He has transcended the deadly history of his own party by provoking two nuclear-armed powers at the same time

CAM gives him an “F” as his mid-term grade

During the 2020 election cycle, CovertAction Magazine held its nose and endorsed Joe Biden in a bleak electoral landscape as an antidote to Donald Trump and the ascendant fascism of the GOP.

Since taking office, Biden has been an unmitigated disaster, failing to combat crippling inflation and serious economic problems in the U.S. while ratcheting up conflicts with both China and Russia that threaten the outbreak of World War III and nuclear Armageddon.^[1]

In many ways, Biden is a fitting leader for a decaying empire. Nicknamed “Senator Credit Card” for his fealty to credit card companies incorporated in Delaware, he is an intellectually shallow mediocrity who was near the bottom of his class at Syracuse Law School; was caught plagiarizing speeches during his first presidential run, and has been caught up in financial scandals and unethical practices involving his son Hunter, a playboy drug addict, who has for years worked as a financial bagman for his father.

Long a Neo-Conservative Hawk

Biden’s personal track record in foreign policy did not invite confidence prior to his election to the presidency. As CAM detailed in a six-part series, Biden as a U.S. Senator (1972-2009) and then as Vice President (2009-2017) was a key figure in supporting brutal and ultimately disastrous U.S. imperial interventions.

When Biden first campaigned for the Senate in 1972, he positioned himself as a dove who opposed the Vietnam War and even supported a bill that called for banning all covert operations. However, converging with elite political winds of the time, Biden morphed into a neo-conservative hawk who supported the Reagan administration’s invasion of Grenada and bombing of Libya on dubious pretexts and was a chief proponent of the war in the Balkans in the 1990s.

In 2002, Biden then played an important role in building Senate support for the preemptive war on Iraq. As Vice President he pushed for the sending of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, and was the Obama administration’s point man during the second Iraq War, among the least transparent wars in recent U.S. history. 

Biden’s current support for a hawkish policy toward Russia is not so surprising if we remember that one of his political mentors, W. Averell Harriman, is considered the “father” of the original Cold War.

Making the Ukraine War Truly His Own

President Biden has made the Ukraine War truly his war.

He has championed massive arms sales to Ukraine while ratcheting up sanctions against Russia with the goal of trapping Russia in a quagmire and trying to erode legitimacy of the Putin government, which the U.S. has long wanted to overthrow.

During a speech in Poland in March, Biden openly stated that, “for god’s sake, this man [Vladimir Putin] cannot remain in power.”

The unstated reason is that Putin is a nationalist who restored Russia’s economic sovereignty following a period of looting by the United States and locally based oligarchs under Boris Yeltsin (1991-2000), expanded Russia’s military reach and began to challenge U.S. hegemonic interests in Central Asia and the Middle East.

Since taking office, the Biden administration has authorized more than $23 billion in military assistance to Ukraine as part of the strategy of bleeding the Russians while slashing regulations on private arms sales, which allowed the State Department to authorize more than $300 million in private arms deals in the first four months of 2022—20 times more than in 2021.

Besides Javelin anti-tank missiles and armed drones, among the weapons that the Biden administration has provided to Ukraine are Lockheed Martin’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), which have killed, crippled and maimed a large number of people after being fired on civilian areas, including a detention center in Olenivka where 50 Ukrainian POWs were killed.

Major General Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of the Kyiv regime’s military intelligence directorate, admitted in an interview that the U.S. government is involved in HIMARS targeting decisions, indicating a direct U.S. involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

U.S. Air Force General Pat Ryder admitted also that active duty U.S. personnel were carrying out weapons inspections inside Ukraine, while U.S. intelligence has directly assisted in the assassination of Russian generals.

The New York Times reported on a secret U.S. operation involving U.S. commandos and spies who coordinate weapons deliveries and provide intelligence and training to Ukrainian Special Forces, at U.S. bases in Germany and Poland and in Ukraine.

