July
14, 2023
On
Wednesday, US President Joe Biden addressed a raucous mob of xenophobic
Lithuanian nationalists in Vilnius following the conclusion of a NATO summit
that pledged to massively expand military spending in preparation for global
war.
Biden’s
diatribe addressed the same themes as a speech he delivered last year in
Warsaw, Poland, in which he pledged to “fight” for “years and decades to come.”
Back in 2022, his unscripted rant compelled White House officials to publicly
walk back the president’s remarks. But now his advisers no longer see the need
to reinterpret and modify Biden’s bellicose statements. What he says about US
war aims are not dementia-induced errors but actual declarations of the
policies of his administration.
Speaking
in Vilnius, Biden declared, “Our commitment to Ukraine will not weaken. We will
stand for liberty and freedom today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes.”
The
length of a war is invariably related to the toll in human life. The longer a
war continues, the greater the number of casualties and deaths, of both
soldiers and civilians.
Therefore,
when Biden proclaims once again that his administration and NATO will supply
money and arms “as long as it takes” to bring about the defeat of Russia, what
he is really saying is that the war will continue regardless of the cost in
human lives.
This
is the barbaric essence of what can be called the Biden Doctrine: “No matter
how long it takes or how many die.”
Biden’s
speech, in both its delivery and content, was typical of the man: Thoughtless,
ill-informed, full of malapropisms and mangled grammar. It was pitched to the
lowest intellectual level and basest instincts.
Biden
delivered lie after lie, absurdity after absurdity, claiming the United States,
which has continuously destabilized, bombed and invaded other countries since
the end of the Second World War, was a force for democracy and peace.
None
other than Henry Kissinger, the oldest living American war criminal, once
summed up with his characteristic cynicism the real attitude of US imperialism
to moral principles. “The illegal we do immediately,” he said. “The
unconstitutional takes a bit longer.”
Biden,
whose own fingerprints are to be found on the scene of every crime committed by
US imperialism over the last half-century, invoked “the United Nations Charter
that we all signed up to: sovereignty, territorial integrity. These are two
pillars of peaceful relations among nations. One country cannot be allowed to
seize its neighbor’s territory by force.”
What
contemptible hypocrisy! There is no single country that has violated the UN
charter’s prohibition on the “use of force” as flagrantly and repeatedly as the
United States, whose former Secretary of State Colin Powell once declared that
it was his goal to turn the United States into “the biggest bully on the
block.”
During
his time in the Senate and then as vice president, Biden was a leading advocate
and supporter of the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 1991, followed by the
bombing of Yugoslavia eight years later in 1999. He backed the invasion of
Afghanistan in 2001, and another invasion of Iraq in 2003. Biden advocated the
American bombing campaigns and efforts to instigate regime-change in Libya and
Syria.
These
actions were carried out in open and flagrant defiance of the United Nations
and of international law. In 2002, the United States withdrew from the Rome
Statute, which established the International Criminal Court, and does not
recognize the legitimacy of any international body to try US officials for the
war crimes they regularly perpetrate.
Just
last week, Biden announced that he would send cluster munitions to Ukraine,
which are banned by over 100 countries because they kill and maim civilians for
decades after conflicts end.
Biden
made a garbled reference to Lithuania’s myth-based narrative of struggle
against tyranny, and he boasted of the United States’ commitment to its
freedom. But what Biden left out of his rambling history lecture was the
intense collaboration of Lithuanian nationalists with Nazi Germany and direct
participation in the mass murder of virtually the entire Jewish population of
the country.
During
the three-year Nazi occupation of Lithuania, 95 percent of the country’s Jewish
population was exterminated—195,000 men, women and children were systematically
killed.
This
reality gave an ominous tone to Biden’s declaration that “the bonds between
Lithuanian and the American people have never faltered,” praising Lithuanian
exiles who traveled to the United States.
What
Biden did not mention, however, is that two of the Lithuanian immigrants
welcomed by the United States happened to be the individuals most responsible
for the Holocaust in that country.
Aleksandras
Lileikis, the chief of the Lithuanian Security Police in Vilnius during the
Nazi occupation of Lithuania and a perpetrator of the Holocaust, was given safe
passage to the United States and was employed by the Central Intelligence
Agency. His deputy, Kazys Gimžauskas, also emigrated to the United States, as
well as three of his subordinates.
Neither
of the two men saw a day of jail time for their participation in the Holocaust.
Even
as he denounced Russia for refusing any “diplomatic solution” to the conflict,
Biden boasted of his own role in the expansion of NATO. He declared, “I had the
great honor as United States senator to champion Lithuania and other Baltic
States to join NATO in 2004. Wasn’t I brilliant doing that?”
In
voting for the expansion of NATO in 1998, Biden proclaimed “the beginning of
another 50 years of peace.” In reality, the United States was deliberately
setting the stage for the type of fratricidal war that has erupted in Ukraine,
with the aim of drawing Russia into wars on its borders and bleeding it white.
Among
the most absurd of Biden’s lies was his attempt to posture as a proponent of a
“diplomatic outcome” of the war in Ukraine. “Unfortunately, Russia has shown
thus far no interest in the diplomatic outcome,” Biden said.
“Russia
could end this war tomorrow by withdrawing its forces from Ukraine, recognize
these international borders,” he declared. But he defined this “diplomatic
outcome” as the total capitulation by Russia and the achievement of all of
NATO’s war aims. Biden’s “diplomatic solution” is military victory.
The
president’s provocative statements are intended to preclude any negotiated
settlement of the conflict, which US imperialism sees as a critical component
of its drive to subjugate Russia and China.
Biden’s
“No matter how many die” doctrine means the war will escalate, countless
thousands more will die, and the world will be brought to the brink of a
nuclear conflagration. Nothing can stop this except the development of an
international anti-war movement based on the working class.
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