OK then. Biden 2020.

[UncleBuck]

Dude, you pay for the insurance companies all the time, you dont pay them only when you need them. Why the heck do you even want a system that doesent cover everyone equally to begin with? If you try to do everything through insurances, it just doesent make any sense.

Instead the government could go to phizer and these other drug companies directly and ask this question; "who gives the cheapest drugs that do the exact same thing or do we need to look abroad for drugs?". And if some drug would be too expensive, they could just tell them that they are endangering the people by trying to make unreasonable profits from a drug they own and could force the company to pay huge fines and take away their patents unless they dropped the prices RIGHT NOW!!!!!

Do you think that the drug prices would go automagically down? Or do you think that the prices have already been negotiated as low as possible? Or do you think that even if the government really really wanted as cheap drugs as possible, they still could not get as good deals as insurance companies giving money to private clinic? Do you realise that many of those people who own large shares of these drug companies, also own large parts of these private hospital companies and also large parts of the insurance companies and also are the people who give money to politicians, so that they would keep up this scam going?




I dont know hat k-12 education is. But i think that education should be free even on university level and students living expenses(including rent, food, electricity, water if not included in rent, medical bills etc and enough to pay for basic stuff like phone, new clothes and internet), should be paid by government for a reasonable time of studying.




You know i never had any sort of insurance myself. There is no need to get any, unless you want to insure some stuff in your home like if it burns down or something, or if you have a car, then insurance for it is required. Which i understand completely, it makes sense in that context. Not in the context of healthcare, which should be provided by government at very affordable prices for all and the bills paid by government for those who dont have any incomes, no complex bureaucracies or shit, just send a pic of the bill to government institution that takes care of these things and its paid, no questions asked.

For example. I had a toothache that i thought would require taking care of immediately. This was during the beginnings of covid where everything had already gotten closed. So there was no room in government dentists, as they were closed and they only bought services from private dental companies if someone cant wait until the covid thing was over(they also do this normally if there are no room in public sector). So i ended up getting an appointment to a private dental clinic that was only 2 days away. The bill was around 85€ for fixing one cavity, reshaping one tooth that they removed the nerve from canal some years ago and also did a quick check up on other teeth. This 85€ would had been the same price than if i had went to government dentist. But the thing is that i did not even have to pay this bill. I was on the covid leave at the time, meaning i got the same benefits as unemployed people, meaning that government paid the bill.

If i had been a someone who makes 8 grand a month, that dentist bill would had still only been 85€. Sure there is a larger part from income taxes going to healthcosts, but its not more than insurances would cost. And as a bonus even if you dont make much money, or dont have any income, you still get to get healthcare, you dont need to worry about having some insurance, so that you would be taken care of if something happens to you. Ofc you can get an insurance here also or use private hospitals etc. but that is not required. Sure there are problems in the public sector and the way they handle it around here is not perfect either, but its still million times better than not having a public healthcare system.

Its completely absurd from my perspective that not every country capable of working in similar fashion to what i just explained dont do it also. USA plenty of means to do this and could easily pull it off, there is nothing stopping it except lying politicians and their propaganda.




Yes it helped many a tons, but it was stupid expensive and it still was not good.

If you got a joint that is covered by dog shit. Sure its better if you scrape some of it off and maybe add some thing that makes it taste better, but personally i would rather roll a new one.




Dunno, maybe its his time to do as he is being told. I havent looked much what he has done in the past, but im looking at what he is saying now. Sure he is less of a threat than trump, especially in the short term, but this biden vs trump is not the real issue. The real issue is that yo uare being scammed by 2 party system. They both play the same game, so that they can take leads in control. The fact that DNC wanted to make biden their nominee should already tell you that biden is not good for the people. Sure better than trump maybe, but an enemy of the enemy is not always your friend you know.. On top of that, i think the whole democrats vs republicans have show is just a show. Hillary and trump and really good friends and the elite that also is behind hillary and which hillary is part of, is now behind biden.

Like i said, if biden wanted to win and wanted to do whats right for the people and what people want, he would had picked bernie as his VP and paraded all over the country how they will together make the country best place, or at least good. But he did not even tho it would had ensured him winning trump easy. You know why? Because they want to keepthe elite control in DNC and they dont want bernie in.

Im glad bernie is trying to infiltrate DNC with some other progressives and destroy the system from the inside, but to be honest, i think bernie should had gone 3rd party and flicked a finger to both DNC and republicans, going all at them and exposing those fuckers. But on the other hand, its likely that they threatened bernie to back up hillary and all that. It would not be the first time from the clintons..

