As US President Joe Biden prepares to leave office, he has thrown a wrench in the country’s domestic and foreign policies.
Biden’s action in giving pardon to his son, Hunter Biden, has thrown domestic policy into shambles while exposing the hypocrisy of US foreign policy as well.
Biden came into office riding a high horse, championing a rules-based order and equality before the law.
Even while he championed this constitutional order, he used the Department of Justice to persecute his political enemies, successfully locking more than 300 in jailhouses.
Some, accused of trying to overthrow the US government, have been held in solitary confinement for more than three years.
Not a single one of these “insurrectionists” had a weapon other than a handkerchief and an annoying voice.
Hunter, Biden’s son, was from time immemorial (since January 2014) been involved in serious transnational criminal activities in China and in Ukraine.
In pardoning his son, after assuring the public 10 times that he would abide by the law, this is what he said about Hunter.
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“For those offences against the United States, which he has committed and may have committed, or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024 including but not limited to all offences charged or prosecuted (including any that have resulted in convictions) (Hunter is granted) a full and unconditional pardon.”
Biden reasoned that his son was arrested and prosecuted for political reasons.
Here are his words.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than (that) Hunter was singled out only because he is my son-and that is wrong.”
If there is any truth in Biden's belief, surely the same argument should be applied to Donald Trump.
Biden is partially correct. Usually, if one under-estimates his tax obligations, and one is not belligerent, Internal Revenue will usually make an accommodation for recompense.
Superior Court judges asked, in Trump’s case, if anybody in New York has ever been arrested for inflating the value of his properties.
Also, if Trump’s lender, Deutsche Bank International was happy about Trump’s repayment, who was the injured party? To both these questions, the answer was negative.
It may be that Biden will turn out to have been the most corrupt president in US history ever, we do not know.
What we know, because of the availability of Google and You-Tube, no action can long be kept under cover of darkness.
Here is a man who has soiled the reputation of the US at home and abroad. The US exercises its hegemony throughout the world, not only by dint of force, but through moral leadership as well.
The idea that the US leads by example, the rule of law, democracy, and that all people live under the law were dreams the world understood and appreciated.
Biden has exposed himself and the US to the world, as, according to Hans Christian Andersen, a king without clothes.
Matt Kennard, the renowned investigative reporter at the British Financial Times, has proved time and again that it is impossible for the great powers to carry out clandestine activities out of the limelight.
The Israeli genocidal activities in Gaza have been carried out, not only with US and British weapons, but with their physical participation as well.
The US sea-land bridge on the Gaza strip proposed as a humanitarian aid conduit, was in fact a spy bridge, aimed at aiding and abetting Israel’s genocidal targets.
So was the British air-strip in Cyprus used as a half-way supply weapon depot between Britain and Israel.
The significance of these activities is that the US, Britain, and the European Union are complicit as ell as being participants in Israel’s genocidal activities in Gaza.
In addition, Israel’s assassinations of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian leaders have been carried out with US intelligence assistance.
Meanwhile, it is true that Muslim leaders in the Middle East, such as Egypt, Turkey and the Saudis are in a state of subservience to the Western powers, it becomes obvious, as the activities shown above are exposed, that their so-called US allies care nothing for their reputations and well-being.
Even the dumbest Third World leaders find themselves in a precarious situation; they are neither loved by their own people, who rightly see them as Western puppets, and they are equally held in contempt in the West, where they are regarded as useful tools of imperial expansion.
No African leader in today’s world will accept the idea that an American or French presence in his country is designed in any shape or form to benefit his people.
Trump, even more than Biden, has expressed his purpose loudly. He has little patience for “shit countries like Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe” (his words). He has refashioned his immigration policy to exclude Nigerians for reasons widely known but not expressed.
In the Middle East, he has no sympathy for Arabs in Gaza. As we go to press, Trump has re-iterated his ultimatum for the release of hostages in Gaza, or the Arabs there will pay with their lives.
The US Congress has passed a law that allows for the invasion of the Hague to rescue Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, should he be arrested for genocide in Gaza.
The lines are clearly drawn for African countries to see.
The US foreign policy has no room for accommodation. Either the African countries abide and accept US hegemony without question, or they will be sanctioned, or worse, they will be destabilised.
For Zimbabwe, US policy has not changed. It is clearer under Trump and more brutal. All the arguments about compensation for white farmers are peripheral. The US wants complete obedience, nothing more nothing less.
*Ken Mufuka is a Zimbabwean patriot. He writes from the US. He can be reached at mufukaken@gmail.com
