Joe Biden Tragically Failed To Learn From The Past

The departing President, like Reagan, leaves a bloodstained foreign policy legacy.

In thinking about the legacy of Joe Biden as President, some have made analogies to the presidency of Lyndon Johnson—a centrist Senate leader who as President pursued a surprisingly progressive domestic agenda, but who was ultimately remembered primarily for his role in supporting a tragic and unpopular genocidal war overseas.

There is another administration, however, with which Biden’s bears a stark similarity: that of Ronald Reagan.

Both administrations supported unconditional military aid to far rightwing governments engaging in major war crimes while denying and downplaying major human rights abuses. Both administrations vetoed otherwise-unanimous U.N. Security Council resolutions seeking to end deadly conflicts. Both administrations attacked the credibility of reputable human rights organizations and the International Court of Justice when they tried to uphold international humanitarian law. Both administrations refused to condition military aid to the recipients’ adherence to these principles. Both of their foreign affairs policies were opposed by most U.S. allies as well as a majority of the American people.

While Biden’s complicity in atrocities by allied forces was centered in the Middle East, Reagan’s were focused on Central America.

In El Salvador, the Reagan Administration repeatedly covered up atrocities, insisting that the El Mozote massacre—in which more than 800 peasants were slaughtered—never happened. Following the rape and murder of four American churchwomen by Salvadoran soldiers, Reagan Administration officials defended the regime by claiming “these nuns were not just nuns, they were political activists” and that they had tried to run a roadblock and were killed in a shootout. When Salvadoran forces murdered six Jesuit priests at the Central American University, along with their housekeeper and her daughter, administration officials tried to claim it was actually carried out by leftist guerrillas.

Similarly, Biden insisted that casualty figures by the Palestinian Health Ministry were exaggerated, even though they actually appear to be gross underestimates. He also falsely claimed that the civilian casualties were a result of Hamas using “human shields,” despite the absence of evidence of the widespread use of civilians by Hamas in such a manner, and the fact that the vast majority of civilian casualties have occurred far from Hamas military operations. Biden’s administration repeatedly denied that Israel, despite considerable evidence, is violating international humanitarian law.