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-- Mark Twain

News and Opinion

Biden Kills Senate Resolution To End Yemen Genocide

Bernie Sanders has withdrawn his bill to end US support for the Saudi war on Yemen following reports that the Biden administration was working to tank the resolution, with White House aids reportedly saying they’d recommend the president veto it.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp reports:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Tuesday night withdrew his request to vote on the Yemen War Powers Resolution that would end US support for the Saudi-led war and blockade on Yemen, citing White House opposition to the bill.

Sanders said on the Senate floor that he was informed ahead of the scheduled vote of the administration’s opposition to the legislation, meaning President Biden would veto the resolution. The Intercept reported earlier in the day that The White House was pressuring senators to vote against the bill, and Democrats came out in opposition to Sanders’ resolution earlier on Tuesday, including Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA).

Sanders’ justification for not holding the vote was that the administration claimed it would work with Congress on ending the war in Yemen. He said the White House wanted to “work with us on crafting language that would be mutually acceptable” and insisted if that didn’t happen, he would resume his efforts to end the war through a resolution.

But even if the White House really wants to engage with Congress on the issue, or if Sanders chooses to reintroduce the resolution, the plan will take time, which Yemenis don’t have. There has been a cessation in violence in Yemen, with no Saudi airstrikes since March, but there has been a recent uptick in fighting on the ground.

It’s probably also worth noting that this administration has been consistently lying about its intentions to end this war, with Biden campaigning on the promise to bring peace to Yemen and make a “pariah” of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, then turning around and keeping the war going while greeting the crown prince with a friendly fistbump ahead of a meeting where the two leaders coordinated their governments’ continued intimacy.

“Today, I withdrew from consideration by the U.S. Senate my War Powers Resolution after the Biden administration agreed to continue working with my office on ending the war in Yemen,” Sanders said on Twitter. “Let me be clear. If we do not reach agreement, I will, along with my colleagues, bring this resolution back for a vote in the near future and do everything possible to end this horrific conflict.”

“At which time the House, under GOP control, will block your efforts,” former congressman Justin Amash replied. “But you know that already. As does the Biden administration, which is why they don’t want you to pass this joint resolution now, when all the pressure is on the president, because his party currently controls.”

“What I’m acknowledging is that both Rs and Ds in government are addicted to war,” Amash added. “They’re playing a game. When Trump was president, everyone knew he wouldn’t sign a Yemen joint resolution, so it passed Congress. Biden has to pretend he’d sign it, so he needs Congress to block it.”

Indeed, it would appear that a determination was made that the war in Yemen was too important for its outcome to be left to the legislative branch. Experts have long acknowledged that the mass atrocities in that war-ravaged nation would be forced to end if the US and its allies stopped assisting the Saudi military in perpetrating them, and Biden could have done so on day one of his presidency, but, as Vox’s Alex Ward put it last year, “doing so would risk losing Riyadh as a key regional partner.” Saudi Arabia plays a key role in both US fossil fuel interests and in fighting Iran, and that’s clearly a geostrategic asset that Washington is unwilling to relinquish.

So now we’re looking at a best-case scenario where either (A) the worst mass atrocity on earth continues for a much longer time than it would have if Sanders’ bill had passed, or (B) we get a watered-down version of the resolution. And of course there’s the other scenario where neither of these things happen and the slaughter just continues into the foreseeable future completely unabated.

In the lead-up to the vote The Intercept’s Daniel Boguslaw and Ryan Grimm reported on the shenanigans coming from the White House to undermine the resolution. An update to their article about the bill currently reads as follows:

The White House, according to sources involved in the fight over the resolution, is urging senators to vote against the resolution. The White House is arguing that a vote in favor is unnecessary because, despite the lapse of the ceasefire, significant hostilities have not yet resumed, and the vote will complicate diplomacy. They are also arguing that Biden has made significant progress in reducing violence and re-opening ports and airports, so his judgment should be respected and the resolution rejected. And finally, the White House has warned that some of the arguments being made could complicate the effort to back Ukraine in its war against Russia. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

So efforts to end the war in Yemen needed to be sabotaged because they might complicate the US proxy war against Russia? That’s some, uhh, interesting logic.