OHNO YOU HAVE FINALLY DISCOURAGED ME FROM VOTING FOR BIDEN!

just kidding, you suck at your job and will not change a single person's mind.

give up, or better yet, kill yourself.

 

[CannaOnerStar]

OHNO YOU HAVE FINALLY DISCOURAGED ME FROM VOTING FOR BIDEN!

just kidding, you suck at your job and will not change a single person's mind.

give up, or better yet, kill yourself.

I think you should switch your meds from weed to some proper psyche meds. Imagining people trying to discourage you from voting biden. Wtf is that shit, sounds like those loony trumpers

I would likely vote for biden also, but i might not vote at all. Or just a vote for bernie or write a fuck you letter in the voting thing

 

[UncleBuck]

Imagining people trying to discourage you from voting biden.

that's exactly what you are doing and you suck so bad at it.

all of your "BOTH SIDES!" shit is fucking retarded. more retarded than your parents for not throwing you in a trash bin

 

[CannaOnerStar]

that's exactly what you are doing and you suck so bad at it.

all of your "BOTH SIDES!" shit is fucking retarded. more retarded than your parents for not throwing you in a trash bin

Nah, you just got some issues that inhibit you from understanding what im saying and why

 

[UncleBuck]

Nah, you just got some issues that inhibit you from understanding what im saying and why

No I understand exactly what you’re trying to do but suck too badly to succeed at

 

[hanimmal]

Dude, you pay for the insurance companies all the time, you dont pay them only when you need them. Why the heck do you even want a system that doesent cover everyone equally to begin with? If you try to do everything through insurances, it just doesent make any sense.

Who said I don't? Of course you pay insurance premiums, that is exactly what I was saying in my post.

Instead the government could go to phizer and these other drug companies directly and ask this question; "who gives the cheapest drugs that do the exact same thing or do we need to look abroad for drugs?". And if some drug would be too expensive, they could just tell them that they are endangering the people by trying to make unreasonable profits from a drug they own and could force the company to pay huge fines and take away their patents unless they dropped the prices RIGHT NOW!!!!!

So you are talking about when patents are over? Or are you saying that the companies that spend billions everyear on research to keep out medical system advancing should not have the ability to do that because they can't have a profit from the successes to offset the losses?

I understand if you buy into all the garbage propaganda about how our medical systems work, but making 'unreasonable profits' is one of those that outside of CEO pay (which we should tax all of their income with things like SS and Medicare instead of just the first $137k) is actual hundreds of thousands/millions of people working hard.

And yes, if the people running these companies are doing illegal shit, they should be arrested.

Do you think that the drug prices would go automagically down? Or do you think that the prices have already been negotiated as low as possible? Or do you think that even if the government really really wanted as cheap drugs as possible, they still could not get as good deals as insurance companies giving money to private clinic? Do you realise that many of those people who own large shares of these drug companies, also own large parts of these private hospital companies and also large parts of the insurance companies and also are the people who give money to politicians, so that they would keep up this scam going?

Everything is somewhere in between. There is plenty of fat to cut, like the fact that anti-biotic are overprescribed because about half the time they are given to shut people up when they have a viral infection.

Doesn't it make sense to you that people who understand and study a particular field might feel more confident (and make better educated investments) if they invested mostly in that industry? And the mega wealthy have money invested everywhere all the time, and the numbers will always be hard to comprehend.

And I am all for campaign finance reform. The NRA showed us how much we need it.

I dont know hat k-12 education is. But i think that education should be free even on university level and students living expenses(including rent, food, electricity, water if not included in rent, medical bills etc and enough to pay for basic stuff like phone, new clothes and internet), should be paid by government for a reasonable time of studying.

It is an American thing.

You know i never had any sort of insurance myself. There is no need to get any, unless you want to insure some stuff in your home like if it burns down or something, or if you have a car, then insurance for it is required. Which i understand completely, it makes sense in that context. Not in the context of healthcare, which should be provided by government at very affordable prices for all and the bills paid by government for those who dont have any incomes, no complex bureaucracies or shit, just send a pic of the bill to government institution that takes care of these things and its paid, no questions asked.

