“I expect the prevailing direction of U.S. foreign policy over these last decades to continue: more lawless bombing and killing multiple countries under the cover of “limited engagement,” – Biden Biographer Branko Marcetic
by Alan Macleod
Part 3 - Biden’s war room
Many of the president-elect’s potential picks for foreign policy positions — including Susan Rice and Michele Flourney — have onlookers worried. “With a Biden administration, we can expect a continuation of the Middle East wars and possible escalations in places like Syria. Biden could be better than Trump on Iran and Yemen, but judging by his potential cabinet picks, that should not be expected without significant pressure from antiwar activists and lobbyists in Washington,” Dave DeCamp, assistant news editor of AntiWar.com told MintPress. “His administration will likely be more successful than Trump at expanding the empire, with a more diplomatic and coherent approach at building alliances to face Russia and China.”
Rice, who was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and National Security Advisor under Obama, has amassed a fortune of around $40 million. After leaving office, she was given a spot on the board of Netflix, being paid $366,666 as a base salary. On top of that, she was given $2.3 million worth of the company’s stock. However, it is her husband, former ABC News executive producer Ian O. Cameron (whose father was a super-wealthy industrialist), who is the prime source of her wealth. She was a key driver in U.S. action in Libya, and also successfully lobbied Obama to place harsher sanctions on North Korea and Iran.
Flournoy, meanwhile, was Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2009 to 2012 in the Obama administration under Secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta. After “serving the country,” she received lucrative consulting contracts, joined corporate boards, and began her own security think tank, WestExec Advisors. By 2017, she was making a reported $452,000 annually.
“Certainly the possible selection of Michele Flournoy and other WestExec advisors people is concerning,” Biden biographer Branko Marcetic told MintPress.
This isn’t just because of their corporate/financial ties, though of course that’s alarming — can we be sure that people whose private sector career involved leveraging their government experience and contacts to help multinationals secure favorable business conditions will have their intentions calibrated toward good policy and not to their private sector career?
“Biden claims he wants an end to the Yemen conflict, but again, words are only so much. It’s highly likely that he will have Michele Flornoy as his Secretary of Defense who was one of the voices that stated that weapons should continue to be sold to Saudia Arabia (during the Yemen conflict), under certain conditions, as they have a right to protect themselves. This speaks volumes,” said Mariamne Everett of the Institute for Public Accuracy. Rice and Flournoy, she added, were vocal supporters of the disastrous Iraq War, which does not bode well for those concerned with peace.
Marcetic agreed, noting that, while in office, Flourney was “a major liberal interventionist hawk who not only wants U.S. troops deployed all over the world, but has also publicly advocated for the U.S. to majorly exploit its fossil fuel reserves for global dominance,” something which would be a “disaster for containing climate catastrophe.”
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