The Times further reported that “some CIA personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces.”^[2]

There is additionally the presence of a significant number of British and American mercenaries—many with white supremacist backgrounds and/or experience in Syria and other U.S. wars—working for private military contractors who have intricate connection to the CIA.

Fulfilling the Dreams of the Russophobic Brzezinski Clan

To carry out the war in Ukraine, the Biden administration announced the establishment of a permanent military base in Poland, whose right-wing government received massive amounts of U.S. weaponry^[3] and was a key conduit for arms shipments to Ukraine.

Biden appointed as ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski, the son of the Russian hating grand strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was helping to fulfill his father’s dream of using Poland as a lever to strike a blow against the Russians—at the potential cost of igniting a world war.^[4]

Love Fest with Volodymyr

While demonizing Vladimir Putin, Biden has issued glowing praise for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom he characterized as a “leader worthy of the Ukrainian people’s bravery and resilience,” who had “left his mark on history” and “inspired the nations of the free world” to be “more united, more determined, and more purposeful than at any point in recent memory.”

But Zelensky has banned at least eleven opposition parties while mounting a Phoenix-style torture and assassination campaign directed against political opponents.

Swiss journalist Guy Mettan wrote that Zelensky, who had deep ties to corrupt warlord Ihor Kholomoisky, will ultimately be held responsible for Ukraine’s devastation in the war as he was the one to have helped provoke it and “preferred the ruin of his country to a timely compromise.”

Growing Threat of Nuclear War

Time Magazine reported in late October that Russia’s launching of missile strikes targeting energy plants within Ukraine and civilian infrastructure “triggered fears that hostilities were escalating and inching closer to nuclear war.”

The Biden administration stoked the fire by a) engaging in provocative military drills testing the handling of thermonuclear bombs; b) delivering bombers to Europe equipped with low-yield tactical nuclear weapons; and c) carrying out acts of international terrorism such as the sinking of the flagship vessel of the Russian Black Sea Fleet called the Moskva that prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to place Russia on high nuclear alert.

There is evidence to indicate that the Biden administration may have also been behind an underwater blast that destroyed part of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which Biden had earlier threatened would be destroyed if Russia and Ukraine went to war.^[5]

In late October, the Biden administration released its nuclear posture review, which upheld dangerous and costly modernization plans—while leaving intact the option of a nuclear first strike. The Biden administration’s 2022 National Defense Strategy leaves the possibility of launching a preemptive nuclear attack in response to a non-nuclear incident, further lowering the threshold for nuclear war.

Biden’s appointment to head the nuclear weapons arsenal (STRATCOM), Anthony J. Cotton envisions his role as being to “ensure that the 150,000 men and women supporting strategic command are prepared to do what some folks think may be unthinkable”—that is to deploy weapons from the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

When Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) asked Cotton at his confirmation hearing whether, in light of the 2018 National Defense Strategy’s conclusion that the U.S. would struggle to win a war with China over Taiwan, “the president should have flexible nuclear options to prevent conventional defeat at the hands of our adversaries in this particular scenario,” Cotton replied: “Yes I do.”

Courting War with China

This latter exchange underscores how the Biden administration is courting nuclear war not only with Russia but also with China—on whose advanced technology the U.S. defense sector is paradoxically dependent.

The Biden administration is planning to deploy up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to an air base in northern Australia, which was built as part of a military buildup targeting China.

In further acts of hubris and folly, the Biden administration has a) expanded the number of military drills carried out in or near the South China Sea; b) launched a new regional economic initiative building off the precedent of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) whose purpose was to isolate China^[6]; and c) sent naval vessels and spy planes on provocative missions into the Taiwan Strait, over which China claims jurisdiction under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

When Biden made a commitment to backing Taiwan militarily, he effectively overturned the “One China Policy”— established when the U.S. resumed diplomatic relations with China in 1979—recognizing Beijing to be the legitimate government of all China, including Taiwan.

In early September, the Biden administration approved more than $1.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, including Harpoon and AIM-9X missiles—in another obviously provocative move.

