Committee from further consideration of sj resolution 42 relating to the disapproval of the proposed military sales of the government of saudi arabia. Under the previous owner, equally divided between the proponents and opponents of the motion to discharge. Mister president , today is an extraordinary day. An auspicious day. For we will be discussing issues of war and peace. Believe it or not, i rarely discuss these important issues, we have been a war for 15 years and a handful of debates, most of them in direct, forced under duress, the leadership of both parties could avoid him. This is called a privileged motion. Today we will discuss the involvement in the middle east and they engage in a new war in yemen. We will discuss and im sale to saudi arabia that threatens the lives of millions of yemenis that discuss something even more than an arms sale and should be actively involved, should the United States be actively involved with refueling the saudi planes with picking targets, with advisers on the ground, should we be at war in yemen. No president has that authority. Only to repel a minute attack but no president alone has the unilateral authority to take us to war and here we are on the verge of war. What will more mean for yemen, 17 million folks in yemen live on the brink of starvation. Is there anything important that can happen in washington. To save the millions of children dying in yemen but this is it. It is about im sale in children like our leader who died, why are they dying . Because the soviets have 90 of yemens food from the the ocean, they can get their food, starving and dying of cholera because of war. We think of famine being related to the weather, more often than not, famine is related to man, the most common cause is war. How bad is it in yemen . 17 Million People live on the edge of starvation. What are people saying about it . The humanitarian crisis in yemen may be worse and syria. Nobody in america is listening to this. Everybodys paying attention to some silly show trials and silly stuff going on in committees, no one is talking about this at all. They say it is worse than syria. Millions of theory, hundreds of thousands of died and people are predicting yemen may be worse was one Refugee Group that this. The impending famine in yemen may reach biblical proportions. Think about that. Is astounding what is going on and it is being done without your provision but with your weapons. Today i will force a vote with senator murphys help, a prime mover in this done a great job bringing people together. We will force this to vote for these children in yemen because we have a chance to stop the carnage. We have a chance to tell saudi arabia we have had enough. Give money or arms to saudi arabia at all. What has saudi arabia done over the last 30 years. They have been the number one exporter of jihadist philosophy, the number one exporter of lets hate america, judeochristian ethics, the judeochristian tradition. It is coming from saudi arabia, in our country, in indonesia, they corrupt the religion of islam throughout the world, give them weapons, it is a huge mistake. If you say i doubt that, no way they are that bad, dont they help us in the war on terror, every time they help us they heard us twofold worse. I will give you an example, direct from Hillary Clinton, when she is writing honestly and not talking to the public, she sent an email to john podesta, leaked through wikileaks, writing to john podesta, she says lets put pressure on saudi arabia because theyre supplying logistical and Financial Support to isis, the group we are in the middle east fighting against. Saudi arabia supplying them. According to Hillary Clinton not indirectly but directly, who in their right mind would give money, arms, or share our technology with a country that has been supporting isis . Who would do that . Who would think that is a good idea . They will come here and say it is about iran as we have to combat iran, this will make the situation with iran worse. What you think iran thinks if saudi arabia gets weapons . They think to themselves if the saudis are getting more we need more. What do you think is real thinks you give the saudis get more we need more. Never heard of an arms race . That is what this is. We are fueling an arms race in the middle east. Every side wants more. We have to do this, we have to combat iran. How much the golf sheaf them, saudi arabia and all their allies bombing the hell out of yemen, do you know how their military spending compares to iran, 8 1. All the money is in the golf all of the power, all of the weapons is in the golf sheaf comes. They have more weapons and spend more weapons 81 to iran. And the listed missiles in iran. The best way to do that is put pressure on saudi arabia, how do you put pressure on saudi arabia . Maybe dont sell the mods, withhold the sale of arms until they come to the table and get a ballistic agreement with iran. It is a naive and foolish notion, to think iran is giving up on ballistic weapons which they will never give up on ballistic weapons unless saudi arabia did the same thing. People dont talk about this but saudi arabia has ballistic missiles, chinese missiles, 21, 3. Dozens of these. Tel aviv. Saudi arabia is no