“Biden’s Tough Words”

W.J. Astore

President Biden in Tokyo, sharing some “tough words” (NYT photo)

President Biden is at it again, and so is the New York Times. Abandoning the policy of “strategic ambiguity,” Biden vowed that America would militarily resist a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The “liberal” New York Times did its part by describing (in its “Morning” daily newsletter) Biden’s vow as “tough words.” Who cares if Biden’s words unnecessarily aggravate tensions with China and contribute to a cold war running increasingly hot? After all, Biden sounded “tough,” and that’s all that really matters here.

Consider these “tough” words from the New York Times:

“The central problem for the U.S. is that it might not be able to stop Xi if he chose to attack. The American public is tired of faraway wars with uncertain connections to national security — an attitude that limits any U.S. president’s options. China’s leaders, on the other hand, would view a conflict in Taiwan as a vital domestic matter and devote vast resources to victory.
For these reasons, the surest way to protect Taiwan is to make China’s leaders believe that even if they could win a war, it would be costly enough to destabilize their regime.”

Remarkably, the Times makes it sound like the American public’s fatigue when it comes to disastrous foreign wars that are unconnected to our national security is a bad thing. Note how this “tired” feeling is allegedly an “attitude that limits any U.S. president’s options,” as if that’s a bad thing.

Did the Times forget that it’s Congress that’s supposed to declare war? That wars should be a last resort? Anyway, so far I haven’t noticed how the American public’s tiredness has stopped any recent war. Most Americans didn’t want to invade Iraq and quickly grew tired of that war, but as Vice President Dick Cheney famously said, “So?” So what if the people are “tired”? When it comes to war, men like Cheney, Obama, Trump, and Biden do what they want. If they listened to us, the Afghan War would have been over in two months instead of persisting for two decades.

“Tough words.” Please, God, save us all from such dangerous nonsense.

24 thoughts on ““Biden’s Tough Words””

  1. Biden (and Killary, and on and on Democrats) have to prove that they have the “tough”ness, the cojones, to take on the Repubs and any possible impediment to full-spectrum global dominance. And that “tough”ness serves (is perceived by them) to distract the commoners from the reality, domestically and abroad, that the flailing and failing emperor has no clothes. Russia, China et al are convenient — but fraught — foils to the nefarious ends awaiting us anon.

    I’ll be candid: IMO, all of our principal ills track back to the Zionization of America and the concomitant coarsening of our society and the folly of our policies. Read, inter alia, Alison Weir’s spare-but-essential “Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of how the U.S. was used to create Israel” (2014).

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    1. My sense is there’s no monocausal answer here. “Zionization,” whatever that means, doesn’t drive or rule the U.S. government.

      AIPAC is strong, and Israel as an ally gets too much aid and has too much say in American politics. But there are so many other forces at work here. Start with the military-industrial complex, the power of all lobbyists in so many industries (health care, Big Pharma, fossil fuels, big tech), Wall Street and corporations in general, and the bought-and-paid-for mainstream media that serves to manufacture consent.

      And then look to our culture and what MLK addressed as the evils of militarism, materialism, and racism. Look to our mediocre educational systems, especially at the secondary level. And then look at ourselves, we the people, who still keep voting for the two right wings of the business uniparty known popularly as Dems and Repubs because that’s the only choice the oligarchy is willing to give us.

      Even our Supreme Court now is dominated by pro-business justices, most of whom are Catholic.

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    1. He’s just reading words written for him by a bunch of speechwriters. As Joe might say, it’s all malarkey.

      Come on, man!

      Liked by 3 people

  3. Its still pretty amazing to me Lt.Col that we need a jack-off night club comedian in his garage doing Youtube to give us the most unnuanced analysis of how WWWIII is going to be started.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. And on the important issues Biden could be speaking up about…. not a peep!

    “Anthony Albanese, the newly-elected Australian prime minister, may have passed up the best opportunity he will ever have to exchange Julian Assange’s freedom for Australia’s continued cooperation with U.S. aims in the Pacific region.

    Albanese had his first bilateral meeting on Tuesday with U.S. President Joe Biden after a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) summit in Tokyo, when the leaders of the four nations — Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. — met to discuss relations with China.

    Reports on the Biden-Albanese one-on-one make no mention of Assange.”

    https://consortiumnews.com/2022/05/23/albanese-squandering-leverage-on-assange/

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    1. Assange who?

