Biden policy still ‘America First’ overseas

Government vs Taliban Afghanistan, Map, Southfront.org

Doomsday cultists claim that the four apocalypse horses have arrived in the form of climate change, never-ending war, resources shortages, and totalitarianism. However for every problem, there is a solution, but the choices which the globalists are making are not benefitting the people. All one has to look at are the rise in homelessness, unrest, unemployment, and a dysfunctional leadership to understand that poor governing is taking place, often under the guise of totalitarian “expertise.” For instance, water shortages in California have been forecast for decades, yet precious water continued to be allocated for hydrofracking, to mine oil from rock, rather than prioritize the needs of local area farmers.

Our predatory leaders have impeccable credentials; they are supported by caste-conscious peers; they glide from one air-conditioned institution to another, intoning pharisaical cliches which the press repeat with somatic effect that the masses are made insensible to reason. War, never-ending proxy war, is not only being conducted overseas in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the Ukraine, but it is spreading eastwards because the Asian Tigers cannot be left alone. Totalitarian war in the United States also includes an unprecedented lockdown (using Covid-19 as a pretext) on open debate, healthy discussion, and including censorship or shutting down by YouTube of alternative independent news streams. Using word combinations such as “war” “apocalypse” “independence” “peace” “totalitarianism” will even sort websites down by artificially intelligent search engines.

(Just check what happens if one types in “columbiapress.org” under Google. My last search resulted in net zero. Has Google shadowbanned this website? One might argue that there is a “concern that it may be mistaken for a well-established name university.” However, numerous websites borrow grandiose sounding names, places, movements, and memes, yet why are they not shadowbanned? But this is just to demonstrate how many websites are being covertly censored and how the alphabets lack transparency in their operations.)

The levels of stress associated with even a non-apocalyptic global arrival of climate-change, never-ending war, resource shortages, and totalitarianism are also mind-numbing. The natural reaction might be, if one could afford it, to chart a path to live on the Moon, however, escaping does very little for the greatest numbers of people. We must have compassion for ourselves and others by facing the problem, even if it makes the most reasonable and intelligent person seem a bit incoherent.

We are talking about it. We are facing it. And the most pressing issue as an American citizen is to express outrage and disgust at the humongous levels of money allocated for the waging of military operations, supporting ongoing defense, surveillance, supplying mercenaries armaments, building bases, conducting campaigns, upgrading nuclear armaments, and massive training exercises designed to intimidate adjacent global powers. It is wasteful spending, well over half of discretionary spending especially if one includes the maintenance of military beyond their call of duty, even when after retirement, they often become useful foils: approved spokespersons for nongovernmental organizations or liasions for private ones.

All this is known to the public pretty much, as AGN has discussed and mentioned the Cost of War website (even with its low-balling). What is not known is how President Biden is conducting wars by proxy and ramping up war-time level ‘defense’ mobilizations. The same President Biden, who is referred to as “Uncle Joe” or portrayed as “endearing Grandfather,” is actually very much a war-hawk as defined by his voting record over the past forty-plus years. Nothing done in his current role as Commander-in-Chief should therefore be surprising.

However President Biden was voted in by his popular expressions for putting the “American People First” and “American Families First.” His Build Back Better campaign here at home is filled with ideas culled from the platforms of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, even if in watered-down forms. The problem is that most Americans are unaware of the Rooseveltian-sounding Green New Deal plan to rejuvenate the home base. The media, mired in bipartisanship and still caught in Trumpian politics, has devoted not even a fraction of the amount of time and energy it takes to inform, much less persuade and inspire citizens or communities to commit themselves to Plan B or Plan C, as defined by Lester Brown or Pat Murphy: blue or green development plans that put everyone to work who wants it, treads the middle-way in wise disinvestment from fossil fuels, and reinvests in local community.

We are not just picturing solar panels on every roof (long a possibility blocked by big energy corporations), but all manners of gradual reinvestment in low-impact technologies, and culturalizing away from ruthless individualism towards everyone being able to work together as they did or should do in an emergency. (That is not “communism” but learning to live and cooperate together much as we all have or should have learned to do in school.) Currently many Americans are unable to appreciate, much less learn from the sustainable governance enacted in Germany, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Costa Rica, South Africa, and New Zealand, but instead are mired in name-calling and labels, such is the harmful effect of the continued deliberate bipartisan politics being played out in the mainstream media and Congress (which is arguably just a smokescreen for their hijacked interests in war profiteering.)

