Through the course of his political life, the current US president has often been injudicious. He has stumbled, bungled and miscalculated. His electoral victory was fortuitous, aided by a number of factors, not least the conduct of his opponent and the murderous gift of a global pandemic. Along with his fellow Democrats, he has made the issue of Donald Trump[Read More…]
President Biden’s Middle East trip that was claimed to be undertaken to bolster American interest in the region has instead angered activists around the world. Referring to himself as a “non-Jewish Zionist” to bolster his image and ongoing support while in Israel and at home along with his declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has done nothing to placate[Read More…]
It does not pay to be too moralistic in politics. Self-elevation can lead to tripping up. Sermonising even as your stable needs cleaning can enfeeble the argument. But Bidenism, this gaffe-prone ideology currently doing the rounds in a barely breathing administration, has identified the simplest of binaries to work with. In his State of the Union address, US President Joe[Read More…]
For decades, U.S. policy in the Middle East has relied on coordination with the Saudi-led Gulf states, Israel, Egypt and Turkey. Since the Obama administration, however, relations between Washington and its core regional allies in the Middle East have floundered, confounding the United States’ ability to manage Middle Eastern crises and formulate consensus in the region. Washington’s troubled relations with its Middle[Read More…]
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies President Biden and the Democrats were highly critical of President Trump’s foreign policy, so it was reasonable to expect that Biden would quickly remedy its worst impacts. As a senior member of the Obama administration, Biden surely needed no schooling on Obama’s diplomatic agreements with Cuba and Iran, both of which began to resolve long-standing foreign[Read More…]
Yesterday, Joe Biden delivered a speech from the U.S. Capitol in which he told the population there had been an attempt to overthrow the Constitution and establish a dictatorship in America. Biden warned that the danger had not passed and that the conspirators were actively planning to overturn upcoming elections. January 6 was “an inflection point in history,” he said.[Read More…]
The US presidential doctrine is an odd creature. Usually summoned up by security wonks and satellite personnel who revolve around the President, these eventually assume the name of the person holding office. They are given the force of a Papal bull and treated by the priest pundits as binding, coherent and sound. Much of this is often simple mythmaking for[Read More…]
American politics took a dramatic turn on Sunday with the announcement by the West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin that he “cannot vote” for the Build Back Better Act, President Joe Biden’s signature $2.2 trillion bill to overhaul the country’s health care, education, climate, immigration and tax laws. This deals a potentially insurmountable political blow to the core of Biden’s economic agenda on[Read More…]
This must be a rare occasion when Russian President Vladimir Putin during his 18 years in the Kremlin came out second best in an encounter with an American president. And it had to be at the hands of President Joe Biden who has not yet completed one year in office. Yet, Putin has met with every sitting American president since[Read More…]
At a two-hour video conference call with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden threatened Russia with “strong sanctions” and the repositioning of NATO troops in case of a war between Russia and Ukraine. It was the second meeting of both presidents this year following a summit in June, at which Biden appeared trying to ease tensions with Russia[Read More…]
On December 9 and 10, President Biden will host a virtual “Summit for Democracy.” The gathering will bring together leaders from 110 countries who work in government, civil society and the private sector, with the officially declared purpose of developing an agenda to renew democratic government and keep democracy’s ideals strong. (The guest list includes Pakistan, Ukraine and Brazil.) As authoritarianism grows[Read More…]
“I have sent to the Federal Register for publication the enclosed notice stating that the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13660 of March 6, 2014, with respect to Ukraine is to continue in effect beyond March 6, 2021.The actions and policies of persons that undermine democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial[Read More…]
US President Biden dismisses Russia’s red lines on Ukraine What has unfolded in the past 24 hours in the US-Russia diplomatic tango can be seen as a foreplay of the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden, which is slated for Tuesday evening. Russia has got what it has been keenly seeking — a meeting between Putin[Read More…]
In a provocative recent essay in the New York Times, the political historian Jon Grinspan places the distemper currently afflicting American politics in a broader context. In essence, he contends that we’ve been here before. Grinspan describes the period from the 1860s to 1900 as an “age of acrimony,” with the nation as a whole “embroiled in a generation-long, culturewide war over democracy.” Today,[Read More…]
When Joe Biden was declared the winner in the US elections last November, expectations in Ramallah were high. A Biden Administration, compared to the brazenly pro-Israel Trump Administration, would surely be much fairer to Palestinians, was the conventional wisdom at the time. Hence, unsurprisingly, Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, was among the first world leaders to most enthusiastically[Read More…]