friend of israel. They cooperate some . Yes. There missiles are pointed aviv israel. Saudi arabia and other missiles are in tehran. Are these missiles Nuclear Capable . Yes. And armed with nuclear missiles, anyone in the Arms Community acknowledges they carry Nuclear Payload if they were altered. Should we send arms to saudi arabia . Here is another quote from bob graham, this is a paraphrase. An abundance of evidence that the saudis were complicit in 9 11. Have we forgotten 15 out of the 19 hijackers were from saudi arabia, the missing 28 pages, over a decade. They have tended to implicate saudi arabia, in san diego were befriended from saudi arabia. It implicate saudi arabia in 9 11. We voted unanimously or virtually unanimously to let american citizens, the victims of 9 11, their families, we voted to let them stew saudi arabia. This is an extraordinary thing. We never let people sue governments particularly foreign governments. We voted nearly unanimously. People have sympathy for the 9 11 victims and their families and because people obviously believe there is some information that may implicate saudi arabia. How much could they have changed . Only a year ago Hillary Clinton writing that email saying the saudis are giving financial and Logistical Support to isis. Who in their right mind would sell arms to saudi arabia in those circumstances . If it doesnt persuade you the saudis are supporting isis and terrorism, may have been part of 9 11, perhaps we should look not only at the humanitarian disaster in yemen what they are doing to the public, their goal is famine, to bring them to submission, perhaps we should look at saudi arabia as a country, perhaps we should look at the human rights record of saudi arabia, a couple instances of what it is like to live in saudi arabia. A girl was 19 years old, they havent named her because the story is so traumatic. She was 19 years old, they call her the girl of courtis, she was raped by seven men. The men were punished. Couple years in prison. You know what happened . They arrested the victim. In saudi arabia it is your fault if you are raped. In saudi arabia rape victims are arrested, put in prison and publicly whipped. She was given 6 months in prison, and 200 lashes was her sentence. Did not come to for and you know why . Because the us stood up and said it was wrong. Partly because behind the scenes we said we are not going to sell you weapons if you behave like a bunch of barbarians. Another story, a shiite, somewhat divided between sunni and shia, he is a shiite, there are 10 of the public in saudi arabia, the other minority and are treated like dirt. His uncle was a chic and by all accounts, peaceful elections, an advocate of violence, never was no door seemed to have a weapon. And leading protest. We should not have this authoritarian government, lords it over us and does not allow us to practice our religion in public. His uncle was beheaded, he was 17 at the time. He got excited and motivated, if you see pictures of him it is heartbreaking, you see pictures of him and western clothing. He likes poetry, he liked music. He was by all means the kind of people we wish would come to leadership in saudi arabia but at 17 he went to a rally and he chose to be part of the arab spring, to say we dont want authoritarianism, we dont want desperate, we dont want kings and all their hereditary lording it over us. We want elections. For that he was arrested and put on death row. Death row in saudi arabia being saudi arabia, death row, his beheading and crucifixion. That will be his sentence. Beheading and crucifixion. This is the regime you are being asked to send weapons to. People say they are buying them. The technology is hours. It is American Technology that was developed to the defense of this country and the companies would never have the technology had we not paid them to have it. The american taxpayer has a right to that technology and almost every the government has no right to tell you who you sell to. Arms are different because they are all developed by the us taxpayer and i do believe there should be rules who get our arms. I dont think we should seldom to saudi arabia if they might wind up in the hands of isis. I dont think we should sell them to saudi arabia if they punish people for protests, punish people for speaking out by beheading them and crucifying them. I am not for selling them a rifle much less precision guided missiles. Some will say if we give them more accurate missiles they will kill less civilians. That presumes they are not targeting civilians. You think it was a mistake, you think they accidentally bombed the funeral procession . You think their intelligence was so bad they didnt know the funeral procession . They killed 125 people at a funeral they wanted 500. We wonder about why we have so much terrorism. Some yes, they hate us inherently but some of it is blowback to policy. You think the people who die the people who survived are the relatives of those who died in the funeral position, you think they will ever forget it . They will remember it 100 years from now. The problem we face of terrorism goes on and on and on as long as we keep supporting despots who treat their people like crap, who sentence them to beheading