Instead President Biden is treading the well-worn path of an ineffectual presidency, investing in global spectrum dominance overseas, while ignoring the hollowed out middle-class base and crumbling infrastructure here at home. (Check out the ASCE Infrastructure Report Card for expert opinion). Here is just a recent sample of hostile or provocative actions taking place. *Note that anytime such massive mobilizations as described take place, it is unlikely that such vehicles, machinery, ships, or combat units completely remove themselves; instead, more often than not, it is the justification for treaties for new ‘superbases,’ encampments, ports, fortifications, and alliances that help strengthen rapid deployment in anticipation of future military offensives. **Note also that although diplomatic talks have increased since President Biden assumed office, the talks are largely ceremonious, so many critical sanctions remain imposed on Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, Venezuela, and various persons or entities from China, Congo, Belarus, Burundi, Lebanon, Myanmar, Yemen, etc.

1- Gratefully, more Americans are becoming aware of the role that continually arming Israel plays in its genocidal operations against the Palestinians from actions such as blockades, collective punishment such as withholding UN aid, severely restricted freedoms, massive bombing campaigns (called precision airstrikes), religious persecution, confiscation of private property, arresting children, abusing or experimenting on prisoners, punishing or blacklisting journalists, etc. However the strength of the Israeli lobby in Congress is such that it is doubtful that a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Campaign can ever be realized in the United States, as even using the milder term “apartheid” faces putative denialism.

2- Although the previous President Bush is under International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation for incursions into Iraq and abuse of prisoners, the same excuse of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is being dredged up to foment a new war in Iran. Arguably these decisions have already been made. The string of aerial bombings, cyber-attacks, and mysterious explosions taking place within Iran coincides with the duress of economic siege laid on by global sanctions led by the United States. Iranians are dying due to unusually high temperatures, and dams built upstream are robbing the downstream of precious water resources. Under the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, all countries should enact a ceasefire and unite to fight the common enemy of climate change and environmental pollution. Instead, the world is once more being led into the delusionary grandeur of war.

Here is what the preeminent alternative United States history writer William Blum wrote about for the 1990-1991 war in Iraq, Operation Desert Storm, which reasoning parallels that for the invasion in 2003-2011, Operation Iraqi Freedom:

Bush also warned that Iraq posed a nuclear threat. True enough. But so did the United States, France, Israel, and every other country that already had nuclear weapons. Iraq, on the other hand, according to American, British, and Israeli experts, was five to ten years away from being able to build and use nuclear weapons. It’s unlikely that the president himself believed that there was any such danger. His warning came only after a poll showed that a plurality of Americans felt that preventing Iraq from acquiring nuclear weapons was the most persuasive argument for going to war.Killing Hope, Chapter 52, Iraq 1990-91

The same argument was used, albeit embellished and necessitating a few rolling heads, including Dr. David Kelley found ‘suicided’ in the UK, and NY Times editor Judith Miller, forced to resign in 2005 on allegations that her stories about WMD were inaccurate. The justifications used for the second war in Iraq were false assessments of biological weapons, chemical weapons, as well as nuclear weapons, of which Bush Secretary of State General Colin Powell claimed that there were stockpiles of nonconventional weapons. Propaganda by news reporters was front page news especially if they supported pro-invasion narratives; those who argued against manufacturing consent for toppling Saddam Hussein were targeted. It was the first time in this generation that such intolerance was allowed to flourish so openly in public and with consequences for those who disagreed.

The rationale for the 2003 Iraq War was the American intelligence community’s assessment that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed chemical and biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons. This assessment proved a colossal failure, as no trace of nonconventional weapons was ever found in Iraq. —-Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Raphael Ofek, BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 701, December 29, 2017

Today, substitute the word “Iraq” with “Iran” in Blum’s quote and the United States has the perfect raison d’etat for leading a joint invasion on Iran, noting that unlike in the 1990s or 2000s, there are now many more superbases and ongoing military operations from NATO in Europe to the Arabian Sea with which to quickly conduct “air strike diplomacy.”

