[Peace-discuss] FW: Biden: A War Cabinet?

[David Johnson]

NOVEMBER 2, 2020 


 <https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/02/biden-a-war-cabinet/> Biden: A War
Cabinet?


BY  <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/mrmnvrtt9292/> MARIAMNE EVERETT

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/02/biden-a-war-cabinet/

	

 <https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/11/02/biden-a-war-cabinet/> Biden: A War
Cabinet? - CounterPunch.org

“Let’s bring decency and integrity back to the White House." I can’t count
the number of times I have heard and read this phrase uttered by U.S. expats
here in Paris, France. As one of many American expats living here, of course
I share in the desire for an end to a Donald Trump presidency. But at what
cost? And will a Biden presidency -- which promises a return to “normalcy”
-- really merit the sigh of relief that so many think it will? Below I
summarise some of the most troubling information I have uncovered about some
of the most likely foreign policy picks for key positions in a Biden
cabinet.  More

www.counterpunch.org

“Let’s bring decency and integrity back to the White House.” I can’t count
the number of times I have heard and read this phrase uttered by U.S. expats
here in Paris, France. As one of many American expats living here, of course
I share in the desire for an end to a Donald Trump presidency. But at what
cost? And will a Biden presidency — which promises a return to “normalcy” —
really merit the sigh of relief that so many think it will? Below I
summarise some of the most troubling information I have uncovered about some
of the most likely foreign policy picks for key positions in a Biden
cabinet.

Susan Rice for Secretary of State

Susan Rice, who was also reportedly being considered for the role of Biden’s
Vice President, served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations and
as National Security Advisor, both under the Obama administration.

While Benghazi has been the focus of much criticism of Rice, she has
received virtually no scrutiny for her backing of the invasion of Iraq and
claiming that there were WMDs there. Some of her statements:

“I think he [then Secretary of State Colin Powell] has proved that Iraq has
these weapons and is hiding them, and I don’t think many informed people
doubted that.” (NPR, Feb. 6, 2003)

“It’s clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It’s clear that its weapons of
mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that’s the path we’re
on. I think the question becomes whether we can keep the diplomatic balls in
the air and not drop any, even as we move forward, as we must, on the
military side.” (NPR, Dec. 20, 2002)

“I think the United States government has been clear since the first Bush
administration about the threat that Iraq and Saddam Hussein poses. The
United States policy has been regime change for many, many years, going well
back into the Clinton administration. So it’s a question of timing and
tactics. 
 We do not necessarily need a further Council resolution before we
can enforce this and previous resolutions.” (NPR, Nov. 11, 2002; requests
for audio of Rice’s statements on NPR were declined by the publicly funded
network.)

She has also been criticised extensively for her record on the African
continent, which judging by
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/opinion/susan-rice-africa.html>  the
following quote at the beginning of the 1994 Rwandan genocide seems to have
been to adopt a “laissez faire” attitude : “If we use the word ‘genocide’
and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November
[congressional] election?”

Susan Rice’s past rhetoric also includes choice
<https://www.africa-talks.com/2012/12/01/the-case-against-susan-rice-enamore
d-with-africas-dictatorships/>  generous words for African dictators. One
great example is former prime minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, a man who
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6064638.stm>  ordered security services to open
fire on protestors during its controversial 2005 election, has a track
record of
<https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/zenawis_legacy_and_the_future.php>
imprisoning journalists, used food aid as a
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9556288.stm>  political
tool and stole
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/21/ethiopia-centre-global-farmland
-rush>  land in south Ethiopia. In her speech at his funeral, Susan Rice
described him as <https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-19454803>
“brilliant” and a
<https://twitter.com/AmbRice44/status/237988932493651968?lang=ca>  “close
friend”.

Although Rice has often
<https://mondoweiss.net/2020/06/biden-vp-front-runner-susan-rice-has-a-histo
ry-of-criticizing-israel-while-also-letting-its-government-do-whatever-it-wa
nts/>  been portrayed as someone who is anti-Israel, her mild criticisms
pale in comparison to her staunch record and discourse on the
Israeli-Palestinian issue.

In a
<https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2012/03/08/ambassador-susan-rices
-remarks-aipac-synagogue-initiative-lunch>  speech given at the AIPAC
Synagogue Initiative Lunch back in 2012, Rice boasted about vetoing a UN
resolution that would deem Israeli settlements on occupied Palsestinian land
as illegal, and further characterized the Goldstone Report as “flawed” and
“insisted on Israel’s right to defend itself and maintained that Israel’s
democratic institutions could credibly investigate any possible abuses.” Her
position has changed little since then, as recently as 2016,
<https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/06/06/remarks-na
tional-security-advisor-susan-rice-american-jewish-committee>  she
proclaimed that “Israel’s security isn’t a Democratic interest or a
Republican interest—it’s an enduring American interest.”

Tony Blinken for National Security Adviser 

Tony Blinken is also an old member of the Obama administration, having
served first as VP Biden’s National Security Advisor from 2009 to 2013,
Deputy National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2015 and then as United States
Deputy Secretary of State from 2015 to 2017.

Blinken had
<https://theintercept.com/2019/07/24/joe-biden-nicholas-burns-foreign-policy
/>  immense influence over Biden in his role as Deputy National Security
Advisor, helping formulate Biden’s approach and support for the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan.