      In a way, Assange is a tall poppy. They’re more than willing to see him cut down and cast into the fire — or a max security prison in America.

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  5. Pingback: ‘Biden’s Tough Words’ | Mandala

  6. Professor Al Gillespie, an international relations expert at Waikato University, says it is “critical” for New Zealand to have conversations with the US given current international security concerns. One particularly close to New Zealand is the recent security cooperation deal between China and the Solomon Islands. “She The National Party (right-wing) is making inroads on the Labor majority(left-wing) and she will need, I think, a boost of popularity perhaps to get past the line and get her third term in office. A meeting with Biden during the election campaign would certainly help her politically.”

    This “international relations expert” may be underestimating how useless Joe Biden is. I’d say a meeting with Joe Biden right now would be a liability for the New Zealand Prime Minister politically! The exact opposite to a boost in popularity!

    New Zealanders see the turmoil the US President is causing stumbling around on the World stage and think it would be better for her to steer clear of getting tarred with the same brush. Furthermore they see the same ruins being created by the New Zealand Labour Party in New Zealand as the American Democratic Party is creating in New Zealand. Ardern’s third term is about as certain as Biden’s second term.

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  9. The American people are tired of endless war? As you quoted Cheney, Bill, so what? Hundreds of thousands of protesters made no difference whatsoever when Dubya wanted to invade Iraq. They’d make no difference if any other war were planned.

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  10. First of all, Colonel, when has anybody in the MSM ~ print, electronic, or digital; liberal, conservative, progressive, whatever ~ when has anybody in the MSM NOT been in favor of and championing any War America has waged since Vietnam? Can You name one instance of that happening in the last 47 years since the Fall of Saigon?

    And You asked: “Did the Times forget that it’s Congress that’s supposed to declare war? That wars should be a last resort? “

    The problem isn’t that the NYT forgot that. And the problem isn’t even that Congress has forgotten that for 77 years since the end of the last declared War. The Problem is that American people have forgotten that; and thus they have let Congress and the White House get away with all those undeclared Wars. And all those undeclared Wars will simply continue to continue as long as the American people do not stop their politicians from doing it ever again.

    And most Americans didn’t want to invade Iraq until Condi Rice and the MSM breathlessly informed us that the “smoking gun” for Saddam’s WMDs just might be a “mushroom cloud.” Remember that? Because after that, the self-described pro-Peace/anti-War crowd went as silent after their one big weekend as they were totally after 9/11.

    And the only way the War in Afghanistan would and could have been over in two months is if we hadn’t started it in the first flipping place. Evidently, we figured we would succeed where the Brits, Russians, Genghis Kahn, and Alexander the Great had failed before.

    After all…. We’re AMERICA!!!

    We drop our Kids off at school in the morning. And have to go to the City Morgue to pick them up that afternoon.

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  11. After all…. We’re AMERICA!!!

    We could not care less if we go to war without Congressional approve – violating the Constitution.

    We lose our minds after every mass school shooting when it is suggested the Constitution be amended to provide sensible gun control.

    Liked by 2 people

  14. Russia-Ukraine war: George Bush’s admission of his crimes in Iraq was no ‘gaffe’
    The former president’s confusion over the invasions of Iraq and Ukraine should lead to western soul-searching, not mirth.

    It was apparently a “gaffe” of the kind we had forgotten since George W Bush stepped down from the US presidency in early 2009. During a speech in Dallas last week, he momentarily confused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s current war of aggression against Ukraine and his own war of aggression against Iraq in 2003.

    Bush observed that a lack of checks and balances in Russia had allowed “one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq… I mean, Ukraine. Iraq too. Anyway… I’m 75.”

    It sounded like another “Bushism” – a verbal slip-up – for which the 43rd president was famous. Just like the time he boasted that people “misunderestimated” him, or when he warned that America’s enemies “never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people – and neither do we”………………

    https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2022-05-24/george-bush-crimes-iraq-ukraine-gaffe/

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        1. I didn’t know that; thanks for updating me! Let us hope and expect that JC will “bristle from Bristol” as he continues to do honor to the Fourth Estate that is in such a tragic state of disrepair. (Of course, “we” the people have a lot to do with that for simply tolerating it…making alternative real news/perspectives such as yours and WJA’s all the more essential….)

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