Former Vice President Joe Biden gave some of his first foreign policy-related positions in an interview with Stars and Stripes on Thursday, saying the “forever wars have to end” while seemingly ruling out any full-fledged withdrawals, arguing the US still has to worry about terrorism and ISIS.
Biden said the ongoing US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria are so complicated he can’t promise a withdrawal. He also suggested he may increase military spending even beyond its current record levels as he shifts focus to what he believes should be the military’s priorities.
The priorities, as are so often the case for the US, are fighting Russia, who Biden identified as a “near-peer” power. The US spends more than ten times the amount on its military annually that Russia does, and it is unclear in what way they are a “near-peer.”
Either way, Biden intends to shift the focus toward unmanned drones and cyber-warfare, and suggests that is likely to boil down to not just a shift in where money is spent, but likely an increase in spending as well.
“First thing I’m going to have to do, and I’m not joking: if elected I’m going to have to get on the phone with the heads of state and say America’s back,” Biden said, saying NATO has been “worried as hell about our failure to confront Russia.”
Though the international community has faulted President Trump for being too close with Russia, the fear of that appearance has meant extremely limited diplomacy between the major nuclear powers. Biden’s plans for confrontation seem to offer more of the same, higher record spending, and avoiding peace overtures for fear of not looking sufficiently tough.
Just what we need more of Washington rationalizing killing in the Mid-East.
No matter who is dictator/president nothing will change. Change has to come from the grassroots, dispossessed, the downtrodden. REVOLUTION is the answer and it is beginning to look like that. American people are waiting for a new leader.
Your optimism regarding the American people is unrealistic.
its a way off but getting closer. but what it ends up as is anyone’s guess.
anyway Trump is going to win (no endorsement)
I want Trump to win, but it does not look like it currently.
This is what bothers me. Trump has given no one a reason to “want him to win”. If “instead of Biden” had been added I wouldn’t have commented. But I cringe as we get closer to election and people suddenly become vocal for the lesser of two very evils.
You are correct. We think that the vote has power. Hah! Power is: 1) military industrial complex, 2) Chase, et al 3) Wall Street.
Nina Turner spoke the truth when she said the difference between Trump (GOP) and Biden (DNC) is like having a bowl of sh*t placed in front of you and all you have to do is eat only half. It is still sh*t. The woman is brilliant.
And so, we will continue to have sh*t wars, sh*t healthcare, sh*t wages, sh*t protection against pandemics.
So yes I am a pessimist. I am 76 and I am growing more so as the time goes by.
They only need to convince you one is worse than the other.
The vote would have power if people looked at their ballot and voted according to who is the best candidate and not whether they have an R or a D next to their name. And if we voted for Jill Stein because she was the best candidate and she became corrupted when elected then we vote her out and repeat until the house is cleaned. We have a duopoly because we refuse to have something different.
On the bright side, we’ll continue to produce shiny weapons.
I agree. Americans are putting up with a trillion dollars a year being spent on “defense” against imaginary enemies while they go without healthcare and jobs and line up at the food banks. Soon they’ll be losing their homes too. Yet they still don’t rise up and tell their government to start taking care of its own citizens instead of preparing for endless wars.
A revolution, with hundreds of conflicting agendas, will make us(US)look like one large version of Syria. Can’t wait.
Revolutions rarely result in what people aim for.
Another addled-brain prez–exactly what the country needs.
Trump or Biden.Ignore what they say. Both enforcers for Israel.Both scandelised and compromised by Zionists..Israel does not mind who is in the White House.Tthe choice for Americans is whether they want Trump who gropes from the front or Biden who does from behind.(not mere insinuation all credibly reported)
That’s all fine, but let’s not pretend Biden isn’t likely to go full totalitarian over COVID. This is the scary difference between the two.
Trump or Biden two dogs of Israel.No difference.American West is burning. Corona is consuming America.Trump has no time. he is pimping for Israel. First U A E, Kosovo,Serbia now Bahrain.Biden also will do the same. America is doomed.