For example. I had a toothache that i thought would require taking care of immediately. This was during the beginnings of covid where everything had already gotten closed. So there was no room in government dentists, as they were closed and they only bought services from private dental companies if someone cant wait until the covid thing was over(they also do this normally if there are no room in public sector). So i ended up getting an appointment to a private dental clinic that was only 2 days away. The bill was around 85€ for fixing one cavity, reshaping one tooth that they removed the nerve from canal some years ago and also did a quick check up on other teeth. This 85€ would had been the same price than if i had went to government dentist. But the thing is that i did not even have to pay this bill. I was on the covid leave at the time, meaning i got the same benefits as unemployed people, meaning that government paid the bill.

If i had been a someone who makes 8 grand a month, that dentist bill would had still only been 85€. Sure there is a larger part from income taxes going to healthcosts, but its not more than insurances would cost. And as a bonus even if you dont make much money, or dont have any income, you still get to get healthcare, you dont need to worry about having some insurance, so that you would be taken care of if something happens to you. Ofc you can get an insurance here also or use private hospitals etc. but that is not required. Sure there are problems in the public sector and the way they handle it around here is not perfect either, but its still million times better than not having a public healthcare system.

Its completely absurd from my perspective that not every country capable of working in similar fashion to what i just explained dont do it also. USA plenty of means to do this and could easily pull it off, there is nothing stopping it except lying politicians and their propaganda.

That is basically the same system here, except we don't trust our government enough to give them complete control over our medical system. Because at anytime we understood that someone like Trump could come along one day and fuck with our healthcare. We like our checks and balances.

Yes it helped many a tons, but it was stupid expensive and it still was not good.

If you got a joint that is covered by dog shit. Sure its better if you scrape some of it off and maybe add some thing that makes it taste better, but personally i would rather roll a new one.

Back this up if you believe it, because I call bullshit with your knowledge of what Obamacare is doing if you feel this way.

Dunno, maybe its his time to do as he is being told. I havent looked much what he has done in the past, but im looking at what he is saying now. Sure he is less of a threat than trump, especially in the short term, but this biden vs trump is not the real issue. The real issue is that yo uare being scammed by 2 party system. They both play the same game, so that they can take leads in control. The fact that DNC wanted to make biden their nominee should already tell you that biden is not good for the people. Sure better than trump maybe, but an enemy of the enemy is not always your friend you know.. On top of that, i think the whole democrats vs republicans have show is just a show. Hillary and trump and really good friends and the elite that also is behind hillary and which hillary is part of, is now behind biden.

Like i said, if biden wanted to win and wanted to do whats right for the people and what people want, he would had picked bernie as his VP and paraded all over the country how they will together make the country best place, or at least good. But he did not even tho it would had ensured him winning trump easy. You know why? Because they want to keepthe elite control in DNC and they dont want bernie in.

Im glad bernie is trying to infiltrate DNC with some other progressives and destroy the system from the inside, but to be honest, i think bernie should had gone 3rd party and flicked a finger to both DNC and republicans, going all at them and exposing those fuckers. But on the other hand, its likely that they threatened bernie to back up hillary and all that. It would not be the first time from the clintons..

lol

Sure, we are finally to the point that a political party is comprised of almost the entire nation and we should abandon it now when the Republicans are reeling with trying to keep theirs firmly in the Wealthy White Heterosexual Male Only agenda.

The Democrats have had political power to pass stuff in DC for about 6 years in the last 50. And in that time they have fixed 3 Republican recessions. I think racking up a few wins in a row and seeing how the Democratic party can get some shit done first before we scrap everything and plunge the world into a power void while the Russia military is still actively attacking all of our citizens.

 

[CannaOnerStar]

No I understand exactly what you’re trying to do but suck too badly to succeed at

There is this guy on one reddit sub dedicated to spiritual matters who has this idea that all spiritual things and god is evil sadistic entity that only wants to torture people. Then he goes on to quote some horror movies, most typically nightmare at the elm street and accuses everyone all the time being some evil worshippers who want to torture everyones souls. If you ban him, he will just make a new account. What ever you say to him or try to reason with him, he does not get and just flips out worse more you try to reason with him.

You kinda remind me of him.

 

[UncleBuck]

There is this guy on one reddit sub dedicated to spiritual matters who has this idea that all spiritual things and god is evil sadistic entity that only wants to torture people. Then he goes on to quote some horror movies, most typically nightmare at the elm street and accuses everyone all the time being some evil worshippers who want to torture everyones souls. If you ban him, he will just make a new account. What ever you say to him or try to reason with him, he does not get and just flips out worse more you try to reason with him.

You kinda remind me of him.

