DNC Delegates: Biden Team ‘A Horror Show’ of ‘Disastrous’ Foreign Interventionism

The letter attacks former national security advisor Susan Rice for her 'poor judgment' as well as several other prominent Biden advisors.

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Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice is rumored to be near the top of Joe Biden’s short list for vice presidential candidates. A new letter attacking Rice’s “poor judgment” is being widely circulated among delegates to the Democratic National Convention, calling Biden’s inner circle of foreign policy advisors a “horror show” with track records supporting “disastrous” U.S. military interventions. The letter has already received more than 275 signatures from delegates, almost all of whom had been pledged to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

The letter highlights Biden’s long-time chief aide on foreign affairs Antony Blinken as well as several other prominent former members of the Obama Administration who would likely hold cabinet-level appointments in a Biden administration, HuffPost reports. Blinken co-founded a company called WestExec Advisors, that aided a Pentagon effort to enhance drone warfare.

The presumptive Democratic nominee is relying on former Obama aides and Libya war cheerleaders Samantha Power and Jake Sullivan, as well as a bevy of other military-industrial complex beneficiaries, including former Defense Department official Michèle Flournoy, who worked several years for the Boston Consulting Group, while the firm accrued multi-million dollar contracts with the military, and Avril Haines, a former CIA deputy director reviled on the left for her role in making redactions to a report on President George W. Bush’s use of torture and her assistance in President Barack Obama’s extra judicial drone strikes.

“We ask you not to rely on foreign policy advice from those who may have a conflict of interest as a result of their relationships and lobbying on behalf of merchants selling weapons and surveillance technology,” the letter HuffPost obtained reads. “We ask you to appoint top foreign policy advisors whose records reflect good judgment and an understanding of the importance of diplomacy and international cooperation, particularly in the face of global climate catastrophe.”

The organizers of the letter hope to amass more delegates’ signatures before the start of the convention on August 17. They have so far succeeded in gathering approximately a third of the signatures of Sanders’ delegates. A Sanders aide declined to comment to HuffPost.

Biden is known to rely on long-term personal relationships, so the letter is unlikely to dislodge any of these former Obama administration officials from his side. But his team may have to reckon with the more left-wing side of the party that supported Sanders and have been adamantly opposed to U.S. interventions abroad.

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Barbara Boland is TAC’s foreign policy and national security reporter. Previously, she worked as an editor for the Washington Examiner and for CNS News. She is the author of Patton Uncovered, a book about General George Patton in World War II, and her work has appeared on Fox News, The Hill,  UK Spectator, and elsewhere. Boland is a graduate from Immaculata University in Pennsylvania.  Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC.


Articles by: Barbara Boland

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