A U.S. government official described the U.S. strategy as being designed to turn Taiwan into a “porcupine”— a territory bristling with armaments and other forms of U.S.-led support that makes it “appear too painful to attack.”

The Biden administration meanwhile is currently making plans to advance “defense ties” with India, China’s traditional rival, designed to make India one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid behind only Israel and Egypt.

Hypocritically, the Biden administration routinely denounces China’s alleged human rights abuses against Uighurs and other minorities while giving a pass to the Indian government of Narendra Modi as it persecutes Muslims and Christians and adopts increasingly authoritarian measures.

Ratcheting Up Tensions on the Korean Peninsula

As if Russia and China were not enough, the Biden administration was helping to ratchet up tensions in the Korean Peninsula by making plans with South Korea’s new conservative prime minister Yoon-Suk-yeol, whom the RAND Corporation heralded as “Biden’s perfect South Korea Partner”^[7] to “expand the scope and scale” of combined military exercises and training.

In a meeting in Seoul in May, the two leaders discussed the possibility of deploying strategic military assets, “fighters, bombers, or missiles,” to South Korea to bolster its deterrence capabilities against North Korea, which responded by a) test launching nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that could travel 2,800 miles, and b) building underwater nuclear weapons silos.

Donald Trump had adopted a more progressive policy toward the Koreas, suspending regular U.S.-South Korean military drills, holding talks with Kim Jong-un and drawing down military cooperation with South Korea as a sign of goodwill toward Pyongyang.

Trying to Score Political Points Through a Potentially Fake Assassination

Biden tried to bolster his sagging poll numbers at a dramatic press conference on August 1, when he announced the assassination of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant, in a CIA drone strike.

Biden told the American public that al-Zawahiri had “carved a trail of murder and violence against American citizens, American service members, American diplomats and American interests…We made it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out.”

The Taliban, however, said they did not find al-Zawahiri’s body, and other reports suggested that al-Zawahiri had died of asthma a few years earlier.

Biden was obviously trying to replicate the precedent of Barack Obama, whose popularity rating jumped from 45% to 56% after he announced the killing of Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011.

The purported assassination of al-Zawahiri may have also been designed to sustain the legitimacy of the War on Terror as it entered its third decade and legitimate Biden’s Afghan policy—whose aim is to punish the Taliban and Afghani people for having humiliated and defeated the U.S. after a 20-year war that ended ignominiously under Biden’s watch.

The Biden administration’s hostile policies toward Afghanistan include:

1. Seizing control of $7 billion in Afghanistan financial assets, held largely at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, rather than returning them to the Afghanistan Central Bank. USA Today reported that “the reserves are needed for essential imports such as food and medicine, but also for the central bank to play its normal role in maintaining a functioning financial system and economic stability.”
2. Instituting crippling sanctions on the already war-ravaged nation; suspending the financing of development projects and depriving humanitarian groups’ needed resources.
3. Courting and presumably financing anti-Taliban Northern Alliance leaders such as Ahmad Massoud, son of Tajik warlord Ahmad Shah Massoud who, according to The New York Times, has spent the last few years “trying to revive the work of his father [the head of the Northern Alliance who was killed two days before the 9/11 attacks] by assembling a coalition of militias to defend Afghanistan’s north.”

According to the Times, “Courting proxies in Afghanistan calls back to the 1980s and ’90s, when the country was controlled by the Soviets and then devolved into a factional conflict between regional leaders. The West frequently depended on opposing warlords for intelligence—and at times supported them financially through relationships at odds with the Afghan population. Such policies often left the United States, in particular, beholden to power brokers who brazenly committed human rights abuses.”

Promising to Free Iran—When it was Freed 43 Years Ago

While the Biden administration was punishing Afghanistan, it was trying to advance regime change in Iran, where it supported protests that broke out against the Ayatollahs after a young Kurdish woman died in police custody after a dispute over how she wore her hijab.

Biden was very supportive of the protests, despite the violence associated with them, announcing intensified sanctions on Iran while assigning restrictions on the export of software and hardware to make it easier for Iranians to communicate with each other and the outside world.

