Joe Biden Visit: Red carpet rolled out for war mongering hawk

By Chris Stewart

IN APRIL, the media was buzzing with excitement as US President Joe Biden, along with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, visited Belfast for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Biden was presented as some sort of celebrity, rather than the figurehead of US Imperialism. His role in escalating tensions in the Cold War with China, approving a disastrous new oil drilling project in Alaska, or bailing out another huge bank with public money while living standards and infrastructure in the US deteriorated, were all ignored while pressing questions such as which airport he was flying into made headlines.

25th Anniversary of GFA Clinton and Blair's visit centred around Queens University's "Agreement 25" conference. Along with Senator George Mitchell, they are constantly presented as having some vaunted role in the peace process here. They love to pat themselves on the back and indulge in limitless credit for the peace process - as if they came over here and sorted out all our problems for us. Exactly what indispensable role they are supposed to have played is never made clear. On the other hand, the role of working-class people across the North is ignored, even though strike action and mass demonstrations against sectarian attacks were the real motor that forced peace on the agenda.

In reality - these figures don't care at all for the interests of working class people in the North. Their interests, then and now, are aligned with the interests of the rich and powerful, big business and multinational corporations.

Warmongers not welcome Biden himself spoke of his commitment to "peace and prosperity" in a speech at Ulster University that would turn your stomach, attended by the leaders of the main Stormont parties. The past 25 years have been years of unchallenged US world domination and Biden has shown himself at every point along the way to be a blood-thirsty warmonger.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. As the US government lied to the world and laid waste to a nation, Joe Biden was one of the leading pro-war voices in the Democratic Party. While he was Vice President, the Obama administration led a series of equally disastrous interventions in Syria, Libya and Yemen.

Biden, Clinton and Blair are amongst the world's most ardent enemies of peace. It is sickening to watch them use the North to launder their reputations.

Celebrating Failure

Once all the warmongers were in attendance, the celebrations could begin. But the whole thing felt more like a fairly grim wake, given the reality of where the dysfunctional political system that the Agreement set up is today. Stormont is in a perpetual cycle of collapse, the sectarian temperature is rising substantially and paramilitaries are once again beginning to assert themselves on the streets. What was never really mentioned beneath all the platitudes was that power sharing was never based on a real coming together of ordinary people in society. Instead, it was an arrangement by which sectarian politicians would oversee and maintain division, carving up communities along sectarian lines. Peace walls, segregated schools and housing have all been strengthened under this system.

The so-called "peace dividend" that was promised to working class people never came. Years of brutal austerity, wage stagnation and a proliferation of low-paid jobs mean that 25 years after the Agreement and countless working class people live in poverty - a crisis deepening with rising rents and a skyrocketing cost of living.

Many young people on social media pointed to the emptiness of these celebrations, pointing behind the empty words of "progress" to the grim reality of living here: no jobs, no affordable housing, no prospects. In the 25 years since the signing of the agreement more people have died by suicide than died during the Troubles. Biden may have mistaken the luxurious heights of his room in the Grand Central Hotel as "prosperity", but for the majority of people here such an idea is frankly insulting.