Statement from The Black Alliance for Peace, February 9, 2021
The picture had started to form in Biden’s first 48 hours, but now it is crystal clear: The Biden-Harris administration intends to pick up exactly where the Obama-Biden administration left off in 2016, with an aggressive assertion of U.S. military power to offset its declining global economic, political and moral position.
All signals appear to be heading in that direction. The Atlantic Council, a right-wing structure that is a mouthpiece for NATO and the Western alliance, issued a 26,000 word screed against China, arguing for eventual war if regime change and other “containment” polices fail to coax China into surrendering to the United States. This is utter madness.
But it continues. In another highly publicized comment, Admiral Charles A. Richard warned,
“There is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons.”
The administration announced a few days ago it would undermine the peace process in Afghanistan by extending the presence of U.S. troops in that country, which essentially violates the terms of the agreement the United States had signed in 2020. It is clear Trump is not the only one who can reverse negotiated international agreements.
On February 7, the Biden administration announced it will not lift sanctions the United States had imposed on Iran after the Trump administration pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) unless Iran comes back into compliance. Since it was the United States that first violated the agreement by pulling out and then imposing sanctions, Iran is demanding the United States come into compliance first, which means new escalating tensions and a possible conflict with Iran.
Is this what the over 80 million people who voted for Biden wanted? Or does this imperialist war agenda of the ruling class demonstrate why, with the 2020 Democrat Party presidential debates and the debates between Trump and Biden, foreign policy received less than an hour of debate?
Public opinion for more than a decade has indicated a majority of the public, and particularly veterans and their families, support pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. But that information never makes it to the public via the “fact-based” liberal corporate press. Instead, the public is bombarded with the opinions of retired generals, foreign policy hacks and pro-war former intelligence officials explaining why peace is impossible.
The Biden administration even concedes war on Black and Brown communities must continue. And thus, he only is willing to make minor cosmetic changes to the Department of Defense’s 1033 program responsible for transferring tanks, armored personnel carriers machine guns and all kinds of weapons of war from the federal government to police departments across the United States.
The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) will not be silent while the public is being prepared for war domestically or abroad. That is why we are building resistance to Biden’s plan to continue the 1033 program and to undermine the Afghanistan peace process. We are promoting actions like our two petitions, which demand an end to the 1033 program, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and a peace deal to be concluded.
Join us in demanding peace in our communities and abroad. Oppose the neoliberal madness.