On Wednesday, the US again used its veto power on the UN Security Council to kill a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, a vote that came as Israel is carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza, and aid levels in the Strip are at the lowest level yet.
The resolution failed in a vote of 14-1 as every other member of the 15-member Security Council, including the UK, supported the call for a ceasefire. The five permanent members — the US, the UK, France, Russia, and China — all have veto power.
The resolution demanded “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire to be respected by all parties, and further” reiterates a “demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”
Even though the resolution called for the unconditional release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, the US justified its veto by saying it didn’t make the hostage release a condition for a ceasefire. “We made clear throughout negotiations we could not support an unconditional ceasefire that failed to release the hostages,” said Robert Wood, the deputy US ambassador to the UN, who cast the vote to veto the resolution.
The vote marked the fourth time the US vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for an end to the US-backed Israeli genocidal war on Gaza. The ambassador from Algeria, a non-permanent member of the Council, slammed the US veto.
“Today’s message is clear to the Israeli occupying power: First you may continue your genocide. You may continue your collective punishment of the Palestinian people with complete impunity. In this chamber, you enjoy immunity,” said Ambassador Amar Bendjama.
The vote came just a few days after the US criticized Russia for vetoing a Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Sudan. “It is shocking that Russia has vetoed an effort to save lives – though perhaps, it shouldn’t be,” said US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who has cast previous votes to veto Gaza ceasefire resolutions.
WTF?!?!!!
Not Surprising…!
This must not stand!!!
It is… Till Veto power is gone…!
H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y!!!
US cannot Live Without…!
Every action of the moribund Biden administration aims to make sure that there will be no ceasefires in Gaza and Ukraine on January 20, 2025.
The UN vetoes have been automatic since the beginning of the slaughter.
and before, the US made sure Israel could act with impunity, no accounting of any kind of crimes against humanity ever.
Well said Dieter, well said!
I think when someone votes us down, they should say why. That way we might learn something…
You might learn the cray.
Donna, it has been my experience votes down come from people who have nothing to say. So it is best to ignore them and move on.
Maybe Biden gets even for the Afghan retreat disaster.
They are vindictive people for sure.
Do votes up also come from people who have nothing to say?
They signal agreement or debate. As you know, much has been said many times before. Vote down stands for irrational disagreement, the inability to defend a reasonable position.
You just described Major Burns.
They have nothing useful or honest to say. They're all "I downvote this 'cause it truth make me angry and ruin my pretending."
You put it in nut shell.
Joe Biden and his warmongering neocons form the worst American administration of the last 50 years.
We thought the Dumbya years were bad.
He started this ball ruling… The AUMF, Patriot Act, trillions for warfare
The lies; the Orwellian attacks on the concepts of truth, evidence, reason and logic; Loyalty Oaths and With-Us-Or-Against-Us and Iraq = 9/11; the elevation of idiocy and incompetence over actual wisdom, intelligence, and forethought; cheap, folksy charisma over substance; the Constitution as outdated recommendations; crony capitalism as policy.
Man, you know us well.
Hah, I came to antiwar.com because it was among a very few sources I could trust in the Bush II years. Could’ve been Michael Moore’s site that pointed me here circa 2003 or so.
The genocide put him alone at the top. Which makes me sick since that means Dick Cheney is off the hook.
They only differ in method on the level of evil, they are all the same, it is like being a little pregnant, there is no such thing. Cheney/Bush and Biden/Harris are still at the top and united, they share it.
Well said Carole Jean, well said!
Donna, you are a great cheerleader, a pleasure.
I am convinced Trump will continue on the same road. His possible appointments tell a lot. And I believed it could not get worse, I was wrong.
Trump hasn't been sworn in yet.
Love your optimism.
That might be, but Warren is right. There might not exist the confidence cumulitatively in the entire world to scrape together to hold any credence in Trump becoming slightly less bad on any front, but I'll be elated to be proven wrong.
The point is, while it is logically for Trump still, Biden cannot prove anybody wrong even in principle that they are the worst American junta of at least the last 50 years. And some truly despicable crooks passed the limelight in that timeframe. Democrats snatched the title from the Republicans if that is their source of pride.
