An Appointment I Disapprove Of
An Appointment I Disapprove Of
While many of them could be more progressive, given that Biden himself is largely a moderate making moderate nods to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in his appointments, I have largely been not too dissatisfied with appointments made so far by President-Elect Biden. My only surprise is that a bunch of people set their pants on fire over the appointment of Neera Tanden as OMB director while barely a squeak has been heard about the appointment to NEC Chair of total Goldman Sachs flunky, Brian Deese. Actually, I do not think there even should be an NEC, which essentially replaced the CEA as the policy shop, with it usually being run by Wall Street types who are not even professional economists.
But now Biden has appointed somebody I find really objectionable and even worrisome. This is Victoria Nuland as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in charge of policy, a pretty important post. She has been the State Dept previously, where she engaged in all sorts of obnoxiously and dangerous neocon activities. I mostly think Biden has pretty good instincts on foreign policy, not a hawk, and pretty knowledgeable. But Nuland has been associated with pushing support for Sunni extremists against Assad in Syria and encouraging overly vigorously various actions in various places that I do not or have not approved of. It may be that she is a sign of being anti-Putin, which she certainly is, in contrast to Trump, of course. But appointing her may be overdoing it. There will need to be some negotiations over strategic nuclear arms, and I know there are other areas where the US and Russia have common interests, even if indeed the US needs to hold Putin’s feet to the fire on many issues. But Biden did not need to appoint somebody so over the top and hawkish as Nuland to achieve that.
Barkley Rosser
Foreign policy is a complex fabric actually somewhat better executed with balance between hawks and doves rather than just chicken hawks. Biden wants to play well with the RoW. How that really goes will take time to see the results, which will be a matter more of the team and the direction than individuals. With Trump out of the picture then it is not unrealistic to just hope for the best for a while.
[State really is not the place for anyone outside the orthodoxy. Nuland has a resume that would choke an orthodox hog.]
https://www.brookings.edu/experts/victoria-nuland/
Ambassador Victoria Nuland is senior counselor at the Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategic advisory and commercial diplomacy firm based in Washington, D.C. She is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, distinguished practitioner in grand strategy at Yale University, and a member of the board of the National Endowment for Democracy. She was CEO of the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan national security think tank in Washington, from January 2018 until February 2019.
A U.S. diplomat for 32 years, Ambassador Nuland served as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs from September 2013 until January 2017. She was responsible for U.S. policy and diplomatic relations with 50 countries in Europe and Eurasia, with NATO, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, managing a staff of nine thousand Americans and Europeans, and a $1.5 billion budget. During a tumultuous time for Europe, she was the key architect of President Obama’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including sanctions policy, and principal U.S. negotiator with Putin’s top advisor on Ukraine. She also led the U.S. teams supporting the Cyprus peace talks, working with Turkey on the counter-ISIL campaign and Syria, and promoting energy security and diversification across Europe. She holds a lifetime appointment as Career Ambassador, the State Department’s highest rank.
Prior to this, Ambassador Nuland served as State Department spokesperson from 2011 to 2013, leading press relations for Secretary Hillary Clinton and the Department, conducting daily televised press briefings, advising Secretary Clinton on public affairs and traveling…
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[Advantage Biden. We tried anti-establishment troglodytes far from the madding status quo under Trump. If Joe decides to play safe and stable now then he read the score card. Hmm, a little posting delay here.]
Sorry about the echo. Can’t tell what is going on when comment enters the twilight zone.
Victoria Nuland is not the kind of career diplomat that would color outside the lines drawn for her by SoS and POTUS, regardless of her personal opinions. That is what a diplomatic foreign policy team is.
We need to do much more than hold Putin’s feet to the fire. He has to be made known that his subversion of our democracy has a high price.
If this woman can do that, I’m all in.
total Goldman Sachs flunky, Brian Deese. Actually, I do not think there even should be an NEC, which essentially ”
Goldman Sachs regiert die Welt.”~~famous stock broker~
near term profits will continue to hold the whip hand. We need to think long term — plan for a lasting America, a sustainable redistribution of freedom.
When you dream,
dream
big
!
What is wrong with supporting anybody opposing Assad? Assad makes Saddam look like a Catholic Saint. Assad is systematically carpet bombing his whole country from one end to the other to squelch his opposition. When they finally break an area they go in and kill all the medical personnel plus random men and boys.
If America and Europe had taken on this guy in the beginning, then, there wouldn’t be a refugee flood in Europe that gives the right wing populists there the lift they needed to take off. Heartless chickens coming home to roost.
Here we go again. Where did that picture come from? Can’t you leave a link here without an indeterminate picture (why a pic of the book cover instead of the Amazon page for instance) popping up? ???
XXXhttps://www.amazon.com/Assad-We-Burn-Country-Destroyed/dp/0316556726XXX
Denis
i was surprised that the whole Tucker Carson video popped up. but i’m just as glad it did. saves people the trouble of clicking the link. if they don’t think it’s worth five minutes of their time and aggravation, the first three minutes will do.