Biden’s foreign policy: Worst in my lifetime?

 Biden’s foreign policy: Worst in my lifetime?

Joe Biden is the 15thpresident in my 79 years. I’ve followed the foreign policy of all but FDR. Only missed his presidential exploits because I was just 33 days old when he died.

I still remember mom and pop explaining to me that President Truman fired Gen. Douglas McArthur during the Korean War in ’51. Why would the president fire such a revered war hero? Must be a bad president, I thought. Years later I found out how right he was to do so. McArthur was hell bent on fomenting war with China over Korea. But Truman blundered badly on Korea as well, launching an unnecessary and undeclared war there that killed millions of Koreans for no valid reason and no permanent resolution 73 years on. War with North Korea is still possible today. Even worse, Truman’s ditching Congress’ Constitutional duty to declare war inaugurated dozens of interventions, large and small that have killed millions since 1950.

Truman’s overall foreign policy was dreadful. He blew our chance for rapprochement with Russia after WWII, being rolled by the neocons of the day, especially his Secretary of State Jimmy Burns. That helped ignite the Cold War which lasted 45 years till the Soviet Union dissolved.

None of the succeeding 13 presidents I’ve experienced had a decent, peace oriented foreign policy. Eisenhower bashed the Military Industrial Complex pushing perpetual war when he left office after 8 years. But he helped create it and inaugurated regime change near (Cuba, Guatemala) and far (Iran) which became the ‘go to’ US policy for foreign leaders presidents hate.

JFK snuck into office in 1960 using a phony ‘missile gap’ canard. His obsession with overthrowing Cuba’s Castro was both criminal and nearly blew up the world by creating the totally avoidable Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

And so it continued thru 10 more presidents till Joe Biden assumed office 59 years later. His foreign policy has been warlike on steroids. He even managed to tarnish his signature peace accomplishment of ending our 20 yearlong Afghan war. Humiliated by being tossed from Afghanistan by the rag tag Taliban, Biden continued to cruelly punish the Afghan people by withholding billions in Afghan treasure we stolen from them during the war. He’s also maintained crippling sanctions leading to starvation and diminished health care for millions. Regarding the desperately poor Afghans, his cruelty knows no bounds.

Biden reneged on his promise to end America’s 63 year isolation of Cuba. He further reneged on re-instating the Iran nuclear deal, the signature Obama accomplishment Biden championed as his VP. He not only maintained America’s ghoulish war in Yemen that has killed nearly 400,000, he’s interfering with the ongoing Saudi, Yemen Houthi peace process that could end this 8 yearlong killing field there.

While suffering ‘Stop The Steal’ from his predecessor, he maintained his own ‘Stop The Steal’ in Venezuela, endlessly trying to overturn the election of socialist Nicholas Maduro, to install US puppet Juan Guido, so unpopular he’s been kicked out of Venezuela.

Biden is totally in tune with the US national security state which refuses to end America’s merciless War Of Terror against any person or group we deem ‘kill worthy’ in the Middle East and Africa. Just ask the 10 kids of the innocent sheepherder whom Biden’s bombers blew to bits in Syria, May 18. The US response was sickening…’We still think we whacked an al-Qaeda dude.’

But as horrendous as these policies are, they’re small potatoes compared to Biden’s ratcheting up Cold War II with both Russia and China. He has maneuvered them into their closest political and economic ties in generations. Biden is fueling and perpetuating the Russo Ukraine with nearly $40 billion in weapons. He’s greenlighting ever increasingly more dangerous weapons including F-16’s, depleted uranium artillery, long range missiles among others that have already zoomed over Russia’s red lines. Just one mistake, miscalculation or renegade combatant could ignite WWIII.

At the other end of the world, Biden has completely jettisoned the five decade long One China policy over its ironclad defense declaration for Taiwan, whose history with China goes back thousands of years. One would think Biden would have more sense than provoking all-out war against its two biggest imagined enemies simultaneously. Alas, he doesn’t.

Like me, Biden was a teen during the ’62 Missile Crisis, the closest we’ve come to nuclear war in our lifetime. It still haunts this 17 year old down to this day; one reason I work in the peace movement. Apparently, it made no dent on 19 year old Joe Biden. He’s spent most of his half century in public service championing American exceptualism and US world dominance, regardless of the risks of it descending into the madness of nuclear war.

With profound sadness and fear for our future, Joe Biden gets my nod as conducting the most dangerous US foreign policy in my lifetime.