by liberal japonicus
A slender reed on which to balance an OP, but I've been seeing articles like this popping up. It seems logical, but I'm wondering if impeachment isn't going to keep minds and anger focussed. I don't know about you, but any task dealt with after Biden is inaugurated would be super charged for me if I thought I was also flipping the bird at the orange waste of resources. On the other hand, the British SOE nixed plans to assassinate Hitler because he could be counted on for strategic blunders. So there is that.
Anyway, some thoughts on what the 1st 100 days might bring.
It's ironic (or depressing) that Blinken would make that statement, as he was a leading hawk on Yemen in the Obama administration.
Or maybe it just demonstrates that Biden is able to learn. Which makes a nice change, doesn't it?
Posted by: wj | January 20, 2021 at 10:26 AM
Taking it to a new level
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/20/capitol-rioter-thomas-fee-text/
Other insurrectionists merely posted pictures of themselves inside the Capitol. This guy sends a selfie to his girlfriend's brother. Who is a Federal agent!
Posted by: wj | January 20, 2021 at 11:14 AM
Been a while since I watched a swearing in. I am moved and inspired...IT IS DONE!
Posted by: BOBBYP | January 20, 2021 at 11:49 AM
bobbyp, we often have different views on things. But today we seem to be one the same page.
https://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2021/01/some-reading-for-the-inauguration.html?cid=6a00d834515c2369e20263e989dade200b#comment-6a00d834515c2369e20263e989dade200b
Posted by: wj | January 20, 2021 at 12:00 PM
Yeah, Biden can learn. It might take a humanitarian catastrophe that can’t be concealed, but at least he is better than Trump.
Biden and other Democrats deserve no praise for ending a gigantic murderous crime they helped start. In a just world it is something that would be taken into account in their sentencing.
https://inthesetimes.com/article/yemen-war-saudi-arabia-uae-trump-obama-famine-power-khanna-sanders
The lesson here is that with enough photos of starving children and enough pressure, Democrats can be swayed while Trump and the majority of Republicans could not. It is a lesser evil argument. This is one reason why third party voting is wrong.
The politics of the war changed after Khashoggi’s murder. It probably also helped that by late 2018 you could clearly see this was now Trump’s war and he fully embraced it. In 2017 it was a holdover from the previous President. Ben Rhodes wrote a book about his time in the WH and said nothing about the war in Yemen. Samantha Powers did the same thing. They came out against it later.
But can the people responsible for this be trusted? No. Even in a world where the media is all slanted one way or another, it is a bit difficult to conceal what is currently the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, but lesser acts of brutality can be brushed off. Yemen was ignored for a few years and if the Houthis had collapsed at some point we would probably be reading how smart it was to support the Saudis. It would be a success story.
There is something wrong with our political culture. It’s probably a normal typical type of wrongness. The US is a democracy but even in democracies some lives matter and some don’t. There should probably be some sort of change of attitude about this that goes beyond learning after hundreds of thousands of children are starving that you shouldn’t conduct proxy wars against poverty stricken people who have done nothing to you. Maybe a movement is called for.
Posted by: Donald | January 20, 2021 at 01:10 PM