and crucifixion, who are starving their neighboring country which is one of the poorest nations on the planet earth, we are not getting better, we are not getting closer to peace by supporting the saudis. It is a huge mistake. A rape victim sentenced to prison, 70 lastes. Ali is on death row, sentenced to beheading and crucifixion, i dont know much about him but an outspoken blogger, somebody who writes his opinion and may have opinions that may not be orthodox but for that the saudis arrested him and he is in jail for 10 years and is sentenced to 1000 lashes. I dont think you can survive thousand lashes, the saudis in their great humanity are dividing his treatment into ten doses. He has already had 100 publicly applied, has 900 more to go. Shouldnt we think a little bit about supplying arms to this country . It is the human rights aspect is not enough i think we should probably think about the region. There is a problem in the middle east, there is conflict. Some of it goes very deep. Those who live in the middle east remember a battle in 680 a. D. When a grandson of mohammed came together and had a battle. They are still unhappy about a battle in 680. They have long memories. I am reminded of what one afghan told a reporter or a soldier recently, you have all the watches but we have all the time. They live their, have for century they will be there when we are gone. They have to fix their own problems. We could occasionally say we will help some people destroy an evil empire or an evil group like isis. The people fighting, the people on the ground, people live there. Cant be foreigners, cant be people they consider pagans. It is never going to work. But we are foolish if we dont look at the repercussions of what it means to sell arms to saudi arabia. How will iran react . I was in a Committee Hearing the other way, we dont care how iran react, we dont care what they think. We ought to if we are going to put sanctions on them. Doesnt that mean we care enough that we are trying to modulate and change their behavior. The idea of sanctions means we do care what iran syncs. It doesnt mean we agree with it or condone it or say iran is right but certainly we do care what they think. What do you think iran think about supplying arms to saudi arabia . They think we need more. If you add up saudi arms alone, the third biggest in the world now. The us, as big as the next ten combined, then it is china, saudi arabia and saudi arabia has these other golf chiefdoms, desperate, all allies of ours, 5 or 6 of them all together they have eight times more weapons than iran so we are complaining, justifiably so because we worry about the mischief of iran in the middle east but we are complaining about that and want them to change their behavior. What do you think is the prime reason they create weapons and they are creating a listing missiles . Some of it is because they fear our invasion like iraq but a great deal of why iran develops weapons is fear of saudi arabia. When you look back at iraq and the weapons of mass destruction that never existed, one of the interesting stories is maybe a theory but has some evidence, Saddam Hussein pretended valiantly that he had weapons of mass destruction, not to deter us, to get to iran. Here is Saddam Hussein sending all the Smoke Signals that he has weapons of mass destruction because he wantss to keep iran at bay. We think everything is about us and we never acknowledge maybe some of it is about the regional politics. When we give weapons or sell weapons to saudi arabia, there will be for every action a reaction. There will be significantly more pressure on iran to come forward and have more weapons. What does it do to our ally, israel . There have been reports that israel believes every time we give a dollar to saudi arabia they need to respond with a dollar and a half. A quote from one of their government ministers saying he worries about their qualitative edge. I have a quote from a colleague of mine, friend of mine who is a rabbi and friend of the constitution. The president s intentions, we must proceed with great caution due to the challenges and the history of the region. At this time i dont see the benefits of the arms deal for the United States or israel. This is coming from someone who believes with every fiber of his being that israel should be defended. Hes worried that by giving weapons to saudi arabia, it detracts from the qualitative edge that israel currently has. Imagine what happens if the imagine what happens if the imagine what happens if the government of saudi arabia were overthrown. M they have billions and billions of dollars of weapons, many of these weapons are the mostea sophisticated weapons we have. Is there a chance they could be overthrown . I dont know. They beheaded their citizens and crucified them. Do you think in saudi arabia might have some pent up anger for the regime . All slavery, he said having heard all this, you can look the other way. But you can never say that you didnt know. I love that statement because so many people the time of slavery looked away. They just said that something we do, its part of our time, its part of us pic. So many people knew the horror of slavery pics of many people knew the horror of what was