Better to go “full totalitarian” about a pandemic than downplay it and pretend it’s a hoax and can be cured with bleach.
Yeah. Thanks for proving my point….
Your framing is so disingenuous. Mainstream media may pretend theres not plenty of qualified experts contradicting just about every narrative being pushed about the pandemic but in reality those not directly dependant on the fascist technocracy that dominates the west tend to generally be yelling bullshit on almost everything to one degree or another. This isn’t surprising given that most people affected by COVID are effected by the lies damn lies and statistics nature of the pandemic – which I think is likely to be 10 – 100 x more deadly than the disease. That is if civilizations don’t just crumble.
You know what, since you were so disingenuous before –
Your desire to give Donald Trump and or any of the obvious kekacrats running Western governments more responsibility over Pandemics makes as much since as drinking bleach to fight them – but with potential mass fatalities well beyond whatever people likely to follow the advice your strawman Trump didn’t even give them.
That’s the problem. One is on one end of the spectrum and the other is on the other end. Nothing in between. Ever.
Truth determined by team affiliation. Getting reliable information is probably more trouble than it’s worth now except on immediate pressing concerns.
Good luck in the wilderness.
Remember the zionists are the “victims” all the time. It’s been the false narrative for decades. Yet, they get away with killing Palestinian women and kids. Now they murder autistic people, Iyad Halaq on May 30. Not too much in the media though about that. So who controls the media?
Does he really think people will vote for that?
Why not? The little echo chamber here isn’t a true indication of what the typical American thinks.
No, unfortunately most Americans seem to be quite willing to let their government spend a trillion dollars a year on “defense” against imaginary enemies while millions of them go without healthcare and jobs and line up at food banks in order to feed their families.
Dems I talk to think Trump is militaristic. Yemen, Iran. They think he’s aggressive. I can make the argument for Trump, but he needs to end things in Yemen, get a peace there. And elsewhere imo.
I like what Trump is doing lately, but he allowed himself to be condemned for being against peace in a sense.
So Biden has leeway.
Really? Because “lately” he just told the world that he knew the virus was deadly but he wanted to downplay it to avoid panic. So instead, he encourages YOU, HIS BASE, to congregate in large groups. And he’s STILL doing it even though the virus is just as deadly as it was when he told Woodward on FEBRUARY 7th.
Just last night:
“Trump defied local authorities by holding a Saturday night rally in tiny Minden after his initial plan to hold one in Reno was stopped out of concern it would have violated coronavirus health guidelines.”
Disclaimer: I don’t believe the virus is as deadly as Trump claimed but they are HIS words.
“the virus is just as deadly as it was when he told Woodward on FEBRUARY 7th”
I wouldn’t be so sure about that.
Viruses mutate into new strains over time, and it’s the milder strains that tend to survive and thrive. A virus that kills its host doesn’t have as much time or opportunity to be spread to new hosts as a virus that just mildly inconveniences its host.
I don’t have to be to sure about it. I’m not the president. But if I did say the virus WAS deadly, I’d be very cautious to invite people to gather in large numbers unless I knew without a doubt that it was no longer deadly or as deadly. But I stand corrected on saying the virus is just as deadly as it was on Feb. 7th.
Unfortunately, the best viral studies are done in hindsight.
So no concerns about the fact that there are now almost 200,000 Americans dead from this virus? I’d hardly call that “mildly inconvenienced”.
2.8 million Americans died in 2018.
So far as we know, none of them died of COVID-19.
How inconvenienced were you?
On February 7th nobody knew Covid’s level of lethality. No one. So whatever Trump said, had been told to him by his medical experts, and his attempt to downplay the severity of the problem so as to avoid panic, was completely reasonable and responsible.
And as we NOW know, the virus is just a nasty flu to anyone healthy and under 60, a very serious situation for the elderly or those with comorbidities (particularly obesity), and very lethal for the old and frail, with comorbidities.
But of course Trump-hate requires that his comments ***now*** be taken out of the context of that moment and turned into an election cudgel to use against him in the lead up to November. Woodward waited till now so as to generate the maximum damage to Trump’s reelection chances. No big deal. All’s fair in political war.
