president spoke out and called on saudi arabia to end its blockade of yemen and then eventually called for a cease fire and what happened is that saudi arabia the u a e these gulf countries are very sensitive to public criticism like i was saying before they were a lobby on the u s for political cover and so if there is any daylight in the relationship and u s verbal support for the coalition's actions they do something in reaction to that so while it wasn't perfect that advocacy by the administration that was pushed by congress this resulted in them temporarily opening the port of data which is yemen's most vital port as well as announcing new pledges of humanitarian aid and the like but if the us actually wanted to affect the situation trunk could have cut off the military support he did it and so this is the opportunity with this vote that will come up in march to actually have congress send the signal that enough is enough that congress will not stand by while we continue this brutal unauthorized war and that if you get involved the american people won't stand by and let these atrocities happen in our name thank you thank you kate ok be thinking of your questions while i rethink the sponsors of this event at the addicks advocacy committee at health alliance international the global health resource center and the department of global health the jackson school of international studies yemen relief and this is in very small letters reconstruction foundation and roots of conflict so thanks again to our sponsors for doing that and thanks to all of you for traveling here today the two kates and the congressman made extraordinary efforts to be here  so one more announcement i will make is that in spring quarter i teach a class called war and health in the school of public health open to both graduate and undergraduate students for those who are interested in taking now going to go over and get a microphone and start moving around to people who are raising their