The Guerrilla Campaign

US vetoes UN resolution condemning Israel on Gaza By Irwin Arieff 11 Nov 2006 18:52:15 GMT Source: Reuters http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11409814.htm Background Israeli-Palestinian conflict UNITED NATIONS, Nov 11 (Reuters) - The United States on Saturday vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution urging an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and condemning an Israeli attack there that killed 18 Palestinian civilians. Nine of the council's 15 members voted for the measure, while four abstained: Britain, Denmark, Japan and Slovakia. But the "no" vote cast by U.S. Ambassador John Bolton -- his second since he arrived at U.N. headquarters in August 2005 -- was enough to kill the resolution. Bolton's first veto, on July 13, 2006, killed a resolution reacting to an earlier Israeli incursion in Gaza. The United States has cast 82 vetoes in the United Nations' 61 years, and nine of the last 10 council vetoes, seven of which dealt with the Israel-Pa...

Written by Chris Floyd Thursday, 09 November 2006 Empire Burlesque As Don Rumsfeld is tossed overboard by the panicky Bushes (who value loyalty to themselves above all other virtues but never, ever, practice it toward others; there will be many more bodies left behind as the Family rallies to clean up Junior's mess again), Steve Gilliard steps in below to remind us that what we are actually dealing with here is not politics, not some Beltway horse race, or some idiotic media game of "who's up, who's down." The issue is mass murder -- thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis -- and human suffering beyond imagining for millions more. This is the reality. This is what really matters about Rumsfeld and the other architects of the war crime in Iraq. And although all the talk about the election's political ramifications for the Bush Administration is entertaining and diverting, as most gossip is, and not without some importance, on the most essenti...

By Lawrence E. Walsh http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh11082006.html 11/8/06 The day after Clair George's arraignment, we turned to Robert Gates. The Senate intelligence committee's hearings on his appointment to head the CIA were scheduled to begin within a few days. Craig Gillen and I met the committee's chairman, David Boren, and ranking minority member, Frank Murkowski, and staff counsel in Boren's office. Reiterating what I had already told Boren, we said that two questions had not been answered satisfactorily: Had Gates falsely denied knowledge of Oliver North's Contra-support activities? Had Gates falsely postdated his first knowledge of North's diversion of arms sale proceeds to the Contras? We then described what our investigation had turned up about Gates. Alan Fiers had told us that he had kept Gates generally informed of his Contra-support activities, through written reports and regular face-to-face presentations, although his oral reports had been gu...

by Juan Cole Wednesday, November 08, 2006 Informed Comment http://www.juancole.com/2006/11/what-does-it-mean-for-iraq-fourth.html The fourth popular revolution of the twenty-first century (after the Ukraine, Lebanon and Kyrgyzstan) swept America on Tuesday, as voters engaged in the moral equivalent of storming the Bastille. The United States of America has roundly repudiated the Bush Administration and Republican Party dominance of all three branches of the Federal government and its dominance of many state offices, as well. Corruption and war drove this slap in the face to the Old Regime crafted by Newt Gingrich and Traitor Rove. The Democrats have control of the House of Representatives as I write early Wednesday morning, with a gain of perhaps as much as 30 seats. They don't appear to have lost any seats. Indeed, Democratic incumbents won in other sorts of contests, as well-- governors, state legislators, etc. The mood of the electorate was not to punish incumbents. It was to th...

Outlaw Empire Meets the Wave 5 Questions for Our Future By Tom Engelhardt http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=138154 […] In fact, the global part of the election was long over by November 7, 2006. For vast majorities abroad, the vision of the U.S. as an Outlaw Empire is nothing new at all. The wave here has perhaps only begun to rise, but here too those presidential "musts" (along with the President's designation of the Democrats as little short of "enemy noncombatants") have begun to lose their effect. Hence the presidential plebiscite of yesterday. No matter what else flows from it, the fact that it happened is of real significance. A majority of the American people -- those who voted anyway -- did not ratify Bush's Outlaw Empire. They took a modest step toward sanity. But what will follow? Here, briefly, are five "benchmark" questions to ask when considering the possibilities of the final two years of the Bush administration...

by Stephen Lendman 11/8/06 As the dominant corporate media in the US made sure everyone in the country would know just ahead of the mid-term congressional elections here, Saddam Hussein was convicted of crimes against humanity on November 5 for his involvement in the killing of 148 Shia men in al-Dujail village after a failed assassination attempt against him there in 1982. The Supreme Iraqi Criminal (Hanging Court) Tribunal (SICT) sentenced him to death by hanging, subject to appeal that's automatic and pro forma. It won't save him from a very sore neck as long as the Bush administration has the final say, which it does despite international law or whatever passes for it in Iraq where the law is what the US occupier says it is. The sentence must be carried out within 30 days after all appeals are exhausted and the death sentence is ratified by Iraq's nominal president and two vice-presidents who have no authority and take their orders from US Ambassador and proconsul Za...