Biden has a massive cargo of vulnerabilities: 40 yrs a corporate stooge, strutting around in aviator glasses and hair-plugs, betraying the working class while pretending to support them; Hunter as a front for Biden’s back door corruption; his nomination as the uninspiring leftover of the DNC sandbagging of Bernie; his assortment of nanny handlers: Neocons and Dem establishment hacks; and center stage, his looming Alzheimer’s (not-yet-but-soon-to-be-characterized-as-such. Call it “The A-Bomb”). Meanwhile, Trump has yet to unload on him. This suggests to me that Trump is “keeping his powder dry”, and that the carpet-bombing is coming, timed for maximum effect.
Gonna get interesting.
(Those of you who know me, know that I have been a durable Trump supporter from the start. But I am a single issue guy: and my issue is end the wars. And Trump has failed on that issue. Pompeo as SoS is the hallmark of that failure. So, if Pompeo is still SoS on the last day for me to file my electronic ballot, then Trump loses my vote. I still think he will win, but that’s separate from my personal participation.)
Trump must have believed those medical advisors otherwise there is no need to downplay anything. And like you said, on Feb.7th nobody knew of covid’s lethality. So every day that passed after Feb. 7th until at least when Trump told Woodward, in March, that he was downplaying the virus to avoid a panic, he must have had believed those medical advisors. So is it during that time period that he was being reasonable and responsible? You have some low standards of what should be considered reasonable and responsible if that is the case. Nice, nice spin job.
“On Feb. 28, at a Charleston, South Carolina, rally, Trump called the coronavirus the Democrats’ “new hoax.” That day, there were 59 confirmed cases and two coronavirus deaths in the United States, according to the World Health Organization. There were 4,691 cases around the globe.”
He hosted rallies on Jan. 9 (Toledo, Ohio); 14 (Milwaukee), 28 (Wildwood, N.J.) and 30 (Des Moines, Iowa), as well as Feb. 10 (Manchester, N.H.), 19 (Phoenix), 20 (Colorado Springs), 21 (Las Vegas) and 28 (Charleston, S.C.).
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/17/fact-check-trump-had-rallies-golfed-covid-19-outbreak-grew/5126918002/
Downplaying the virus made sense early on to prevent a panic, and I don’t believe he made any serious mistakes regarding the virus. It was clear no one knew how to handle it.
The same people condemning Trump’s rallies also praise the rioting and anti-cop gatherings. I’m not debating the stupid virus here. It’s certainly a threat to the elderly, but all gatherings haven’t been treated equally.
Ok, my point is that, for a period of time, Trump BELIEVED the virus to be DEADLY and STILL had rallies DURING that period of time. It matters nothing what happened before or after or whether black lives really matter or whether the virus was no worse than the common cold. Trump BELIEVED it to be DEADLY and STILL had fuc*ing rallies!!!!
I dunno. I never cared about the virus to be honest. The foreign policy goofs and some other things I do care about. It really irks me that he hasn’t pardoned Assange. No matter what he did on the virus he was going to be condemned for it.
The virus is irrelevant. It could be toxic waste or land mines. If you invite people to gather at any place those things might be present you are knowingly putting them at risk. Trump believed the virus was deadly according to his own words and then said he tried to downplay it to avoid a panic. To me, downplaying something wouldn’t have included gathering people to where they could be in danger. It speaks about what kind of man Trump is and not about his response to the virus.
Alternative possibility: He didn’t really think much of the virus. Early on Tucker Carlson told him to take it seriously. That seemed to be when he took things more seriously, but he had blocked travel from China.
Anyway, I don’t care about the stupid virus. And, sure, Trump is probably a bad guy seeing how he’s willing to raise sanctions, lie about Assad, assassinate the Iranian general in a dirty way, and continue with drone warfare. The supposed reason he didn’t overthrow Maduro is he suspected it would be too difficult, not that it was wrong. That suggests that Trump is competent, not that he’s a wonderful person. But competence is something, and rare in DC.
