House Votes for Peace

As Dr. Paul discussed in his weekly column, the House last week passed H.J.Res. 37, which directs the president to end US military involvement in the Yemen civil war. The vote was 248-177. The vote was extremely partisan, as every Democrat voted for the resolution, while all but 18 Republicans voted against it.

Here is the roll-call vote.

While this was a welcome development, we should not take this as a sign that the Democrat House majority is consistently anti-interventionist. After all, just two weeks ago every Democrat joined the majority of Republicans in voting to rebuke President Trump’s skepticism of the NATO alliance. So the same Democrats who want to end military involvement in Yemen also want to make sure the US remains committed to go to war to “defend” our NATO allies.

I know you’re shocked that partisanship trumps (no pun intended) principles on foreign policy, but that should not distract from appreciating this significant victory. This is the first time since its passage that the House has used the War Powers Act to rebuke an unconstitutional military intervention. It is up to principled non-interventionists to use this precedent to advance the cause of a constitutional policy of peace. The way to do this is to remain principled and focused on policies — not personalities — so we can work with anyone opposing “foolish wars” without having to support other foolish policies for the sake of maintaining an alliance or out of misguided loyalty to a party or political leader.