Given the state of the Indian media today, it is difficult to cut through the Indian-American rhetoric from a distance of 10,000 kilometres and get a rounded view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States and his meeting with President Biden. So much has changed since Modi last visited America two years ago. India has changed, America[Read More…]
Indications are not lacking in American foreign policy (FP) that the man who took Oval Office in January on an anti-pandemic agenda is bereft of fresh innovative ideas to create world peace and regain American economic strength to lead the world. Where is Biden’s world leadership heading for, if it only withers in engendering wars, confronting Russia and China wherever[Read More…]
The US President Joe Biden’s op-ed in Washington Post My trip to Europe is about America rallying the world’s democracies will draw wide attention in world capitals from Brussels to Beijing. He says right at the outset that this weeklong trip to Europe, the first overseas trip of his presidency, is “about realising America’s renewed commitment to our allies and[Read More…]
You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand You see somebody naked and you say, “Who is that man?” You try so hard but you don’t understand Just what you will say when you get home Because something is happening here but you don’t know what it is Do you, Mr. Jones? You raise up your head[Read More…]
The whole world is looking forward to the meeting of the new US President Joe Biden with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Although the Kremlin and the White House urge people not to expect too much from the June 16 summit, one still wants to believe that a personal meeting by the leaders of the two rival powers will lead[Read More…]
Those who fear the end of democracy take no heed to a fundamental cause of the threat – Israel. President Biden has an opportunity to separate the Democratic Party from the worldwide chauvinists, who believe in their superiority and that might makes right. Followers of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer found guilty of murdering George Floyd, are chauvinists. No[Read More…]
Is President Biden afflicted with the political equivalent of a split personality? His first several months in office suggest just that possibility. On the home front, the president’s inclination is clearly to Go Big. When it comes to America’s role in the world, however, Biden largely hews to pre-Trumpian precedent. So far at least, the administration’s overarching foreign-policy theme is[Read More…]
Israel’s Defense Minister expressed gratitude to the U.S. for blocking a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire for the third time in a row. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the western part of Gaza, according to the Jerusalem Post, while local reports suggested that an office for Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs was targeted, as well as agricultural lands. A recent[Read More…]
On the climate problem as on any other, the Biden administration follows a time-honored U.S. tradition: addressing problems only so long as solutions are profit opportunities for powerful U.S. corporations. *** President Biden may have returned the U.S. to the Paris Agreement but this alleged renewal of multilateralism goes hand in hand with much harsher pursuit of Trump’s[Read More…]
The strange policy, pursued by the present occupant of the White House during the past few weeks is fairly surprising. Moreover, Joe Biden’s actions vis-à-vis Russia are downright contradictory, to say the least. Or maybe his strange initiatives are sending some ulterior message to the team around him and those who supported last fall’s very dirty elections? On the morning[Read More…]
After four nightmarish years, the presidency of Donald Trump came to an end in January. Over 81 million people voted for Joe Biden over Trump, the largest vote total for any presidential candidate in the country’s history. Many of those votes for Biden were the result of the extraordinary efforts of grassroots organizers who rallied people to the importance of[Read More…]
What Joe Biden has done right We should praise Joe Biden for the good decisions that he had made during his first few months in office. He has filled positions in his cabinet with and administration with an ethnically diverse and gender balanced group of people. For example, we can think of his new Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland,[Read More…]
Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies The Biden presidency is still in its early days, but it’s not too early to point to areas in the foreign policy realm where we, as progressives, have been disappointed–or even infuriated. There are one or two positive developments, such as the renewal of Obama’s New START Treaty with Russia and[Read More…]
You may have noticed: the Blob is back. Beneath a veneer of gender and racial diversity, the Biden national security team consists of seasoned operatives who earned their spurs in Washington long before Donald Trump showed up to spoil the party. So, if you’re looking for fresh faces at the departments of state or defense, the National Security Council or[Read More…]
DURING his first week in office, US President Joe Biden signed at least 44 executive actions, orders, proclamations and memorandums. He rejoined the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Paris climate agreement, and repealed the Trump administration’s ban on travellers from Muslim-majority and African countries, including Libya, Somalia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania. Biden extended relief on federal student loan[Read More…]
The U.S. President Joe Biden has declared that America is back. He was addressing a session of the Munich Security Conference from the White House Friday. Biden said: And I’m a man of my word — America is back. I speak to you today as president of the United States at the very start of my administration, and I’m sending[Read More…]