I still think he’s a better person, and better would-be President, than most in DC.
Trump is about the second or third best President the US has had since the Civil War. By American standards, he’s pretty good.
His words:
“Bob, it’s so easily transmissible, you wouldn’t even believe it,” Trump told Woodward. “I mean, you could, you could be in the room…I was in the White House a couple of days ago, meeting of 10 people in the Oval Office and a guy sneezed—innocently. Not a horrible—you know, just a sneeze. The entire room bailed out, okay? Including me, by the way.”
“I still think he’s a better person, and better would-be President, than most in DC.”
“Trump is about the second or third best President the US has had since the Civil War. By American standards, he’s pretty good.”
Seek help.
You should seek help. You think too well of US politicians.
Anyway, Covid has long been known to be highly contagious. The question was how deadly and whether hospital capacity would be exceeded,
You seem to listen on repeat to the war mongers so that you no longer think for yourself. The wars matter. Trump’s response to covid was fine. The bailout he did was questionable.
What President has been better? Coolidge, and who else?
Wow. I give. You just can’t comprehend what I’m saying. Or just refuse. And I only rate presidents in my lifetime and I have Trump worse than every president other than W. And I’m not repeating shit from the warmongers and I do think for myself. I don’t know where you got that garbage.
You’re not speaking on anything of substance though.
The latest claim that Trump wanted to assassinate Assad is significant, shocking.
Really? A president knowingly allowing people to endanger their lives isn’t significant to you? And yes the part about Assad is shocking and again they show how totally incompetent this batshit nutjob is.
“What President has been better? Coolidge, and who else?”
Offhand I’d say that Grover Cleveland and Jimmy Carter were both better. But it depends on the criteria.
Tough to defend Trump when it now appears that, despite being President, he believes Assad used WMD. It used to look like he was just lying. He’s been after Assad since the supposed chemical attack.
Reference to the latest Trump claim that Mad Dog Mattis actually stopped him from assassinating Assad. It doesn’t now look like he’s lying; it looks like he’s living in a cave of shadows.
Maybe Trump is 4th best then: Coolidge, Hoover, Cleveland, Trump.
Wikipedia paints Cleveland better than I expected, especially on Hawaii.
I wouldn’t rate Trump 45th. If nothing else, he’s better than Woodrow Wilson. All in all, probably no lower than 40th.
There’s your recipe for a nuclear war.
How so? Is there really a difference from our present situation?
No difference – for those who think Biden is a pacifist.
My question was about this being a “recipe for nuclear war”. We’ve increased the offense budget every year and we’ve been in the middle east forever, so why the sudden threat? And even if Trump(or Biden)would leave Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan we’d STILL be in the middle east.
Newer and better ICBM arsenal being built.
One planet dead is not enough.
Upgrade began under Obama. Continues under Trump. Will continue with Trump or Biden. Trump pulled us out of the START treaty with Russia. Both the U.S. and Russia are testing the weapons that were limited or forbidden by the treaty. Trump has also intimated that he would begin testing nukes again, something that had not been done since 1992.
And the U.S. worries about Iran coming up with ONE nuke? Israel has maybe 400 (according to Mordecai Vanunu).
“I’ve met with a number of my advisors and some have suggested in certain areas the budget is going to have to be increased.”
This is the only thing I could find that justifies the headline. Not to defend the senile fool but there is a difference between the headline and what Biden said. He should have just said more of the same. At what point do people vote third party?
Trump really needs to cut the stupid defence budget. It makes no sense to condemn the warring without that. If he wants deficit spending, then spend in the US on something else.
How about paying down the national debt?
I fear the debt is too high now. Either a large percent will be written off, or inflation will reduce it. The idea that the US could grow its economy to pay it off isn’t reasonable.
Americans aren’t willing to pay off a high debt like Germany was. US debt is supposed to be reliable, but I’ve never seen it as such. Venezuela didn’t want to default on its debt either.