Your atrocious russian accent reminds me of a dumb russian

 

[hanimmal]

Trump can't even answer the police chiefs questions because he is a complete fraud and the ones he does get the same 'me me me' answer Trump always gives to pretend like he is doing more than tweeting, watching TV, and stealing from our tax dollars every chance he gets. The difference in how they answer the questions is very telling about how much more qualified Biden is than Trump in leading our nation.

The recent nationwide push for policing reform has put local and federal politicians under the microscope for answers on how they plan to reduce police violence or otherwise remake American law enforcement. And the International Association of Chiefs of Police didn’t shy away from the tough questions when it sent out its quadrennial questionnaire to the presidential candidates last month, asking both President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden about their policing proposals, opinions on use of force and protecting officers during the coronavirus pandemic.

The candidates responded with their past proposals, their new ideas or both, and both reminded the IACP that they have worked together with police leaders to shape legislation to improve the nation’s police capabilities. “I have hosted law enforcement groups such as the IACP” at the White House, Trump noted. Biden pointed out he wrote the legislation which created the federal Community Oriented Policing Services program, and added, “You know me and you know you are always heard, and you always will be.”

Then, the IACP asked for each candidate’s views on nine specific areas of crime or other issues that impact law enforcement, and the solutions they planned to provide. The chiefs asked how they would address violent crime, violence against women, hate crimes, homegrown violent extremism, opioid abuse and traffic safety. They also asked the candidates their thoughts on the use of technology in law enforcement, the challenges with encryption in investigations and recruitment and retention in law enforcement.

Biden’s response on the nine issues stretched over four pages, calling for assault weapons bans, massive investment in drug treatment programs and investing $300 million in the COPS program to hire more officers and deputies.
Trump did not respond to the nine issues and provided no explanation.



The IACP, which has about 27,000 law enforcement members in the United States and elsewhere, does not make political endorsements, but said it uses the questionnaire “to provide the IACP membership, and the policing profession, with important insight into their respective policy initiatives, in their own words.” Both candidates note that they do not support “defunding the police,” an idea proposed by civil rights activists as a response to police violence and disproportionate arrests of minorities.

Trump cited a number of initiatives his administration has launched, such as restoring Project Safe Neighborhoods, which pushes for increased federal gun crime prosecution, and creating the Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice. The commission, long sought by the IACP, is a group of local and federal law enforcement officials assigned to devise ways to improve policing and has been holding public virtual meetings since February. Trump’s answer notes that he supports the efforts of the attorney general “to implement the recommendations it provides.”

The president also pointed out that he signed an executive order in June on “Safe Policing for Safe Communities” that encourages local police to improve their use-of-force policies, implement better tactics in dealing with those with mental health issues, and create a national database on use-of-force incidents. The FBI has already launched such a database, but only 40 percent of police departments submitted data in its first year.

Biden’s responses repeatedly attack Trump, while Trump’s do not mention his opponent. Biden wrote that Trump is “the one defunding the police, proposing to cut more than $465 million in Justice Department aid to state and local law enforcement.” Biden also said that the police “have been failed by this president’s complete mismanagement of covid-19. By year’s end, coronavirus will be the leading cause of police deaths in America — more than line-of-duty fatalities.”

Biden said he would propose increased funding for community policing and reform, and that he would tie federal funding to the adoption of model use-of-force policies, body-worn cameras and training. On violent crime, Biden said he would pursue “common-sense gun laws that end our gun violence epidemic,” and said that Trump’s embrace of the National Rifle Association means “police are outgunned by criminals.”

Both candidates support programs to divert mental health calls away from police and first responders, and both propose partnering mental health specialists with police. Asked about foreign policy issues related to criminal justice, Biden’s response focused on human trafficking, money laundering, and the transport of weapons and drugs across borders. Trump’s response focused on dismantling international gangs such as MS-13, coordinating with law enforcement partners in Central America.

Trump’s full answers to the questionnaire are here.
Biden’s full answers to the questionnaire are here.

 

[hanimmal]

 

[hanimmal]

 

[hanimmal]

I also think it is interesting that Barr considers people wearing masks mandates during a pandemic is a worse loss of liberty than tossing Japanese Americans into cages last century.

 

[hanimmal]

https://apnews.com/1299ae16f3f21db12e4a41ce2392a0f7

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrat Joe Biden leaves little doubt that if elected he would try to scale back President Donald Trump’s buildup in nuclear weapons spending. And although the former vice president has not fully detailed his nuclear priorities, he says he would make the U.S. less reliant on the world’s deadliest weapons.

The two candidates’ views on nuclear weapons policy and strategy carry unusual significance in this election because the United States is at a turning point in deciding the future of its weapons arsenal and because of growing debate about the threat posed by Chinese and Russian nuclear advances.