Jamal Benomar, a former UN under-secretary-general who served as special envoy for Yemen until 2015, told The Intercept’s Ken Klippenstein that there haven’t even been any diplomacy by the Biden administration for the bill to “complicate”, which if true would mean the entire White House claim is bogus.

“There’s been no diplomatic progress whatsoever,” he told The Intercept. “There’s been no political process, no negotiations, or even a prospect of them. So an all-out war can resume at any time.”

It’s hard to think of a word to describe all this besides “evil”. If intervening to ensure the continued mass starvation of children and mass military slaughter of civilians is not evil, then nothing is evil. It’s actually hard to think of anything more evil.

This could be called a tri-partisan crime, with both Democrats, Republicans, and independent Sanders each playing a role in making sure the war in Yemen keeps going. Libertarian Scott Horton, one of the most forceful critics of the US role in the war, had harsh words for supposedly anti-interventionist Republicans for not doing more on this front.

“I blame Rand Paul,” Horton tweeted. “He’s supposed to be young Ron in the Senate, and with more willingness to rumble. He could have been championing this resolution all along. We know he knows about the war. He’s why we had to rely on Bernie Sanders and his friends to even try. Mike Lee too. There was not a single GOP co-sponsor in the Senate. Not one.”

It’s safe to say that in a nation which serves as the hub of an empire that’s held together with endless violence and the threat thereof, anyone who ascends to a certain level of power in any party is going to have to be a servant of mass military slaughter to some extent. That’s why efforts to save Yemen keep getting stonewalled, that’s why Biden’s promise to end that war turned out to be a lie, that’s why the US war machine keeps expanding, that’s why aggressions keep ramping up against Russia and China, and it just might end up being why the human species went the way of the dinosaur.

Biden CUCKS Bernie Sanders Over Ending Yemen War

UK Marines Conducted Covert Ops in Ukraine, General Claims

The British Royal Marines have carried out high-risk special operations on the ground in Ukraine, according to the former head of the elite unit, who said UK commandos have been deployed to the country on more than one occasion this year.

Writing in the Royal Navy’s official magazine, the Globe and Laurel, Lieutenant General Robert Magowan said some 350 Marines were sent to Ukraine for two missions since January, starting with an operation to help relocate UK diplomatic staff to Poland just ahead of Russia’s invasion.

The second occurred in April, soon after Moscow’s withdrawal from the region surrounding the Ukrainian capital, according to Magowan, who was once the commandant general of the Royal Marines and now serves as a senior official under the Chief of the Defense Staff.

“In April, they returned into the country to re-establish the diplomatic mission, providing protection to critical personnel,” the general said. “During both phases, the commandos supported other discreet operations in a hugely sensitive environment and with a high level of political and military risk.”

Though Magowan did not elaborate on what those “other” missions entailed, he is the first British official to publicly confirm special operations in the country since Russia’s attack began in February. The UK Defense Ministry previously acknowledged that soldiers were sent to protect embassy staff, but has never discussed missions on the scale described by Magowan and rarely comments on covert ops.

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Slovakia Prepares to Transfer MiG-29 Warplanes to Ukraine

Slovakia’s foreign minister said Tuesday that the country is preparing to send its Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, which would mark the first known transfer of warplanes to Kyiv from a NATO member.

“We have not yet handed [Ukraine] the MiG-29s. But we are ready to do it. We are talking with our NATO partners about how to do it,” said Slovakia’s Foreign and European Affairs Minister Ratislav Káčer. ...

Slovakia says it has 11 MiG-29s, although it’s not clear if they will send all of them to Ukraine.

Russia Is Shipping More Than 3 Million Bpd Of Crude To Asia

Russia was shipping more than 3 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil to Asia in the week to December 9, the week in which the EU embargo on imports of Russian crude by sea came into force, vessel-tracking data monitored by Bloomberg showed on Monday.

The volumes being sent to Asia, where the main buyers of Russian crude are China and India, represent 89% of all the oil that left Russian ports last week to December 9, according to the data.

Over half of the tankers loaded with Russian crude were traveling toward the Suez Canal bound for Asia, with no destination shown. It wasn’t immediately clear if the oil has already been sold to buyers in the most-important oil-importing region, Asia, Bloomberg News’ Julian Lee notes.