“For Biden
”, he
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/12/us/politics/joe-biden-iraq-war.html>
argued, “and for a number of others who voted for the resolution, it was a
vote for tough diplomacy.” He added “It is more likely that diplomacy will
succeed, if the other side knows military action is possible.”

The two of them were responsible for delivering on Obama’s campaign
<https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/10/21/president-obama-has-en
ded-war-iraq>  promise to get American troops out of Iraq, a process so
oversimplified and poorly handled that it led to even
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-iraq-invasion-isis_n_5d02d4e4e4b0d
c17ef06d77a>  more chaos than the initial occupation and insurgency.

Blinken seems to be
<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-foreign-policy-adviser-antony-blinken-on
-top-global-challenges/>  of the view that it is upto the US, and only the
US, to take charge of world affairs : “On leadership, whether we like it or
not, the world just doesn’t organize itself. And until this [Trump]
administration, the U.S. had played a lead role in doing a lot of that
organizing, helping to write the rules, to shape the norms and animate the
institutions that govern relations among nations. When we’re not engaged,
when we don’t lead, then one or two things is likely to happen. Either some
other country tries to take our place – but probably not in a way that
advances our interests or values – or no one does. And then you get chaos or
a vacuum filled by bad things before it’s filled by good things. Either way,
that’s bad for us.”

Blinken also appears to be
<https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2020/05/22/bidens-dumbed-down-pro-israel
-pandering/>  steering Biden’s pro-Israel agenda, recently
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/democrats-pushing-agai
nst-biden-confront-ossified-views>  stating that Biden “would not tie
military assistance to Israel to any political decisions that it makes,
period, full stop.” which includes an all out
<https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/biden-blasts-bds-why-it-matters-632
301%22%20/t%20%22_blank>  rejection of BDS, the Boycott, Divestment &
Sanctions Movement against Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Michèle Flournoy for Secretary of Defence

Michele Flournoy was Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2009 to
2012 in the Obama administration under Secretaries Robert Gates and Leon
Panetta.

Flournoy, in writing the
<https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/quadrennial/QDR1997.pdf?ve
r=2014-06-25-110930-527>  Quadrennial Defense Review during her time as
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy under President Clinton, has
paved the way for the U.S.’s endless and costly wars which prevent us from
investing in life saving and necessary programmes like Medicare for All and
the Green New Deal. It has effectively granted the US permission to no
longer be bound by the
<https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-i/index.html>  UN
Charter’s prohibition against the threat or use of military force. It
declared that, “when the interests at stake are vital, 
we should do
whatever it takes to defend them, including, when necessary, the unilateral
use of military power.”

While working at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS),
a
<https://news.syr.edu/blog/2020/02/12/csis-named-number-one-think-tank-in-th
e-united-states/>  “Top Defense and National Security Think Tank” based in
Washington D.C., in June 2002, as the Bush administration was threatening
aggression towards Iraq, she
<https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/266492469/the-case-against-biden-appoin
ting-michele-flournoy-as-dod-chief>  declared, that the United States would
“need to strike preemptively before a crisis erupts to destroy an
adversary’s weapons stockpile” before it “could erect defenses to protect
those weapons, or simply disperse them.” She continued along this path even
in 2009, after the Bush administration, in
<https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/m
edia/csis/events/090501_flournoy.pdf>  a speech for the CSIS : “The second
key challenge I want to highlight is the proliferation – continued
proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, as
these also pose increasing threats to our security. We have to respond to
states such as Iran, North Korea, who are seeking to develop nuclear weapons
technologies, and in a globalized world there is also an increased risk that
non-state actors will find ways to obtain these materials or weapons.”

It is extremely important to note that Flournoy and Blinken co-founded the
strategic consulting firm, WestExec Advisors, where the two use their large
database of governmental, military, venture capitalists and corporate leader
contacts to help companies win big Pentagon contracts. One such client being
Jigsaw, a technology incubator created by Google that
<https://jigsaw.google.com/>  describes itself on its website as “a unit
within Google that forecasts and confronts emerging threats, creating
future-defining research and technology to keep our world safer.” Their
partnership on the AI initiative entitled Project Maven led to a
<https://theintercept.com/2018/07/22/google-westexec-pentagon-defense-contra
cts/>  rebellion by Google workers who opposed their technology being used
by military and police operations.

Furthermore, Flournoy and Blinken, in their jobs at WestExec Advisors,
co-chaired the biannual meeting of the liberal organization Foreign Policy
for America. Over 50 representatives of national-security groups were in
attendance. Most of the attendees
<https://prospect.org/world/how-biden-foreign-policy-team-got-rich/>
supported “ask(ing) Congress to halt U.S. military involvement in the
(Yemen) conflict.” Flournoy did not. She said that the weapons should be
sold under certain conditions and that Saudi Arabia needed these advanced
patriot missiles to defend itself.

Conclusion

If a return to “normalcy” means having the same old politicians that are
responsible for endless wars, that work for the corporate elite, that lack
the courage to implement real structural change required for major issues
such as healthcare and the environment, then a call for “normalcy” is
nothing more than a call to return to the same deprived conditions that led
to our current crisis. Such a return with amplified conditions and
circumstances, could set the stage for the return of an administration with
dangers that could possibly even exceed those posed by the current one in
terms of launching new wars.

Mariamne Everett is an intern at the Institute for Public Accuracy currently
living in France.  

 

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