China, whose relatively small nuclear force is growing in sophistication, is cited by the Pentagon’s top nuclear commander as a leading reason why the United States should go all out on nuclear modernization.

“We are going into a very different world,” Adm. Charles Richard, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, said Sept. 14. “We are on a trajectory, for the first time in our nation’s history, to face two peer nuclear-capable competitors.” He was referring to Russia, which has long been a nuclear peer, and China, whose leaders Richard says have put a strategic nuclear buildup “next on their to-do list.”

Days later, Richard said China could become a peer “by the end of the decade, if not sooner.” But other estimates suggest a slower pace. The Pentagon recently said Beijing may double its nuclear stockpile over the next 10 years, which would still leave it far behind the U.S.

Trump entered the White House in 2017 with little to say on the subject of nuclear weapons, but his administration produced a policy document a year later that the Pentagon portrayed as largely tracking the path of the Obama administration. Trump did, however, add two weapon types and beef up the budget for a years-long overhaul of the nuclear arsenal — an overhaul that Biden sees as excessive.

“Our nuclear now is in the best shape it’s been in decades,” the president said this month, although the military says the arsenal’s main components are so old they are long past due for replacement. He has boasted in broad, sometimes cryptic, terms of U.S. nuclear advances, telling journalist Bob Woodward in 2019 that he had built a secret nuclear weapon that neither Russian nor China knew about.

If reelected, Trump would be expected to stay on his path of modernizing the nuclear arsenal, which has bipartisan support in Congress despite growing budget pressures. Less clear is how Trump would approach nuclear arms control, including the problem of North Korea’s unconstrained arsenal. His administration has walked away from one arms control deal with Russia and balked at extending an Obama-era strategic nuclear treaty with Russia that Biden says he would keep in place.

Just days before Trump entered the White House, then-Vice President Biden cautioned against abandoning Obama’s approach.

“If future budgets reverse the choices we’ve made, and pour additional money into a nuclear buildup, it hearkens back to the Cold War and will do nothing to increase the day-to-day security of the United States or our allies,” Biden said in a Jan. 11, 2017, speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

James Acton, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment, says Biden’s instincts on nuclear weapons are more liberal than those of much of the Democratic Party’s defense establishment. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he would fundamentally change U.S. nuclear policy.

“In practice, there are often pressures to continue the status quo,” Acton said in an interview.

Biden embraces the notion that nuclear weapons should play a smaller role in defense strategy and that the ultimate goal should be a nuclear-free world. He has not spelled out how he would pursue this, but he has dropped clues.

He has said, for example, that he opposes the Trump administration’s decision to develop and deploy two types of missiles armed with less-powerful “low-yield” nuclear warheads. One is a sea-launched cruise missile that is some years from being fielded; the other is a long-range ballistic missile that the Navy began deploying aboard submarines nearly a year ago.

“Bad idea,” Biden said in July 2019. Having these makes the U.S. “more inclined to use them,” he added.

During the campaign, Biden also has embraced what nuclear strategists call a “no first use” policy. In simplest terms, that means not initiating a nuclear war — not being the first to pull the trigger, so that in a nuclear crisis, the U.S. president might opt to unleash a retaliatory strike but not a preemptive one. Longstanding U.S. policy has been to reserve the option of striking first, arguing that this makes war less likely.

Obama considered but rejected a shift to “no first use.”

The Biden campaign has made few pronouncements on U.S. nuclear weapons policy or strategy and it declined to make an adviser available for an interview. The campaign website says Biden believes “the sole purpose of the U.S. nuclear arsenal should be deterring — and if necessary, retaliating against — a nuclear attack. As president, he will work to put that belief into practice, in consultation with our allies and military.”

In a questionnaire last year by the Council for a Livable World in which Biden and other candidates were asked whether the U.S. should review its policy reserving the option of using nuclear weapons first, Biden said yes but did not elaborate. He also agreed that modernizing the U.S. arsenal could be done for less than the currently projected $1.2 trillion.

Some have speculated that Biden would consider dropping the plan to build a new nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile force, replacing the Minuteman 3 fleet fielded in 1970. That project is expected to cost at least $85 billion.

Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, believes Biden would stick to the missile program.

“This outcome will result partly from the fact that Joe Biden is a common-sense centrist who respects the views of experts,” Thompson wrote recently. “He will find few if any experts in the nation’s nuclear establishment who think phasing out ICBMs would make us safer.”