Russia continues to sell its crude to Asia, where buyers haven’t joined the so-called Price Cap Coalition and are, so far, doing business as usual with Russian cargoes.

Russia’s ESPO grade, the crude from Russia’s Far East, is selling in Asia above the $60 price cap as it appears that Russia is currently handling the short Russian Far East-China route with Russian tankers and insurance, traders told Bloomberg last week.

There appears to be a gauntlet on the ground in Peru ...

Peru declares 30-day state of emergency amid protests at president’s arrest

Peru’s new government has declared a 30-day national state of emergency to quell violent demonstrations which have shaken the country following the ousting and arrest of President Pedro Castillo a week ago.

The measure announced on Wednesday suspends the right to gather and move freely across the entire country – and comes just before the Christmas holidays when people typically travel extensively to visit family.

The declaration also empowers the police to search people’s homes without permission or judicial order. Otarola said a nightly curfew could also be imposed.

“With this measure, we seek to guarantee order, the continuity of economic activities and the protection of millions of families,” Peru’s defence minister, Luis Otárola, tweeted after the decision was reached in a cabinet meeting. He added the government had not decided whether a curfew would be imposed.

“The national police with the support of the armed forces will ensure the control throughout the national territory of personal property and, above all, strategic infrastructure and the safety and wellbeing of all Peruvians,” he said.

Latin American Leaders Call Peru's President Castillo a 'Victim of Anti-Democratic Harassment'

Four Latin American presidents condemned the ouster and imprisonment of leftist Peruvian President Pedro Castillo on Tuesday, a move that preceded a national emergency declaration by the country's new government amid a deadly crackdown against what critics are calling a U.S.-backed "legislative coup."

In a joint statement, the leftist leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, and Mexico—respectively, Alberto Fernández, Luis Arce, Gustavo Petro, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador—expressed their "deep concern over the recent events that resulted in the removal and detention of José Pedro Castillo Terrones, president of the Republic of Peru."

"It is not news to the world that President Castillo Terrones, from the day of his election, was the victim of anti-democratic harassment," the presidents said. "Our governments call on all the actors involved... to prioritize the will of the citizens that was pronounced at the polls."

"We exhort those in our [national] institutions to refrain from reversing the popular will expressed through free suffrage," the statement added. "We request that the authorities fully respect the human rights of President Pedro Castillo and that he be guaranteed judicial protection."

Progressive Chilean President Gabriel Boric, on the other hand, called an attempt by Castillo to dissolve Peru's Congress a "rupture of the constitutional order," while leftist Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Castillo's removal was "constitutional." ...

Demonstrators are angry at the December 7 ouster and arrest of Castillo—a democratically elected former rural teacher and union organizer—by the country's right-wing-controlled Congress. On Tuesday, Peruvian Supreme Court Judge César San Martín Castro rejected an appeal seeking Castillo's release from prison.

Infuriated by Castillo's promise of deep social reforms and a new constitution, Peru's oligarchs and the National Society of Industries, the country's leading business group, long sought his removal.

"The oligarchic rulers of Peru could never accept that a rural schoolteacher and peasant leader could be brought into office by millions of poor, Black, and Indigenous people who saw their hope for a better future in Castillo," Manolo De Los Santos, co-executive director of the People's Forum, explained in People's Dispatch.

Castillo was ousted from office, arrested, and charged with rebellion and conspiracy after he moved to dissolve Congress in a bid to preempt a legislative motion to dismiss him for "permanent moral incapacity."

In addition to attempting to dissolve Congress, Castillo also announced the start of an "exceptional emergency government" in which he would rule by decree until a Constituent Assembly was assembled within nine months. The president also intended to impose a 10:00 pm curfew. None of these policies were implemented.

Vice President Dina Boluarte was installed as the new president on December 7. Peru's sixth president in five years, Boluarte on Tuesday proposed to hold elections in April 2024.

The day after Boluarte took over, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian A. Nichols tweeted that "the U.S. welcomes President Boluarte and looks forward to working with her administration to achieve a more democratic, prosperous, and secure region."

Nichols—who has also pushed for U.S. military intervention in Haiti—added that "we applaud Peruvians as they unite in support of their democracy."

