Biden’s ‘Performative’ Lecture on Democracy at UN Belies True US Role in World

Biden has made his claimed struggle for democracy a primary argument for the Democratic Party’s campaign against former President Donald Trump, but a closer look reveals the malign role of the United States in preserving countries’ sovereignty and self-rule.

US President Joe Biden spoke before the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, taking the opportunity to deliver what is likely one of the final major speeches of his political career.

The yearly gathering of world leaders and diplomats, which takes place each September in New York City, has served as the backdrop for several significant moments throughout its almost 80-year history. Cuban revolutionary Ché Guevara addressed the assembly in 1964, touting Havana’s literacy campaign and assailing US intervention in Latin America. Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi delivered a highly memorable speech in 2009, as did ex-Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, who blasted George Bush, neoliberalism, and the US War on Terror in a 2006 broadside.

The week-long event provides an important forum for developing nations, who are briefly granted equal footing with great world powers. But the General Assembly is often criticized as a “talk shop” by those who claim the recognition granted to countries is more symbolic than tangible. Author and analyst Caleb Maupin joined Sputnik’s The Final Countdown program Tuesday to discuss the 78th session of the annual event and break down Biden’s address before the international audience.

“He talked about democracy and how he's committed to democracy,” said Maupin, noting that Biden touched on themes he has frequently spoken about during the 2024 presidential election season. “He talked against Russia. He talked against Venezuela. He talked against the Palestinians. He talked up support for Israel. Joe Biden made a series of remarks going over standard US foreign policy.”

“Joe Biden really likes to do these kinds of performative, ideological shows, and that's what his summit for democracy that he bragged about in his UN speech was,” the analyst claimed. “He loves to do these little performances where he talks about how he's sticking up for democracy and democratic ideals.”

Biden has made his claimed struggle for democracy a primary argument for the Democratic Party’s campaign against former President Donald Trump, but a closer look reveals the malign role of the United States in preserving countries’ sovereignty and self-rule. A 2015 study found the US provides military support to 73% of nations labeled “dictatorships,” with Saudi Arabia and Juan Orlando Hernández’s oppressive former regime in Honduras providing perhaps the most prominent examples.

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, still lauded as one of America’s most admired and consequential statesmen, made his contempt for democracy clear in 1970, when he vowed to intervene in Chile if the country elected an anti-imperialist leader. “I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people,” said the controversial figure, who spearheaded a campaign of social and economic subversion of the Latin American country after the election of Salvador Allende.

Three years later Chile’s democratically-elected president would be removed in a bloody US-backed military putsch, ushering in almost two decades of bloody dictatorship resulting in the death and torture of tens of thousands. The model was duplicated in Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina in a campaign of state terror and repression known as Plan Cóndor.

The US has worked to support coups and subvert democracy in dozens of countries around the globe, but its role in Palestine has generated perhaps the most attention in recent years. The United States has frequently undermined the influence of the UN and the force of international law in the name of defending Israel from criticism, recently downplaying the importance of a vote by the UN Security Council that called on the country to end its campaign in Gaza. The US has also led a group of Western countries in defunding the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a crucial lifeline for refugees facing hunger and displacement that Israel has long viewed as an impediment.

“There is a lot of criticism that can be leveled at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency,” noted Maupin. “[With] Israel though, in particular, there is a political issue there, which is the UN frequently criticizes Israel and calls out Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians.”

“Israel considers any connection with the legitimate elected government of Gaza, which is Hamas… support for terrorism,” he continued. “If the UN set up a health care clinic and an elected official who's part of the government in Gaza – that would be a member of Hamas – showed up and got health care, that would be considered aid to terrorism.”

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed the country's actual views on democracy in leaked audio of comments from 2006, in which she demonstrated that the United States' support for democratic elections is highly contingent upon voters choosing candidates in line with views and policies supported by Washington.

“I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake,” Clinton said of the ballot that brought Hamas’s armed resistance movement to power in Gaza.

“If we were going to push for an election then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win,” she claimed, appearing to suggest the United States should have intervened to rig the outcome.