In 2021, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA offshoot provided $631,500 to Iran, primarily to human rights groups and media that documented abuses by the Iranian government in an attempt to discredit it, and to dissident political factions that were behind the protests.

When Biden promised to “free Iran” at a campaign rally in California, Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi tellingly replied: “Mr. President, Iran was liberated 43 years ago.”^[8] From the U.S. that is and its client the Shah who was toppled in Iran’s 1979 revolution.

Fealty to the Saudis

In a blatant double standard, Biden was silent about the atrocious human rights record of the Saudi Royal family^[9] and its oppression of women which appeared to be much worse than Iran’s.

In July, Biden was photographed bumping fists with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who gained notoriety for approving the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

As a presidential candidate, Biden had struck a hard line with the Saudis, stating in one of the presidential debates that “we [are] going to, in fact, make them pay the price, and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are.”

But as president, he paid fealty to them in a desperate attempt to get the Saudis to a) continuously trade their oil in U.S. dollars; b) help lower skyrocketing gasoline prices by boosting oil production; and c) spurn developing closer relations with Russia and other U.S. adversaries. 

Despite having promised to end the Saudi-led coalition’s war on Yemen, Biden in his meeting with Bin Salman spoke of “deepening security ties” between the U.S. and its Gulf partners.

This entailed a perpetuation of large arms sales to the Saudis and Emiratis, and $5 billion missile defense system, along with provision of spare parts and maintenance for coalition warplanes that bombed the Yemeni population.

According to Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, the coalition warplanes, without U.S. assistance, would have been grounded.

Green-lighting Yet More Arms Sales and Atrocities

President Biden green-lighted more atrocities by sanctioning Israeli bombing in Gaza in August that killed more than a dozen people and injured hundreds more.

Biden had a long history of supporting Israel going back to the 1970s^[10] and received  $3,830,209 from pro-Israeli political action committees (PACs) during the 2020 presidential campaign.

Biden’s donors were pleased no doubt when Biden sustained the $3.8 billion in yearly military aid and approved the sale of $735 million in precision guided weapons and smart bombs to Israel in May 2021 just before Israel embarked on an offensive in Gaza that left nearly 200 Palestinians dead, including more than 50 children.^[11]

Biden satisfied the donors further when he pledged on a subsequent visit to Israel to a) never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon; b) provide Israel with additional missile defense; and c) work with Tel Aviv to “combat all efforts to boycott or de-legitimize Israel, to deny its right to self-defense, or to unfairly single it out in any forum, including at the United Nations or the International Criminal Court.”

Sustaining War on Syria

Like against the Palestinians, the Biden administration has sustained a cruel policy towards Syria by extending economic sanctions that have caused food and medicine shortages and freezing in winter and prevented the country from rebuilding after the devastating civil war that was provoked largely by the Obama administration.^[12]

The Biden administration left a 900-person occupying force in Syria and sustained bombing operations with the Israelis that continue to kill civilians.

Some $183.7 million has been budgeted for the continued training and equipping of “vetted Syrian groups,” which historically have included Islamic extremists bent on overthrowing Syria’s secular nationalist leader, Bashar al-Assad.

Whopping Military Budgets

Biden requested a whopping $802 billion military budget under the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) this year, which the Senate increased to $850 billion.

The bill was specially named after retiring Republican Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), an admirer of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan and a “hawk’s hawk” who has had personal investments in weapons-producing companies.

The 2022 NDAA includes: a) $30 billion budgeted for the development of new nuclear weapons; b) $6 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative to threaten China with cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles; and c) $100 million for training Ukrainian pilots.

The NDAA further a) establishes a national space guard; b) increases irregular warfare activities; c) extends the 31-year U.S. military attack on Iraq; d) extends U.S. support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); and e) extends the disastrous Plan Colombia through 2024—a militarized drug war program promoted by Senator Biden in the 1990s—even though Colombia’s newly elected president, Gustavo Petro, has rejected the U.S. War on Drugs.^[13]

Trying to Revitalize the Monroe Doctrine

The 2022 NDAA authorizes an increase of $19.9 million for U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM)—intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance—at a time of growing left-wing political ascendancy in South America.

