Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

U.S. Congressional Support for More War spending and AUKUS Anti-China Pact Exposes Cynicism of Biden’s UN Speech Calling for More Diplomacy
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
29 Sep 2021
U.S. Congressional Support for More War spending and AUKUS Anti-China Pact Exposes Cynicism of Biden’s UN Speech Calling for More Diplomacy
U.S. Congressional Support for More War spending and AUKUS Anti-China Pact Exposes Cynicism of Biden’s UN Speech Calling for More Diplomacy

Joe Biden spoke of peace and diplomacy at the U.N. but support for defense spending and war making are bipartisan imperatives that prevent the people's needs from being met.

In the same week that Biden delivered a speech at the United Nations where he argued that force had to be “our tool of last resort, not our first,” and that “many of our greatest concerns cannot be solved or even addressed by the force of arms,” the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), that represented another record-breaking increase in Pentagon spending, was passed in the House of Representatives. The message, following that of the racist Theodore Roosevelt, is that if there is going to be dialog the U.S. is still going to “speak softly and carry a big stick” to keep the natives in line.

The authorization to spend 780 billion dollars on the military, which included an increase of twenty-four billion dollars more than the Biden White House requested, came just a few days after Biden announced to the world that the U.S., United Kingdom and Australian governments (AUKUS) would collaborate to provide nuclear powered submarines for Australia. Without mentioning the real target of that dangerous escalation, the Chinese and the world understood that this was a message intended for them.

So, no one listening to President Biden in that General Assembly gathering took the U.S. administration seriously. And certainly, those of who have been the victims of U.S. violence should not either. We know though painful experience that white supremacist, colonial hubris imprisons U.S. policy makers rendering them unable to change course away from their disastrous commitment to global full spectrum dominance.

U.S. policy makers from both parties are gripped by the pathological belief that they can prevent further erosion of U.S. power and exercise global hegemony through military means. But continued reliance on military power to advance U.S. global hegemony creates a contradictory relationship with the public that makes militarism extremely vulnerable – potentially. Because, in order to allow the plunder of the people’s resources by corporations whose business is war, the consent, or at least acquiesce of the people is required.  

There is a complete disconnect between the Congress that continues to be able to muster up bipartisan support for war and the public that has increasingly grown weary of these adventures and their costs in terms of lives, resources, and U.S. prestige.

The obvious commitment to military spending and military pacts like AUKUS and NATO is increasingly being questioned by the public. While Congress is on board to support these agreements and militarization as policies meant to intimidate China and Russia (as well as military interventions into the global South), a majority of the people from both parties are actually in opposition to continued war and militarization. Moreover, the failure to provide protections for the human needs of the people of the U.S., with the debate over a social infrastructure bill stalled in Congress, is only deepening the legitimation crisis.

The sharpening contradictions between a public still reeling from consequences of covid and a Congress that, in its need to support the positions of its rich benefactors, will allow critical support for the working class like the eviction moratorium and emergency unemployment benefits to end, is creating a potentially explosive situation politically.

War is and has always been a class issue. The poverty-conscripted U.S. army and the increasingly insecure and suffering civilian working classes are finding it almost impossible to embrace policies that have resulted in a staggering $8 trillion dollar rip-off of the people’s resources, thousands of U.S. lives lost and over a million lives of the targets of U.S. aggression during the twenty yearlong phony war on terror.  

What does this mean for Black and poor people? The racist spectacle on the Texas border with cowboys whipping Black people primarily from Haiti and the systematic violation of Haitians’ right to seek asylum with the swift deportation of thousands of was a metaphor for the real value of Black lives in the U.S. and globally.

It also means more war on African and colonized peoples in the U.S.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) highlighted the connections between the Pentagon's massive budget, surplus weaponry, and widespread police violence in the U.S., as she argued for an amendment to the NDAA that would have ended the Department of Defense 1033 program, the program that transfers military-grade weapons from the Pentagon to federal, state, and local Law Enforcement Agencies across the country:  

"With police departments nationwide set to receive a massive influx of military equipment under the 1033 program following the Afghanistan war," Pressley told The Intercept, "Congress must take decisive action before further lives are lost and more trauma is inflicted on our communities."

Her appeal was ignored.

Contained in the 2022 NDAA that the House of Representatives approved on September 24th are resources to continue the 1033 program. The NDAA also contained resources to fund the vast global military command structures like AFRICOM on the African continent and the over eight hundred military bases across the planet.

War, militarism, and subversion is central to the U.S. imperial project. It is not just against Black people. The U.S. is actively engaged in subversion of democracy in Nicaragua, continues the assault on Venezuela and the illegal embargo on Cuba, while imposing economic sanctions on over thirty nations.