happening to a people and they looked away. Impending i think having heard of the impending famine in yemen, having seen ali and having heard of the impending famine, you can choose to look away. Many in this body will today choose to look away. They will say you know what . Saudi arabia gives us some benefit some time and we hate iran more, so lets just give more weapons to saudi arabia. But they will be looking away from the human rights tragedy that is central to saudi arabias whole being. There will be looking away from the fact that saudi arabia was supporting isis in the syrian civil war. They will be looking away from the fact that the saudi blockade is starving yet many children. You many children. I choose not to look away. And today i stand up for the thousands of civilians who are being killed in yemen. Today i stand up for the millions of voiceless children in yemen who will be killed by the saudi blockade. Today i stand up for saying we, the United States, should no longer be fueling the arms race in the middle east. It, to no good pick the wars in the rage and anger are thousands of years old. Ot we will never get to the bottom of it. We should defend ourselves at all costs. We should be very careful who is admitted into the country. And we should not get involved e in every civil war and every misbegotten part of the planet. It is my hope and my prayer that enough americans will wake up and say we are tired of war. We are tired of funding every war in the globe and were tired of sacrificing our young in every civil war. Today this will be a bipartisant vote. There will be a large contingent from the other set of the isle and a small contingent from the side. Is but this is important. Thithis is a rare day in Senate History and we actually have the chance to stop an evil. That we would stop this evil by sending a loud message to the president and a loud message to saudi arabia that we are not going to blindly support the arms race. Were not going to be blind to your human rights g transgressions, and were not going to blindly give you weapons in the face of beheading or citizens and crucifying them. So today i take a stand for those who do not have a voice, and hope the senate will think long and hard and will vote against this arms sale to saudi arabia. G office mr. President . Assistant democratic leader. Let me say at the outset i support the position of the senator from kentucky, i believe what he is said about thes assistant the situation petunia i say to saudi arabia is timely and needs to be heard. People across the United States and around the world should be aware of the fact that weref te witnessing for famines across this world, and one of them is this three others on the continent of africa. This is a famine that is created di disaster but by human disaster. By a war that is been created te and one that has been pushed largely by the saudi at the expense of the people, the innocent people, who live in that country of yemen. What the senator from kentucky is basically calling on all of us to do is to ask what role is the United States playing in the aggressive activities of saudi arabia . Should we be more vigilant . What we are selling them is being used in ways that are inconsistent with the values of the United States of america. We know the record of the saudi monarchy when it comes to human rights. The senator from kentucky is spoken to that quite eloquently. We know what theyve done to their own people, to the women c who live in the country and to those who seek to have the basic freedoms which we take for granted in america. We also know that when it comes to the saudi activity of promoting their version, the most extreme version of islam, they had been guilty of promulgating wahhabism that is led to extreme forms of the muslim faith in some places in the world. D. Those are realities. We know the reality of 9 11 when we trace the origin of those who came and killed 3000 innocent americans, too many roads leado back to riyadh. Too many roads lead back to saudi arabia. So why cant we be more open and honest in our relationship with his country . I think what the senator from kentucky is told us this morning, the amendment that will be offered shortly by him and bt senator murphy is one that calls on the senate to take an honeste look at saudi arabia today in a relationship with the United States. And may i add one other elemento on a personal basis . It is so rare on the floor of the United States senate to see what weve just seen this morning. A proposal for an amendment to be debated, an amendment to be voted on on the floor of the senate. May times thats happened this year in the United States senate. What used to be the most lucrative body america, the great debating society and so forth, has turned into place of rubberstamps and unanimous consent. And im glad, win or lose, and her effort here on this amendment that the senator is bring this important issue to the fore. I thank you for making it a bipartisan effort in the process. Unless at the concerns are allies would the junior senator from kentucky will move to discharge a resolution of disapproval against america arms sales to saudi arabia. Its importa
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