The Biden administration has continued regime-change operations targeting many of these leftist governments–particularly the more radical ones.

In Nicaragua, ruled by Sandinista revolutionary Daniel Ortega since 2007, Biden signed the Reinforcing Nicaragua’s Adherence to Conditions for Electoral Reform (RENACER) Act which increased economic sanctions that were designed to fuel unrest, and more recently signed an executive order that made it all but illegal for Americans to do business with Nicaragua’s gold industry (gold was Nicaragua’s largest export in 2020).

Yahoo News reported that the latter executive order “paved the way for the U.S. to restrict investment and trade with Nicaragua—a move recalling the punishing embargo imposed by the U.S. in the 1980s during Ortega’s first stint as president following the country’s bloody civil war.”^[14]

In March 2021, President Biden reaffirmed Venezuela’s designation under the Obama administration as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

According to the World Socialist Website, this declaration provided “the legal foundation for a series of draconian and escalating unilateral U.S. economic sanctions aimed at starving the Venezuelan population into submission and achieving regime change in Caracas [which was governed by socialist Nicolás Maduro].”

In early March 2022, Biden sent a high-level delegation to Caracas to talk to Maduro in the face of the energy crisis in Europe, but then backed off in the face of right-wing pressure—offering only minor sanctions relief.

The Biden administration at the same time upheld the extradition of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab, who was being punished for trying to circumvent sanctions by importing food staples and medicines and obtaining oil shipped in by Iran.

In July 2021, Biden ratcheted up sanctions and issued a statement of support for anti-regime protesters in Havana, whom he said offered a “clarion call for freedom from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime.”

The latter regime, however, had brought liberation to Cubans from U.S. neo-colonial rule, and helped to develop a model health-care system for the developing world.

When protests broke out in Haiti against the ravages bred by neoliberal austerity and political corruption, Biden reacted far differently to Cuba, branding the protesters as criminals, supplying armored vehicles, and drafting a UN Security Council resolution that would support the deployment of a rapid reaction force to Haiti.^[15]

Earlier, the Biden administration had ramped up police assistance to Haiti’s right-wing government, which had provided mining concessions to foreign companies, providing a $48 million package to bolster SWAT team training.

This was in spite of the Haitian National Police’s reputation for brutality and involvement in political killings in a manner reminiscent of the Central American death squads of the 1980s.^[16]

Biden and Africa: Neo-Colonialism

The 2022 NDAA authorizes an increase of $93.6 million for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), which is a key tool by which the U.S. seeks to counteract Chinese influence in Africa and has contributed to the re-colonization of the continent.

In April 2022, AFRICOM announced that it was opening a new office at the U.S. embassy in Lusaka, Zambia, a copper-rich country bordering on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that is vital to the mislabeled “clean energy” revolution.

Zambia’s new president, Hakainde Hichilema was favored by Biden’s State Department in August 2021 elections because of his pledge to boost domestic refining capabilities and loosen regulations and lower taxes on foreign mining companies operating in Zambia to enable a $2 billion expansion of copper production.^[17]

A major investor in Zambia’s copper mines was the Wall Street firm, BlackRock, whose deep ties to the Biden administration were evident in Biden’s appointment of former BlackRock executives to important positions in his administration.^[18]

The charade of democracy promotion was apparent in AFRICOM’s operation in Uganda and strategic partnership with the Ugandan military.

The latter had long upheld the rule of dictator Yoweri Museveni (1986-present) and carried out legions of atrocities in northern Uganda against the Acholi people (who had supported Museveni’s predecessor) and in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Uganda was a top recipient of U.S. assistance under the Biden administration ($549 million in 2021) despite this abhorrent human rights record and voter fraud in January 2021 elections—which prompted the State Department to announce visa restrictions on government officials.^[19]

The Biden administration meanwhile launched airstrikes and drone attacks and redeployed U.S. Special Forces to Somalia, which Donald Trump had withdrawn.

