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TODAY’S ‘DEATH SQUAD’ DEMS ENABLE THE TRUMP-BACKED SLAUGHTER IN
YEMEN, GAZA, AND BEYOND  
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Stephen Zunes
April 14, 2025
Common Dreams
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_ The truth is that a number of Democratic members of Congress, whom
millions of people see as leading the resistance, actually ally with
Trump on foreign policy. _

The site of a United States air strike in Sanaa, Yemen, April 7.,
Adel Al Khader/Reuters

 

On March 15, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz informed
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Trump Administration officials through their now-infamous Signal chat
that a U.S. missile attack had resulted in the collapse of an
apartment building filled with Yemeni civilians. Vice President JD
Vance replied, “Excellent.”

Democrats on Capitol Hill have since expressed outrage
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at the deaths of innocent civilians, or at the United States’
unprovoked attack on a sovereign country, but at the fact that the
conversation was not more carefully shielded from the public.

The Trump administration claims to have resumed bombing in Yemen to
stop the Houthi rebels’ attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea,
despite the fact that the Houthis, who serve as the de facto
government of much of the country, had ceased
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attacks months ago. Scores of Yemeni civilians have died
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the United States resumed the bombing last month. Air strikes
have denied
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of thousands of people in this impoverished country access to
electricity and drinking water. The Democratic leadership in Congress
has refused to condemn this destruction or attempt to invoke the War
Powers Resolution
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which was enacted in 1973 to limit a president’s ability to engage
in armed conflict without the consent of Congress.

Those same Democratic leaders have expressed little opposition to
President Donald Trump’s support of Israel’s ongoing occupation
forces in Lebanon, which violate the terms of the cease-fire
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made between Israel [[link removed]] and
Lebanon last fall. Nor have the Democrats objected to Trump’s
support for Israel’s violation of its 1974 disengagement agreement
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Syria, or his defense of the ongoing large-scale seizure
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Palestinian lands and destruction of villages in the occupied West
Bank.

And it’s not just Israel. The Democratic leadership has also backed
Trump’s arms shipments and other support for oppressive Arab
dictatorships, including Morocco, whose illegal annexation
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Western Sahara he recognized in 2020, violating a series of United
Nations Security Council resolutions and a landmark ruling of the
International Court of Justice.

Soon after Trump launched his war on Yemen, Israel’s far-right
government tore up
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cease-fire agreement with Hamas, which was the product of months of
negotiations led by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar. Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the indicted war criminal feted
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week in Washington, D.C., relaunched devastating air strikes as
Israeli troops re-occupied large swathes of the territory, forcing the
evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.

More than 1,000 Palestinians
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have been killed in these post-cease-fire attacks, including more
than 300 children [[link removed]].
The recent execution-style slaying
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15 paramedics and rescue workers in clearly marked ambulances by
Israeli forces, who attempted a coverup by burying the victims and
their vehicles in a mass grave, has sparked international outrage.

Meanwhile, both Netanyahu and Trump are pushing forward with their
plan to ethnically cleanse
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Palestinians in order to develop resorts
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per Trump’s aspiration. Rather than try to force 2.3 million people
out by bayonet point, the U.S. and Israel appear determined to drive
out the population by bombing civilians and blocking food and
medicines from entering the besieged enclave, forcing the remaining
population to flee in order to survive.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders
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sponsored Joint Resolutions of Disapproval
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some of Trump’s continued backing of Netanyahu.

“As a result of Israel’s blocking of humanitarian aid into Gaza,
many thousands of children there face malnutrition and even
starvation,” Sanders said. “Sadly, and illegally, much of the
carnage in Gaza has been carried out with U.S.-provided military
equipment. Providing more offensive weapons to continue this
disastrous war would violate U.S. and international law.”

Among the weapons included in the resolution are 35,000
two-thousand-pound bombs
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which have caused thousands of civilian casualties over the past 18
months. The international outcry over these war crimes was so great
that even President Joe Biden suspended
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shipment last spring. Trump insisted that such arms shipments should
be resumed, however, and the majority of Senate Democrats are
supporting him.

Indeed, only 14 Democratic Senators
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for Sanders’ resolutions to block the transfer of these and other
deadly weapons.

This was not a result of political pressure. Only 15%
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Americans and just 5% of Democrats support additional military aid to
Israel. Senate offices were flooded with calls to support the
resolutions in a campaign organized by a wide array of peace, human
rights, and religious organizations. Despite this, more than 70% of
Senate Democrats sided
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Trump and the arms industry over the wishes of their constituents.

The truth is that a number of Democratic members of Congress, whom
millions of people see as leading the resistance, actually ally with
Trump on foreign policy.

While Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.)—a prominent supporter of Trump’s
massive arms transfers—was widely praised for his marathon speech
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of the dangers of Trump’s policies, few pointed out that
Booker expressed support
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Trump’s backing
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Israel’s far-right government and autocratic Arab allies during his
address and joined the majority of Democrats if voting against
limiting arms shipments.

Instead of challenging Trump’s Middle East policies, today’s
opposition party resembles the so-called “Death Squad Democrats”
who backed
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President Ronald Reagan’s policy in Central America. The difference
is that such Democratic militarists were then in the minority. Today,
it is the majority of congressional Democrats who are allying with a
Republican President to support war crimes and undermine international
humanitarian law.

Had today’s Democrats been in office 40 years ago, they would have
likely backed arming the Contra terrorists in Nicaragua, the death
squads in El Salvador, and the Guatemalan genocide against the
indigenous Mayans. A few years earlier, they would have probably
supported former President Richard Nixon’s carpet bombing of
Vietnam.

Perhaps today’s Democratic Party leadership assumes that the threat
to basic government institutions and our very democracy posed by the
Republicans is so great that progressive voters will support their
candidates even if they side with Trump on such issues as offensive
military operations, arms control, human rights, and international
law.

This is not necessarily the case, however. Polls
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that Democratic support for Israel’s war on Gaza was the number one
issue among the 19 million voters who backed Biden in 2020 but did not
vote for Kamala Harris
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Indeed, a case could be made that, given the closeness of the
presidential election and some key congressional races, Democratic
support for Israel’s wars on its neighbors cost them the White House
and both houses of Congress.

A growing number of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters do see
opposing ethnic cleansing, undeclared wars, massacres of civilians,
and other crimes as a fundamental principle that’s worth defending.
Even if that means standing up to the party’s leadership.

_Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at
the University of San Francisco, where he serves as coordinator of the
program in Middle Eastern Studies. Recognized as one the country's
leading scholars of U.S. Middle East policy and of strategic
nonviolent action, Professor Zunes serves as a senior policy analyst
for the Foreign Policy in Focus project of the Institute for Policy
Studies, an associate editor of Peace Review, a contributing editor of
Tikkun, and co-chair of the academic advisory committee for the
International Center on Nonviolent Conflict._

* Middle East
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* US Bombing
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* Yemen
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* death squad
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* Democrats
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