Perhaps somebody can explain why Trump's "want to stop the killing" in Ukraine is not matched with a similar sentiment re Gaza.
Trump hates Iran, he therefore hates Gaza/Palestine and Lebanon, when he was in last time, he showed no hesitation attacking Syria and Iraqi militias who were fighting ISIL.
Maybe he made promises to wage a bigger war against Iran with Israel and has to end the lost Ukrainian project?
He has mentioned it. He said it was bad PR for Israel. He wanted the job done before he got into office.
Since this is Trumps last four years, it would not be shocking if he decided save Israel from itself. Currently the Zionist regime is in self destruct mode, and needs saving from its Daddy. Hopefully trump will issue some real tough love.
But we know what kind of a man he is, he served a 4 year term as president, we do know he is an irrational, undiplomatic, unpredictable without a coherent policy, a narcist, a conman, a charlatan.
So far, the possible appointments prove it, nothing has changed, he is only 4 years older.
MAGA is a phenomenon which existed before Trump gained its leadership. MAGA is, among others, a broad-based reaction to the great advances of our nation on civil and women's rights after WW2. MAGA will persist regardless of what happens to Trump and find a new leader. However, no new leader of MAGA can ever be as powerful and be loved by MAGA as Trump is. That is a reality. Regrettable but true.
Dieter, we need politicians with character and integrity and the will to serve the nation and make it better. I don’t care what to call it, yes the nation made progress, there is still a lot to be done, but we are regressing instead.
Our power hungry politician millionaires act as if they own the nation, they squander the nation’s wealth on war, instead of building they destroy. The working middle class has become voiceless. There is no Union or Socialists on the left to speak for them. The nation has had some 40 years of stagnating wages, a shrinking of the working middle class and rising poverty and homeless people including families with children, we still don’t have a functioning affordable health care, our schools are underfunded and teachers underpaid, jobs with living wages and benefits are turned into part time and no benefit low wage jobs and we have no labor unions to speak for the workers, neoliberal economics are running wild, yes there is more. We need real government, workable, functioning honest government, why don’t we talk about that instead of transgender and Gay issues, a decent functioning government could handle, that is part of the job of good government. Quality and enough size for government to function.
We need to end our arrogance and admit that maybe other nations do something better than we do, we could learn from their experience how to it better.
I don’t think that Trump is the man able to deliver on all his promises, he is not almighty.
MAGA does seem to be an effort to level the playing field for disgruntled, entitled Old White People, by pushing everyone else off the playing field.
It's the people he's surrounding himself with. Think Mike Huckabee.
"Biden and his warmongering neocons form the worst American administration of the last 50 years."
Yes, but "worst" by accident, I'd argue:
Directly and singlehandedly enabling a genocide is 'the worst' crime; but as an establishment, Biden and co are no worse:
This is the same 'angel of death' neocon establishment – same actors, same world view – of past US crimes against humanity.
The actors of the Final Solution were the actors of Kristallnacht.
Somehow George W's cabal was worse. Perhaps only in that they started this fascist path for America.
https://x.com/i/status/1859313969493954737
DIPLOMASSY!!!?!
Gone, a long time ago…!
As a US volunteer in Ukraine learned soon after arrival: "we are the nazis".
It also applies to Israel, of course, it applies to the whole US Empire since the historical nazis and other fascists were co-opted into the secret branch of NATO: Gladio, if not before.
Gladio f**ked over Italy for DECADES. Astounded by an exposee I watched on the topic. ITALY. Not even some Soviet satellite ending in -stan or -omania.
Gladio was and is not just in Italy, in fact Italy was one of the few places where it was exposed and to some degree purged. Gladio exists in all NATO (and its periphery such as Ukraine, Syrian fascist uprising, Israel terrorist regime, etc.) It was Gladio who murdered Petra Kelly when I was a teen and who attempted murder of Robert Fico months ago, it was Gladio who made 9-11 and Maidan, bringing for the first time openly fascist forces to power in Europe. You create a fascist secret terrorist network and you get a fascist imperial regime with only a husk of democratic procedure.