The official purpose was to fight the terrorist Al-Shabaab, though Black Agenda Report suggested that it was really related to a dispute between Somalia and the U.S. oil company, Coastline Exploration Ltd., over the validity of an oil exploration agreement, and a signal that the U.S. wants to reassert its presence in the oil-rich and strategic Horn of Africa, and directly target its long-time foe, Eritrea.

Transcending the Deadly Standard Even of His Own Party

Biden’s election in 2020 was supposed to provide a gentler image for U.S. foreign policy from Donald Trump and more progressive approach.

Unfortunately, Biden has carried the tradition of Democratic Party predecessors such as Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Woodrow Wilson in providing little more than a liberal veneer behind classic imperialistic policies.

Through his reckless provocation of Russia and China, Biden has gone even further than his predecessors in courting a major global conflagration.

This policy reflects the desperation of America’s ruling elite that is a) slowly losing its grip on much of the world; b) is courting financial disaster at home; and c) cannot accept the advent of a multi-polar world order.

Rather than revitalizing U.S. global power, however, Team Biden has served to accelerate the very trends it purports to counteract.

Russia has now solidified its alliance with China and Iran, worked to redirect energy supplies to Europe through Turkey, and set up new financial networks that trade in local currencies rather than the U.S. dollar. China has further won over many countries through a soft-power approach embodied in the One Belt One Road Initiative (BRI), which the Biden administration has struggled in vain to counteract.

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1. Biden has also continued to arm repressive regimes like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and the Philippines among others, while piously professing a commitment to democracy and human rights. In 2021, the U.S. provided weapons and training to 31 nations that Freedom House defined as “not free.” According to a report put out by the Quincey Institute, of the $101 billion in major arms offers since the Biden administration took office, $59.1 billion—over 58 percent involved weapons systems produced by just four companies—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and General Dynamics—companies that had donated massively to Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign and employed over 300 lobbyists. ↑

2. The Times also reported that retired senior U.S. officers were directing portions of the Ukrainian war effort from within the country. ↑

3. This included $6 billion worth of General Dynamics M-1 tanks. ↑

4. Mark’s grandfather and Zbig’s father, Tadeusz, fought for Poland in the Battle of Lvov in the Soviet-Polish War of 1920—the only defeat in the history of the Red Army, which Tadeusz said helped save Western civilization—and was a Polish diplomat posted to the Soviet Union in the 1930s during Stalin’s Great Purge. ↑

5. The destruction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline led to a boom in the export of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to Europe from the United States, whose severe environmental consequences—rising carbon emissions and pollution in communities where fracking was carried out—undercut Biden’s supposed commitment to environmentalism and green agenda. ↑

6. In May 2022, Biden launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which includes many of the same countries as the original TPP but expanded to include India, China’s historic rival. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that “the ‘Indo-Pacific strategy’ [was] concocted by the United States under the banner of ‘freedom and openness,’ but it is indeed keen to form cliques to create ‘small circles’ with the aim of changing China’s surrounding environment in an attempt to contain China, using Asia-Pacific countries as ‘pawns’ for U.S. hegemony.” ↑

7. Yoon had enflamed China through his decision to add more anti-missile batteries employing the U.S. Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, which could be reconfigured to peer into Chinese territory. Yoon has also committed South Korea to a closer security relationship with Japan, with Japanese naval units joining the U.S. and South Korea for missile search and tracking exercises off the coast of Hawaii. Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae-in (2017-2022), had tried to repair relations with Beijing by pledging the “Three Nos”—that Seoul would not deploy any additional THAAD systems; would not participate in U.S.-led missile defense networks; and would not form a trilateral military alliance with Washington and Tokyo. ↑