The United States has a long history of supporting autocrats and intervention in the region, including during "Operation Condor," a coordinated effort by right-wing military dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, and, later, Peru and Ecuador. The campaign against perceived leftist threats was characterized by kidnappings, torture, disappearances, and murder, and claimed an estimated 60,000 lives, according to human rights groups.

Leftists around the world have condemned Castillo's ouster and what the U.S. peace group CodePink called the new government's "violent campaign of terror against protesters."

"We echo the demands of Peru's popular movements and support their right to resist, defend their democracy, and demand justice for the victims of this violence," the group said in a statement. "We demand that the U.S. not interfere as Peruvians fight to stabilize their democracy."

Fed eases pace of interest rate rises after signs inflation may be slowing

The Federal Reserve lightly tapped the brakes on its high-speed interest rate rises on Wednesday following news that suggested two years of runaway inflation may be slowing down in the US.

After a two-day meeting the Fed announced another half-point increase in interest rates, its seventh increase of the year but one that follows four straight three-quarter-point interest rate hikes. The increase brings the Fed’s benchmark interest rate – used for everything from setting mortgage rates and loans to credit cards – to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, its highest level in 15 years.

Fed chair Jerome Powell said: “Having moved so quickly, and having now so much restraint that is still in the pipeline, we think that the appropriate thing to do now is to move to a slower pace.”

Powell made clear that there would be more rate rises next year and the Fed expects inflation to remain elevated in 2023.

The central bank has been raising rates at a pace unseen in decades as it fights to tamp down a cost of living crisis that saw inflation rise to a four-decade high of 9.1% in June. The Fed’s announcement comes after the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Tuesday that the consumer price index figures – which measure a broad range of goods and services – showed prices rising by 7.1% from last November, with a 0.1% increase from October.

Louisville to pay $2m to settle lawsuits filed by Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend

The city of Louisville will pay $2m to settle two lawsuits filed by the boyfriend of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman killed by police during a no-knock raid at her apartment two years ago, the Washington Post reported.

Kenneth Walker filed the lawsuits against the Kentucky city in state and federal court, claiming plainclothes officers violated his rights when they burst into Taylor’s apartment while the couple was asleep and killed her on 13 March 2020, during the botched raid.

Taylor’s death “will haunt Kenny for the rest of his life”, Walker’s attorney, Steve Romines, said in a statement to the Post. “He will live with the effects of being put in harm’s way due to a falsified warrant, to being a victim of a hailstorm of gunfire and to suffering the unimaginable and horrific death of Breonna Taylor.” ...

Walker fired once at what he said he believed were intruders. Three officers responded with 32 shots, none of which hit Walker. Six struck Taylor, killing her. Walker was arrested and charged with attempted murder but charges were dropped.

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'This Is Abhorrent,' Say Climate Groups as Schumer Plans to Force Vote on Manchin's Dirty Deal

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that he intends to force a floor vote as soon as this week in a bid to ram through Sen. Joe Manchin's fossil fuel industry-friendly permitting bill, a ploy that climate groups and progressive lawmakers condemned and vowed to defeat.

Schumer's (D-N.Y.) planned maneuver, which he confirmed to reporters Tuesday, amounts to a last-ditch attempt to salvage legislation that has thus far failed to garner sufficient support to pass Congress. The permitting bill has also drawn sustained and furious protests from environmentalists, who warn the measure would expedite climate-wrecking fossil fuel projects—including Manchin's favored Mountain Valley Pipeline—and weaken bedrock environmental laws. ...

Schumer said Tuesday that Manchin's proposal—which climate advocates have labeled a "dirty deal" and a "fossil fuel wish list"—will receive a floor vote as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), sprawling legislation that is set to approve nearly $860 billion in military spending. ...

"We're gonna vote on that amendment," the Democratic leader told reporters Tuesday. "As you know, Republicans have blocked it in the House, even though permitting reform is something that they've always supported in the past. So I hope they'll help us."

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

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U.S. To Send More Wunderwaffen To Ukraine

Patrick Lawrence: In Ukraine, the Autumn of Oligarchs

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Florida drops case against COVID-19 whistleblower Rebekah Jones in deferred prosecution agreement

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Nancy Mace SHUTS DOWN Liberal Activists For 'Dangerous Rhetoric' Hypocrisy

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