By Julia Conley
The leaked messages among top Trump administration officials about US strikes in Yemen earlier this month, which were held via a private sector messaging app in breach of national security protocol and inadvertently included a journalist, sparked considerable discussion among political commentators and social media users – but as the initial shock regarding the Signal conversation faded, advocates and policy experts said lawmakers’ attention should turn to the illegality of the attacks on Yemen.
The advocacy groups Just Foreign Policy, DAWN and Action Corps released a joint statement March 27 calling on Congress to take action to stop US military action in Yemen by upholding “its sole authority to declare war under Article I of the Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Resolution (WPR).”
The chat messages sent between officials including Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz stunned the public and Washington insiders because they had accidentally also been sent to Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, but the three groups pointed out that they also included an admission from Vance that the strikes were not defensive – contrary to claims by President Donald Trump:
“I think we are making a mistake… 3 percent of US trade runs through the Suez. 40 percent of European trade does. There is a real risk that the public doesn’t understand this or why it’s necessary. The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message…”
Vance’s comments bolster the three groups’ position that “the strikes also violate Chapters I and VII of the United Nations Charter, which prohibit states from launching a war unless in self-defense or authorized by the UN Security Council.”
Even before the chats were leaked, said the groups, it was clear that Trump had not sought congressional authorization for military strikes in Yemen, which have killed at least 53 people since the US launched attacks on March 15.
The War Powers Resolution of 1973, which was introduced after former President Richard Nixon’s secretive bombings of Cambodia, requires congressional authorization for “the introduction of the United States armed forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances,” while Article I of the Constitution grants Congress the authority to declare war.
“President Trump has not only launched us into a new military escapade in the Middle East, he’s done so in breach of our Constitution,” said Isaac Evans-Frantz, director of Action Corps. “Congress should demand an end to this reckless, unauthorized war that will both harm US interests and continue to terrorize the Yemeni people who have already suffered years of US-backed violence.”
The groups’ comments echoed those of Michigan State University professor and Quincy Institute fellow Shireen Al-Adeimi, who is Yemeni-American.
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