This story corrects group name to Council for a Livable World, not Council for a Living World.

 

[TintEastwood]

 

[hanimmal]

View attachment 4690575

 

[hanimmal]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/joe-biden-doesnt-have-a-perfect-foreign-policy-record-but-unlike-trump-hes-learned-from-his-mistakes/2020/09/27/62b417f6-fe77-11ea-9ceb-061d646d9c67_story.html

In considering Joe Biden’s foreign policy record, it’s hard to overlook the scathing critique delivered by Robert Gates, the Washington wise man and veteran of half a dozen administrations who served as President Barack Obama’s first defense secretary. While Biden was “a man of integrity” who was “impossible not to like,” Gates wrote in a 2014 memoir, “he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Yikes. For those of us desperately hoping that President Trump’s romances with dictators and wanton destruction of U.S. global influence will soon be brought to an end, Gates’s verdict raises an awkward question: Would Biden not be better? Could he, in his own way, make it all worse?

The short answer is easy: Biden could and would quickly undo the distinctive evils of Trumpism. It wouldn’t be hard for him to call the leaders of Germany and South Korea on Day One and say we’re going back to being your reliable ally. It would be easy for him to say what Trump refuses to: that Vladimir Putin is guilty not just of orchestrating the murder of his domestic opponents but of U.S. troops — and should pay for it. With a couple of strokes of the pen, Biden could put the United States back into the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization, and thus rejoin critical multilateral initiatives on climate change and the covid-19 pandemic.

But what of his judgment on big questions: Has he really made so many bad calls? Gates doesn’t spell out his case, but it’s not hard to compile one. Biden voted against the successful U.S. military campaign that expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991. In Iraq, he compiled a trifecta of blunders: He voted for the 2003 invasion; opposed the 2007 “surge” that rescued the mission from utter disaster; and oversaw the premature 2011 withdrawal of the last U.S. troops, which opened the way for the Islamic State.

Biden argued against Obama’s 2009 decision to surge U.S. troops in Afghanistan, proposing that the mission should instead limit itself to counterterrorism. But according to Gates, he raised his hand against the most important counterterrorism operation of recent years, the 2011 special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden. (Biden has said he later encouraged Obama to go ahead.)

That’s a pretty substantial list. To be sure, many of Biden’s Democratic colleagues made the same bad calls (and I, along with The Post’s Editorial Board, supported the Iraq invasion). But a new president won’t be able to afford more big errors. If voters oust Trump, the democratic world probably will grudgingly give U.S. leadership one more chance — but not for long if the new president fails to inspire confidence.

That brings us to the good news about Biden, which comes in three parts. First, his record was always stronger than Gates, a lifelong Republican, made out. Second, it looks better than it did when Gates delivered his assessment six years ago. Best of all, by all accounts the former vice president, unlike Trump, has learned from his mistakes.

Any account of Biden’s foreign policy has to include his role in pushing during the 1990s for stronger U.S. action in the Balkans, including support for the Muslim-majority entities of Bosnia and Kosovo against Serbian aggression. He eventually backed what were arguably the most successful U.S. military interventions of the past 30 years. Though they remain politically troubled, Bosnia and Kosovo have lived in peace for a quarter-century.

Biden’s advocacy on Afghanistan, too, has looked better with time. The troop surge that he opposed and Gates favored ultimately failed to stabilize the country. Today, the formula Biden proposed, a U.S mission dedicated to combating terrorism, would be a considerable improvement on the full pullout Trump has committed to. Biden’s opposition to Obama’s 2011 intervention in Libya also looks good in retrospect: While the bombing campaign saved lives at the time, it triggered a decade of chaos and gave al-Qaeda a new base.

Biden’s career encompasses the U.S. post-Cold War trajectory from confident sole superpower to a more chastened nation facing formidable challenges from China and other autocracies. Along the way, Biden has grown more cautious about the use of force; advisers say Afghanistan, in particular, taught him the limits of what U.S. interventions can accomplish.

Yet Biden still differs from Trump and the Democratic left in his willingness to support smaller-scale military missions, such as that which defeated the Islamic State in Syria. Unlike the current president, he hasn’t abandoned the notion of American leadership. He offers the promise of a U.S.-led coalition that stands up to China and Russia to secure democracy and human rights in the 21st century. If he wins and sticks to that, he won’t go far wrong.

 

[hanimmal]

 

[hanimmal]

 

[hanimmal]

 

[schuylaar]

Sadly, it matters not what he does as long as we have a spoiler.