Democrats had no choice but Biden, he was annointed and appointed over 2 years ago by owners of DNC party. Too think that Creepy Joe that likes touching little girls and fondling job hungry women even wives of those males looking for jobs shows just how decadent are those who run American lives.
His and others shady self enriching games in Ukraine were paid for by US taxpayers, but they obviously expect their government to be all of same low character traits.
The Officials elected and appointed to public office and their supporters are an offence to all decency,, and no matter their party labels, and their pundits, Inteligencia media shills for the syste, they should make honest people gag at their stench.
At present I sit along lower Columbia River in Washington state and can not see clearly beyond 100 yards due to smoke from three states forest and range fires, with breathing becoming hazardous, at least I know the discomfort is temporary and not as dangerous as the piles of offal that play politics as their s^^t permanently sticks upon everything they touch unto an unknown future time.
We have over 60,000 soldiers and sailors in Washington state. Any other nation would have them fighting these fires, but the USA thinks they must not waste time protecting American lives and property, they need to train deploy to protect the empire.
Why do I have a feeling that neither party will concede in November? Democrats will not, definitely. But if Biden wins, why would Trump concede? The only reason for conceding I can think off is — his Party. Republicans are by far more likely to side with Democrats on foreign policy then with Trump. And these days, Congress is all over foreign policy — any talk of domestic concerns sounds fake, almost as if straining to come up with anything domestic related.
We have epidemics and all politicians are scared stiff of implementing REAL epidemics control measures. Institute quarantine for infected, for example. Desperately trying NOT to look like China — as if epidemics control is a Chinese thing.
So this highly volatile domestic issue has been sidelined, given up on. Any other issue of consequence to this country’s economy, infrastructure, industry, technology?
Just bickering about giving some pittance to unemployed, with not a clue as to the long term crisis.
So, foreign policy is it. That is where the money is.
“Republicans are are far more likely to side with democrats than trump on foreign policy”
Please review the Omar bill to withdraw from Afghanistan. Then try again.
A token bill by a tiny fringe of the Democrats. .
Please review all the neo cons that have endorsed Biden. Then try again.
It was passed by a majority of dems…what page is this again ??
I guess you missed the fact that when the Democrats had the White House and control of both house of Congress the wars continued unabated. Pretty naive to think that political theatre equals anything of substance.
No comment on all those neo-cons (re)joining the Democrats?
Sure, and all those wars were voted near unanimously by the gop. Still are, by the house vote above.
“Political theater” to “own the lib” types, is when some dems contribute to war, tho not a majority, while ignoring that the jackbooted GOP goes all in, everytime.
No doubt if the gop had the White House during the arab spring we would have had full on Iraq style invasions of Syria and Libya….as the gop promised in 02, 7 countries in 7 years.
You go through great contortions to imagine the ” parties are the same”. Learn to research congressional votes. Biden is not “the dems”, the party is divided, trump is certainly the gop tho….see GOP policy platform…..bootlickers.
You do realize that you haven’t addressed my points, right?… Yada, yada, yada. Essentially you are saying Democrats are better because they pretend to be better.
Trump will whine, but he’ll step down.
Confront Russia? What he really means is overthrow the Russian government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2lamuu8fzk
If there is no “enemy” there would be no justification for the US spending a trillion dollars a year on “defense” while millions of Americans go without healthcare and jobs and line up in droves at the food banks. As long as they can be convinced that some other country is eager to conquer the US they’ll put up with it.
Someone needs to tell Trump: If he wants to defeat Biden, end all sanctions everywhere. Starvation isnt cool.
Ending Sanctions is part of being antiwar, most important right now.
Some lesser evil.
Indeed. Like choosing between being bit by a rattlesnake or a copperhead.
biden has been in a war loving coma for 3 decades—trump could only dream about approaching his level of corruption
Wow, you must have been living under a rock for 40 years.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, same as the previous boss, same as the boss before that, same as the boss before that………….
If voting changed anything…it would be illegal.
Got to keep the billions rolling in to the military-industrial complex and its shareholders. Not much will change if the US has a different president. They’ll still be the biggest warmongers on the planet.