Few could have been slack-jawed at the first significant foreign policy speech of US President Joe Biden. It can easily be filed under the “America is back” label. Back as well, as if the previous administration had been incapable of it, was a promise for that practice unflatteringly called jaw-jaw. “Diplomacy,” the President states from the outset, “is back at[Read More…]
The heavy burden of so-called Trumpism has been removed from the shoulders of the USA. Donald Trump could not perpetuate his reign adopting the policy of Joseph Goebbels. But the bad legacy and its consequential effects are not over yet. The new administration led by Joe Biden faces an upheaval task to overcome the challenges. The so-called all-powerful USA is[Read More…]
The nightmare is over. The vanquished beast has crawled back to Mar-a-Lago to lick his wounds. The heroes are hard at work repairing the damage. As America returns to the international stage, the world heaves a collective sigh of relief. That, at least, is the story the incoming Biden administration is telling. “America is back, multilateralism is back, diplomacy is[Read More…]
According to media reports, the US President Joe Biden has picked as many as 20 Indian-Americans for senior positions in his government, and the common thread running through them is that none of them had anything to do with the RSS or the BJP even remotely. What a curious yardstick to apply — avoid like plague India’s high-flying cultural organisation[Read More…]
When it comes to war, if personnel is policy, America is yet again in deep trouble. As retired Army Major Danny Sjursen recently pointed out at TomDispatch, when it comes to foreign policy, President Joe Biden’s new cabinet and advisers are well stocked with retired generals, reconstituted neocons, unapologetic hawks, and similar war enthusiasts. Biden himself has taken to asking God to protect the troops whenever he[Read More…]
President Biden has inherited a terribly flawed US foreign policy. For the past few decades, the pro-corporate US foreign policy has been a catastrophic failure, especially in the Middle East. Our criminal military interventions there have resulted in the devastation of much of that area, impoverished millions, created millions of refugees, and injured or killed millions more. Moreover, this criminal[Read More…]
Biden is in and Trump is out. Despite all the drama, America’s flawed democracy has managed to make the will of its people prevail. Americans have got their President, Mr. Biden that they voted for. Mr. Biden was officially sworn in on 20th January 2021 as the 46th President of the United States of America and sadly, due to COVID[Read More…]
With Joe Biden’s assumption of office as 46th President of the United States, there are expectations of a ‘liberal internationalist’ foreign policy set to emerge from Washington. However, the new team in the White House knew from the first day in office that this would not have been possible without constant recalibration. Many would have little dispute that Donald Trump[Read More…]
In the wake of the January 6 insurrection, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have us believe that the United States and Israel have a common enemy. Pelosi implies that the American insurrectionists whose ideologies are rooted in racism, xenophobia and supremacy represent a threat to both the US and Israel — i.e., she believes antisemitism threatens the well-being and sanctity of the[Read More…]
In his first media interview, the incoming US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has given a preview of Joe Biden administration’s foreign policy directions in regard of Russia, Iran and China. Major shifts can be expected in the policies toward both China and Iran while selective engagement of Russia is on cards. First, Russia. Sullivan noted that it was “most[Read More…]
Perfumed and tailored for a certain brand of folksy, identity politics, Pete Buttigieg hoped to blast his way to the White House having run a community of 102,000 constituents in South Bend, Indiana. Mayor Pete was hoping for the best, though his effort did not so much stall as fall over early on before the somnambulist who eventually won both[Read More…]
Now that Joe Biden will be America’s next president, it might be worthwhile to take a closer look at some of the choices for his cabinet, White House staff, and national security positions. There are some real crazies here, as we shall see. As we dig deeper and deeper, what emerges is a network of people whose views can quite[Read More…]
Those who supported Biden did so primarily to see America free of the Fascist-style president and Republican Party determined to bring the country as close to the Third Reich as possible. To be sure, there were many who backed Biden-Harris because they espouse the platform of the establishment Democratic Party. However, the demographics have changed, and the middle class has[Read More…]
In his first words as President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken said, “we have to proceed with equal measures of humility and confidence.” Many around the world will welcome this promise of humility from the new administration, and Americans should too. Biden’s foreign policy team will also need a special kind of confidence to confront the most serious challenge they face. That will[Read More…]
With President Donald Trump all but conceding to the transition team that will take over after January next year, interest now shifts to President-elect Joe Biden’s choices for cabinet. On the national security front, the imperial-military lobby will have reasons to be satisfied. If Trump promised to rein in, if not put the brakes on the US imperium, Biden promises[Read More…]
