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Comment by rjzzleep | Hacker News Reader

I'm more confused at how Biden became president after that, and how most of the cabinet from the Obama era is now Bidens cabinet. At least in all the warmongering positions. He was after all the instrument of the Iraq war before Bush. At this point I have to wonder if Biden has Obama's warmonger cabinet, or if Obama was actually trying to do the things he promised and couldn't because Biden placed all those warmongers there(I'm talking about, Nuland, Blinken, Sullivan, Kirby, Austin etc. leaving one person specifically out in fear of the HN crowd).

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> most of the cabinet from the Obama era is now Bidens cabinet

In case anyone is curious, there is exactly one person in Biden's cabinet (16 people total) that previously served in Obama's cabinet: the Secretary of Agriculture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Vilsack

If you further consider "cabinet-level" positions (25 people total), two more people are included: the current Secretary of Veterans Affairs was previously the White House chief of staff and the current White House chief of staff was previously the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_McDonough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Zients

Of the 5 people mentioned by name in the parent comment, 3 have never been in the Cabinet and none were in both Obama's and Biden's Cabinets.

My best guess for the unnamed person is the current director of the Central Intelligence Agency (previously a cabinet-level position!) and who was Acting Secretary of State under Obama? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Burns_(diplomat)

> I'm more confused at how Biden became president after that

> He was after all the instrument of the Iraq war before Bush

You'll be less confused when you understand that the American electorate generally has no issues with invading other countries.

And even when it does have an issue with it, it holds its nose, and votes anyways. Both parties are generally ran by people who have similar opinions on this question.

We live in a war-happy world. Russia steamrolling into Georgia. China aiming Taiwan.

I'm from a post-Soviet country, that might explain why I have this less than pacifist view.

Well, the good news is that Biden (like trump before him) has not started any new wars or invaded any new countries. So far.

But Biden throws a lit of wood into the fire.

Biden's predecessor launched more drone strikes than Obama, and shit-talked world leaders on Twitter to a frightening degree. Remember when "war with Iran" became a Twitter meme for a solid week because Trump drone-striked an Iranian commander?

None of these people are actually peacemakers. Not Biden, not Obama, none of them. All of them support American imperialism and hegemony.

What would have been the optimal and ideal move?

He has only funded a hopeless proxy war with Russia (the country with the most nuclear weapons in the world) … no big deal.

Appeasing dictators is not a winning move. Trump sucking Putin's dick dry did not work after all. (Well it did wonders for old Vladimir.)

And Ukrainians want to (and wanted to) fight. It's not like US psyops campaigns made them. Since 2014 they spent a lot of resources on fortifications, training, arms manufacture, etc.

Characterizing diplomatic conversation as a sex act is not exactly a winning move either.

Ukrainians are welcome to fight if they want to, but you are seriously misinformed if you believe they have mounted even a small fraction of their firepower, training, analysis, and logistics without the aid of the US and other NATO countries. Ukraine never had a remote chance to resist the Russian army, and they are now paying a terrible price for allowing themselves to become the lackeys of the US and NATO.

The Biden administration is responsible for elevating the Ukrainians into this role as an extension of the US onto the direct border with Russia. Russia will never tolerate it no matter what it takes, and we all know what that entails. The US would do no differently if Russia did the same on its border, which makes the Biden administration’s actions hypocritical as well.

Listen to yourself:

Americans are welcome to fight if they want to, but you are seriously misinformed if you believe they have mounted even a small fraction of their firepower, training, analysis, and logistics without the aid of the France and Spain. America never had a remote chance to resist the British army and navy, and they are now paying a terrible price for allowing themselves to become the lackeys of France and Spain.

Substitute Britain/free France/exiled poland/Nazi Germany too if you like.

OK, fed.

I mean not to be callous towards the Ukrainians (who are incredibly heroic), but:

- NATO is a stronger alliance, so the US will not have to spend as much defending Europe in the long run

- us has spent ~1-2k/citizen to dismantle one of its biggest existential threats

- china has tons of egg on face

If nukes don't happen, I'll be entertaining the idea Biden the greatest stable genius Chad president we've had. And I started out disliking Biden. Definitely hated him when he was veep.

Even from the pure realpolitik perspective, I don’t understand how the cold warriors came to the conclusion that massive destabilization of a nuclear superpower was a desirable outcome.

Didn’t we learn our lesson from humiliating post-Soviet Russia in the 90s? (Or Versailles-ing Germany?) Economic desperation yields aggressive strongmen and violent populations.

It shouldn't be all that confusing. Biden was elected because the only actual alternative was worse.

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