Now, this makes my day. US House of Representatives Updated: 4:53 a.m. ET 11/8/06 227 – Democrats 192 – Republicans - 16 still undecided US Senate Updated: 2:09 a.m. ET 11/8/06 47 – Democrats 49 – Republicans 2 – Independents - 2 still undecided US Governors Updated: 2:27 a.m. ET 11/8/06 28 – Democrats 20 – Republicans - 2 still undecided

And in the end, this is just a part of the main crime, the invasion of Iraq in the first place. All these other crimes flow from that. The perpetrators, and the enablers, of this obscenity have much to answer for. Bush & Blair: The Iraq fantasy Neither will admit that Iraq is a disaster. But while their state of denial may cost votes in Washington and London, on the frontline in the Middle East, it continues to cost lives By Patrick Cockburn Published: 05 November 2006 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1956548.ece "When does the incompetence end and the crime begin?" asked an appalled German Chancellor in the First World War when the German army commander said he intended to resume his bloody and doomed assaults on the French fortress city of Verdun. The same could be said of the disastrous policies of George Bush and Tony Blair in Iraq. At least 3,000 Iraqis and 100 American soldiers are dying every month. The failure of the US and Britain at every leve...

By Sheila Samples 11/7/06 Under the Bush bridge Lying, dueling-banjo words Need a Fix. The Word.** When I awoke on December 13, 2000, my first thought was -- this is the first day of the worst years of my life. I lay there, attempting in vain to come up with just one redeeming quality possessed by the foolish little brute illegally foisted upon this republic by five black-robed fascists -- just one sliver of hope for the American people to escape the impending disaster of corporate pillage and rape. There was none. What a dirty, rotten way to start the day. Each day has been nastier than the one before. Despair spiraling into dread before exploding into a cacophony of lies, deceit, filthy corruption, and nauseating perversion. And that's just the media. No entity is as ruthless nor works with more relentless fervor to protect the criminals in this administration -- and cover up their crimes -- than the US mainstream media. And few are better at it than MSNBC's Chris Matthews wh...

a follow-up article to threats to Hugo Chavez. by Stephen Lendman 11/6/06 Agitprop, electoral fraud and dirty tricks may not have been invented in the US, but they certainly were perfected in "the land of the free and home of the brave" that no longer is except in the mind's eye of a diminishing number of diehards, true-believers and others still unaware of the real state of things in America. The clearest evidence was the theft of the last two presidential elections through a process of massive voter disenfranchisement, black and Latino intimidation in the inner cities, assorted other dirty tricks and rigged electronic voting machines programmed and operated by major corporations to assure the final count gave their man, George Bush, a manipulated electoral victory both times, with a little help from five corrupted Supreme Court justices who decided their votes counted more than those of the public they annulled. The same fraud was also rampant in recent congressional el...

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Sunday, Nov. 05 2006 http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/443FC1A5D669089D8625721C000F09FD?OpenDocument Politicians, pollsters and the public agree: The central issue in Tuesday's midterm elections will be the war in Iraq, in all its ugly manifestations. This is as it should be. The awful shame is that after Tuesday, George W. Bush still will have a job. So will Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and most of the rest of the arrogant and mendacious architects of the chaos. "Chaos" is a word used advisedly. The U.S. military's Central Command has an "index of civil conflict," portrayed on one of the PowerPoint slides so beloved of briefing officers, as a continuum ranging from a yellow zone on the left marked "peace" to a red zone on the right marked "chaos." A copy of the slide obtained two weeks ago by The New York Times shows Iraq sliding steeply into the red. No one doubts it. ...

I don’t really care who’s gay or who’s not. It’s just not an important condition in my interactions with other people. I’m comfortable with myself, so I don’t care who marries who. However, in the light of the Ted Haggard Revelation, this is just too good to not use. I really do find it “unacceptable” when people do in private the things they condemn publicly. and thanks to the Pensito Review for the tip. This hypocrisy is the foundation of today’s republican party. From their manipulation of the electoral process, their craven exploitation of evangelical christians, to the lies that support their wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Power and riches are the only items on their agenda, nothing else. That’s the reason they have destroyed the lives of well over one million people. That’s the reason they have looted our treasury. Saddam Hussein is condemned for destroying far less. When will we see these “leaders” of ours in the same situation? I’ll bet…, never. The republicans have controlled ...

While all eyes are on Iraq, Iran, and Korea, the bushistas are quietly making plans to re-establish domination in South America, and Latin America. They have already openly warned Nicaragua about grave consequences if the people should decide to elect a candidate that Washington doesn’t want. In Venezuela, the corporatistas are deeply involved in the ongoing coup attempt that began at the time of Chavez’s election, and includes the 2002 coup that briefly deposed Mr Chavez. As we have seen in Iraq, Palestine, and even our own country, little georgie doesn’t care what anybody thinks. What he wants, is what he wants, like a little kid. Threats to Hugo Chavez As Venezuela's December Presidential Election Approaches by Stephen Lendman 11/1/06 […] There was also evidence uncovered at the time that violence was planned for around the time of the election to create unrest and further delegitimate the results. This is how an oligarchy puppet regime in the wings allied with the power struc...