The diplomats in that great hall at the UN knew that Biden was lying about  U.S. diplomacy. And, like them, those of us at the receiving end of U.S. criminality have always understood that Biden had to lie because state violence is at the core of the settler and imperial projects like the U.S, and even more so when the colonial project becomes an empire. That is the reality we in the U.S. and the world face no matter who sits in the white peoples’ house and no matter what pretty words are read out at the United Nations General Assembly meetings.

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC). He was awarded the US Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and is the recipient of the Serena Shim award for uncompromised integrity in journalism. 

 

Black Anti-Imperialism
US Imperialism
Defense Spending
AFRICOM
NDAA
1033

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

On the Twentieth Anniversary of Invasion of Iraq It Must Be Clear: The U.S. is the Greatest Threat To World Peace and Collective Humanity
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
On the Twentieth Anniversary of Invasion of Iraq It Must Be Clear: The U.S. is the Greatest Threat To World Peace and Collective Humanity
15 March 2023
History teaches that the greatest threat to peace today is the United States.
Amidst the Biden Administration’s Forever-Wars Policy in Africa, BAP Launches a Month of Action Against AFRICOM (U.S. Africa Command)
Black Alliance For Peace
Amidst the Biden Administration’s Forever-Wars Policy in Africa, BAP Launches a Month of Action Against AFRICOM (U.S. Africa Command)
21 September 2022
The Black Alliance for Peace hosts a Month of Action Against the US Africa Command, AFRICOM, every October.
US Launched 251 Military Interventions Since 1991, and 469 Since 1798
Benjamin Norton
US Launched 251 Military Interventions Since 1991, and 469 Since 1798
21 September 2022
The U.S.
NATO and Africa
Djibo Sobukwe
NATO and Africa
13 July 2022
Djibo Sobukwe participated in a Canadian Foreign Policy Institute panel, "
SPEECH: Revolution: It’s Not Easy, Quick, or Pretty, Pat Parker, 1980
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
SPEECH: Revolution: It’s Not Easy, Quick, or Pretty, Pat Parker, 1980
29 June 2022
A 1980 speech by Black lesbian poet and activist Pat Parker provides a feminist, anti-imperialist blueprint for the present.
Why Does the United States Have a Military Base in Ghana?
Vijay Prashad
Why Does the United States Have a Military Base in Ghana?
22 June 2022
Why would the government of Ghana allow a U.S. military base on its territory?
AFRICOM Watch Bulletin #40
Black Alliance For Peace
AFRICOM Watch Bulletin #40
15 June 2022
The latest Black Alliance for Peace AFRICOM Watch Bul
The Rise of NATO in Africa
Vijay Prashad
The Rise of NATO in Africa
31 May 2022
NATO is not the defensive alliance of north Atlantic nations that it claims to be.
The Sun Never Sets: Why Is AFRICOM Expanding in Zambia?
Jeremy Kuzmarov
The Sun Never Sets: Why Is AFRICOM Expanding in Zambia?
17 May 2022
Why Is AFRICOM Expanding in Zambia? Because of Zambia’s Copper and to Thwart the Chinese.
Money for Weapons as the World Burns
Vijay Prashad
Money for Weapons as the World Burns
11 May 2022
$100 billion was pledged to assist the Global South amidst the climate change crisis but world wide defense spending now exceeds $2 trillion.

More Stories


  • INTERVIEW: Randall Robinson: Third World Advocate, 1983
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    INTERVIEW: Randall Robinson: Third World Advocate, 1983
    29 Mar 2023
    Remembering Randall Robinson: Black internationalist, anti-imperialist, and friend of Haiti.
  • Uganda LGBTQ Law Obscures Crimes Committed on Behalf of the U.S.
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Uganda LGBTQ Law Obscures Crimes Committed on Behalf of the U.S.
    29 Mar 2023
    Uganda's anti-LGBTQ legislation has elicited worldwide condemnation. But that nation's history of invading, pillaging, and killing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with U.S. blessings, is…
  • 2023 Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize Awarded to John Williams Ntwali and Kambale Musavuli
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    2023 Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize Awarded to John Williams Ntwali and Kambale Musavuli
    29 Mar 2023
    The Victoire Ingabere Umuhoza Prize for Democracy and Peace is awarded to people who work for democracy, peace, and freedom in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
  • Saturday Mornings
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Saturday Mornings
    29 Mar 2023
                                                                                                                        Saturday Mornings                                              
  •  BAR Book Forum: Hugo ka Canham’s Book, “Riotous Deathscapes”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Hugo ka Canham’s Book, “Riotous Deathscapes”
    29 Mar 2023
    This week’s featured author is Hugo ka Canham. Canham is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand and coeditor of Black Academic Voices: The South African Experience.…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us