8. Cora Engelbrecht, “As Protests Rage, Iran Marks 1979 U.S. Embassy Takeover,” The New York Times,. November 5, 2022, A5. Raisi accused the Biden administration of trying to meddle in Iranian affairs as previous administrations had with conflicts in countries like Libya and Syria. “What a dream!” he said sardonically, adding that America’s involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam has led to “the most victims in the world.” Iran’s intelligence agency had accused western intelligence agencies including those working for the CIA of instigating the violence, while accusing two female Iranian journalists, Nilofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who were instrumental in reporting Ms. Amini’s death (the woman who was killed who triggered the protests) of being foreign agents who received training by the U.S. to create chaos. ↑

9. Amnesty International reported that, in mid-2021, “nearly all human and women’s rights defenders, freelance journalists, writers, and activists in the country had been arbitrarily detained or brought to unfair and lengthy trials—mainly before the Specialized Criminal Court or were released on conditions.” ↑

10. The Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), a Jewish lobby group that promotes Democratic Party candidates, proclaimed that “no candidate for president in either party has ever run with as long and as strong of a pro-Israel record as Joe Biden.” ↑

11. In opposing the measure, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said that “the U.S. has long sold the Israeli government billions of dollars in weaponry without placing any conditions regarding the human rights of Palestinians. In so doing, we have directly contributed to the death, displacement and disenfranchisement of millions.” ↑

12. On the latter, see Jeremy Kuzmarov, Obama’s Unending Wars: Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2019), 268-274. ↑

13. Petro paradoxically, agreed to extended U.S. military assistance in Colombia and joint U.S. and Colombian military drills carried out by NATO. When Petro first came into office, he differed from the U.S./NATO stance on the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, advocating a neutral negotiated peace on September 21. Two weeks later he switched, joining the U.S.-led resolution in the Organization of American States strongly condemning Russia’s “unprovoked invasion” and unilaterally demanding Russian withdrawal. ↑

14. Nicaragua wisely refused recently to accept Biden’s appointment as the new U.S. ambassador, Hugo Rodriguez, after he promised the U.S. Congress that he would “support using all economic and diplomatic tools to bring about a change in direction in Nicaragua [ie. regime change].” ↑

15. Living conditions had become so bad that Haiti was experiencing a cholera outbreak. ↑

16. In September 2021, the Biden administration’s special envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, sent a scathing resignation letter in which he stated that he refused to be associated with the administration’s “inhumane, counterproductive decision” to rapidly expel thousands of Haitian migrants whom U.S. homeland security officials had corralled into a squalid camp in Del Rio, Texas. Images of Border Patrol agents on horseback chasing Black migrants had caused a national uproar in the days prior. Using a controversial public health order known as Title 42 as the basis for the expulsions, the Department of Homeland Security has flown virtually all of those individuals to Haiti without an immigration hearing or interviews to determine whether expulsion could place them at risk of physical harm. As he searched for information, Foote concluded that the Biden administration planned to remove as many Haitians as possible without conducting those critical, and legally necessary, interviews. “That’s against international law,” he said. “It’s called refoulement.” Foote also criticized the Biden administration’s support for Haitian president Ariel Henry, who was a suspect in the assassination of predecessor Jovenal Moïse and has fired multiple prosecutors investigating the crime. ↑

17. The head of Zambia’s socialist party, Fred M’membe, told writer Vijay Prashad that 60% of children in Zambia’s copperbelt region cannot read and that multinational corporations find ways of skirting local labor laws, which are weak to begin with, resulting in abhorrent working conditions for miners. According to Membe, the copper industry in Zambia still operates “along colonial lines”—something that AFRICOM will further help guarantee. ↑

18. AFRICOM was generally founded with the purpose of “protecting the free flow of natural resources from Africa to the global market,” according to AFRICOM founder Vice Admiral Robert Moeller. ↑

19. Nigeria received $610 million in aid from the Biden administration in 2021 despite its notorious corruption and reports of unlawful killings, forced disappearances, and use of torture. In April, the Biden administration offered AH-1Z attack helicopters for $997 million to Nigeria. William Hartung concluded that “U.S. arms and training [in Nigeria] had not only failed to contribute to a significant reduction in terrorism, but have also helped create the conditions for terrorism to persist, and in some cases even thrive.” ↑

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