It has been the most keenly followed election in U.S. history. The entire world had been on tenterhooks anxiously waiting for the outcome in the early week of November. According to some foreign policy experts, the last four years had witnessed a remarkable change in U.S. policies with the outside world under the garb of “America First,” which has, in[Read More…]
A new term has imposed itself on the conversation regarding the impending presidency of US President-elect, Joe Biden: “The Total Reset”. Many headlines have already promised that the Biden Presidency is ready to ‘reset’ US foreign policy across the globe, as if the matter is dependent solely on an American desire and decision. While a ‘total reset’ is, perhaps, possible[Read More…]
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies Donald Trump loves executive orders as a tool of dictatorial power, avoiding the need to work through Congress. But that works both ways, making it relatively easy for President Biden to reverse many of Trump’s most disastrous decisions. Here are ten things Biden can do as soon as he takes office.[Read More…]
Presidential Election in Stained Democracy When false claims challenge the truth, it breeds fearful and ferocious public outcomes. No wonder, why the American masses are more divided today than any time in recent history. American presidential elections failed to produce a viable prospect for the working of democracy. The nation is entrenched in an unending political crisis, more of opinions[Read More…]
Last four years of Trump presidency has been the most chaotic if not the most problematic that the US and the world at large have experienced, ever. Mr. Trump’s governing style has been unique and bewildering. He made White House a twitter factory – made policies, hired and fired people and attacked his opponents through twitters. Furthermore, and not[Read More…]
Joe Biden won the 2020 US Presidential Election after narrowly defeating the sitting president Donald Trump. This victory comes at a tremendous cost: the defeat of an incipient counter-hegemonic movement which embryonically expressed demands for an alternative future to capitalism. Even after the collective utterance of anger against police brutality and the nascent realization of the structural violence of capitalism, the electoral mechanisms of[Read More…]
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies Obama and Biden meet Gorbachev – did Biden learn anything? Credit: Wikimedia Commons Congratulations to Joe Biden on his election as America’s next president! People all over this pandemic-infested, war-torn and poverty-stricken world were shocked by the brutality and racism of the Trump administration, and are anxiously wondering whether Biden’s presidency[Read More…]
I usually agree with most of what columnist Caitlin Johnstone offers. Yet, in her latest Op Ed she says that a vote for Biden was NOT against fascism, which will continue now that he is in office. Sorry Caitlin, I agree with Prof. Cornell West on this election. We both feel that this Proto Fascist/ Neo Nazi culture, emboldened by[Read More…]
Donald Trump isn’t just inside the heads of his Trumpster base; he’s long been a consuming obsession among those yearning for his defeat in November. With barely more than a week to go before the election of our lifetime, those given to nail biting as a response to anxiety have by now gnawed ourselves down to the quick. And many[Read More…]
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies Toward the end of Joe Biden’s October 15 town hall session, a Trump supporter asked Biden the only foreign policy question of the night. “So peace is breaking out all over the world,” the questioner claimed. “Our troops are coming home. Serbia is talking to Kosovo. And the Arabs and Israelis[Read More…]
Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch’s son and daughter-in-law are two of the biggest backers of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s campaign, federal filings show. James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn Murdoch each contributed $615,000 to the Biden Victory Fund in June, according to Federal Election Commission filings. The Biden Victory Fund splits donations between Biden’s campaign, the Democratic National Committee and[Read More…]
Over the past year several articles penned by this writer have questioned how well-suited Joe Biden is to lead the Democratic Party’s Progressive Movement in 2020 to make the kind of dramatic changes so sorely needed in every aspect of the American government, society, culture, foreign policy, universal health care and welfare of the American people. Specific questions have been[Read More…]
Assume Joe Biden wins the presidency. Assume as well that he genuinely intends to repair the damage our country has sustained since we declared ourselves history’s “Indispensable Nation,” compounded by the traumatic events of 2020 that demolished whatever remnants of that claim survived. Assume, that is, that this aging career politician and creature of the Washington establishment really intends to salvage something[Read More…]
I wrote this article over four years ago in 2016 for the purpose of challenging left liberals to face the fact that they have no party. In re-reading it today, everything I said in the original article remains true. In fact, the Democratic Party has leaned even further to the right over the last four years. In the face of uprisings of[Read More…]
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies In an article in Foreign Affairs in March titled, “Why America Must Lead Again,” Joe Biden claimed that “the world doesn’t organize itself,” and promised to “put the U.S. back at the head of the table” among the nations of the world. But the premise that the world can only[Read More…]
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Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