And that does not only affects us Westerners but also our officially proclaimed “enemies” (“we have always been at war with Eurasia, Winston”): Putin, in his conservatism tried to negotiate with the Maidan nazi regime… and now, a decade later, he’s turned into “denazifier” by dire need rather than want.
Were you surprised to learn that Canada protects nazis? I wasn’t. The USA did too although distributing them through all the Empire and only bringing home select ones with select scientific knowledge.
Oh, I’m sure Canada had our own Paperclip to admit & resettle Useful Nazis.
They put a Black face on the American veto. How cynical and calculated was that?
Greenfield is black too, both did not have to take the job.
But no matter the skin color the motivations to accept the job are the same, regardless of skin color.
The skincolor matter as much as they themselves. It is not Robert Wood who vetoed anything, it is the USA. UN embassadors don't decide anything. They are told what to do and then they do it. However, when you find yourself in such a position and you do participate in warcrimes and crimes against humanity, such as genocide, the Befehl ist Befehl defence isn't and never was a valid one.
I never asserted that the Black representative decided anything. He’s a mere puppet just like Biden.
That is a racists remark.
False.
No, he's genuinely black. That's not makeup.
Nice touch, … use a black man to front your obscenity … to give another kick to the pathetic starving body of Palestine.
Agreed. Same with Nicky Haley.
Does it finally become clear why Karl Marx held that nation-states are the only drive for workers killing workers? He hated states and predicted/hoped that they would die under communism.
Well his prediction and hope did not happen. The "great" communists nation of USSR fell apart.
Running a company, say for making cars, demands experience of the "how to". Even in the absolute kingdoms of the 17th century, the future owners of capitalist-run enterprises could build-up that "how to' for theirs, especially in The Netherlands.
The Russian car-factory workers who overthrew Czarism knew how cars were assembled, but they had little if any experience in running a car company, which was the cause why the state took over and Marxists like Rosa Luxemburg held that Lenin's revolution was wildly premature.
The USSR was never a Marxist- socialist, let alone a Marxist-communist nation. It was make-believe from top to bottom. A murderous charade.
Today, Marx's predicted revolution cannot succeed almost anywhere in the world for exactly the same reason, but that should not lead to the conclusion that his prediction is useless. The labor movement needs to focus on the training of workers on how to successfully run a car-making company. And how to get investments.
And how to end the need for nation-states.
Marx based his philosophy on the industrialized nations, not on Russia an agrarian nation in his time. The industrialization of Russia was a most brutal Stalin forced change on a farming society. Marx is certainly a big and influential historical figure only ignorant people can ignore.
Socialists have been the moving forces of social and economic progress since the 19th century when the Social Democrats were a moving force during the Bismarck time and the biggest party.
To ignore Karl Marx is a big mistake only ignorant people would make.
Marx DID say he would refuse to join any club that would have him as a member.
It must be understood that Trump's victories of 2016 and 2020 are in part due to what is known as unintended consequences. Several of our administrations after WW2, including those with Democratic presidents, helped dictators to come to or remain in power all around our hemisphere. The misery and killing their regimes engendered triggered the unintended consequence of the streams of refugees from these countries to us which was the first and main issue on which Trump won in both elections. We dug our own grave so to speak.
The UN has for a long time been showing that it is not fit for purpose and is simply a tool, that is used by the US (Israel) to control the World and ignore war crimes and genocides carried out by the US and its allies.
From what I see in the photo, someone should inform Ambassador Wood that he's doing the Bellamy Salute wrong. Arm should be at 45-degrees, palm flat down, and eyes proudly upon the flag of the Apartheid State of Israel.
Unbelievable.
Kudos to Ambassador Bendjama for honest words written into the record on this.
At least, it's more becoming US/Israel against the World…!
It is time for the UN General Assembly to remove Israel. This can be done without the US veto, and rightly so since Israel is a mortal enemy of the UN, and what it represents.