3- Operation Sea Breeze (Jun 28-July 11) in the Black Sea: exercises included not just maritime operations but land-to-sea amphibious operations, air defense, diving, anti-submarine warfare, and seach and rescue operations. Although NATO has held joint naval exercises with Ukraine for the past 24 years, this year’s was the most massive iteration ever, involving 32 countries and from six continents. Russia was not comfortable with being identified as the enemy target of such drills and manuevers, and there were skirmishes taking place on Sea and in air where, for instance, the British destroyer, HMS Defender, violated Russian territorial waters off the coast of Crimea, or where a U.S. Fighter jet escaped interception.

Ukraine (Kiev) is angling towards membership in NATO, since that would imbue NATO with the responsibility to protect its interests in any conflict. As such the pro-Ukrainian newspapers paint exercises in prominent celebratory colors, even when the drills especially on land, heighten tensions and are used to hand over more weapons to the Ukrainian army, which also then tend to stoke more armed conflict, such as ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine. In fact, near back-to-back huge NATO exercises underscore its importance over potential peace talks—with military tourism as a ‘caveat’—since in late March, Sea Shield 21 involving 8 nations, 18 warships, and over 2400 troops was also held in the Black Sea. That international training events of a military nature will continue year-round is undoubtedly a lofty goal as Cossack Mace 2021 began on July 12th and lasts until July 24th; furthermore, negotiations are underway for the British to build two naval bases for Kiev, according to RT.com.

4- While the military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down, it is not exactly with the hope of allowing those countries true independence and self-determination. At the very least these states must continue to abide by the ambiguities established for client-states under the Washington Consensus. Thus the availability of information and transparency of operations is always called into question for meaning much the opposite insofar as actual available coverage for what the American taxpayer pays and deserves to see. In fact the New Eastern Outlook editorializes that the US withdrawal is far from the end of war in Afghanistan; the US is most likely negotiating, as it has in Syria, to continue war-by-proxy by hiring thousands of local soldiers to help fight its wars; whether Kurds in Syria or Afghan recruits, various militias can save Washington money and make it appear as if no American soldiers were sacrificed on the battlefield.

[T]here is no appetite in the US to just end the so-called forever war in Afghanistan. On the contrary, with a large number of warlords and private militias now emerging on the horizon to resist an outright Taliban victory, it is quite possible for the US to extend its support to these groups along side Afghan security forces to fight a hybrid war in Afghanistan post-formal-withdrawal. The US, in other words, is tacitly moving towards a mode of warfare it has been following in Syria for quite some time, where it deliberately supported, and continues to support, militias (Kurds) against Damascus to prevent the latter from establishing full control in Syria. —New Eastern Outlook, “The US Withdrawal Isn’t the End of the War in Afghanistan,” July 8, 2021

Whether or not a power vaccuum is created in Afghanistan, the United States is dead-set on refocusing its military operations and attentions to the Far East. Besides, the United States is also in the process of negotiating with Central Asian nations for military bases in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikstan to help put pressure on the Taliban, as well as provide new rapid air deployment forays into Russia and China. Is the US secretly red-baiting both China and Russia, daring them to partner with the Taliban so that more sanctions would be justified? Yet another arcane concern routinely swept aside by the mainstream media is the “massive heroin business”; how will the US military profit if these are left to private warlords?

In summary—and this is obviously just the tip of the iceberg in US military command operations being conducted in the Artic, Antartica, South America, Africa, and outer space—while President Joe Biden trafficks a disarming avuncular personna, appears affable and continuously mouths liberal-progressive sounding rhetoric, with scheduled appearances in churches, schools, and American companies, during which he trumpets his “care, concern, and empathy” for the People, the bottom line is that he still must be held responsible for the actions transpiring globally whether it is the lack of press access to migrant detention camps, the brutal offensives visiting Gaza Strip, the bombings taking place in Syria and the Near East, and mass mobilization of squadrons amounting to a continuous presence, and many other expensive joint military campaigns being held all around the world; for otherwise, it is just about impossible that the United States will ever amass the will and committment needed to refocus on domestic improvements to the extent that, for instance, China has been able to.

Map above from Southfront.org