Joe the Faint Hearted

By Steve Huntley

April 14, 2024

Virtually all the media assert that Israel is becoming ever more isolated in its war against Hamas. What goes unmentioned is a major reason for that:

Israel’s closest ally is headed by a man who doesn’t have the courage to stand up forcefully and eloquently in defense of the Jewish state’s righteous battle to defend itself against an Islamist terrorist militia.

The president of the United States often is called the most powerful man in the world. But has that exalted office ever been occupied by a weaker individual than Joe Biden?

Inept, ineffectual, inconsistent, incoherent, anxious, fearful, vacillating, weak and wrong — the dictionary is packed with words for failure to characterize the record of this perhaps ever-more senile old man and his faint-hearted administration.

The latest development, a direct attack on Israel by Iran this weekend, offers an opportunity for Biden to demonstrate powerful support for Israel in confronting this escalation of the current war. But this new Iranian aggression would not have happened if Biden had stood strong in recent weeks. Instead, his ever-declining backing for Israel in its existential war represented the latest Biden failure on the world stage.

Weakness invites aggression. And under Joe the Faint Hearted, American weakness has definitely invited aggression.

First off, America’s allies were shocked, and its foes emboldened by the humiliation of the chaotic, shameful Afghanistan departure that was more like a hasty retreat than an orderly pullout.

The ugly takeaway — 13 U.S. servicemen dead, panicked Afghans falling from U.S. aircraft as the planes lifted off from the abandoned Bagram air base, billions of dollars in military hardware left to the Taliban, and an innocent Afghan family of 10, including seven children, killed in a mistaken U.S. drone attack.

Also heartening to America’s foes has been Biden’s hemming and hawing over Ukraine. His Ukraine policy — one of offering just enough help to ward off defeat but nothing more — yet again demonstrates a faint-hearted foreign policy. His stance is characterized by a hesitancy to act strongly, fear of seeming to be too bold, and failure to explain to the American people the stakes in Russia’s invasion.

Then there’s the pitiful sight of Biden’s foreign policy functionaries chasing and all but begging the fanatical mullahs of Iran to restore the Obama-negotiated nuclear weapon deal. That pact was said to be designed to prevent Tehran from developing its own atomic bomb but in actuality would have only delayed for a while that outcome. President Trump wisely dumped the faulty deal but Biden, like President Obama before him, has been doing everything, including throwing money at the Iranians, to try to entice them back but they only stall and stall.

The result: Trump sanctions against Iran, a sponsor and bankroller of terrorism, reduced its foreign reserves to $4 billion. Biden lifted those sanctions and now Iran has $75 billion in foreign reserves to finance its evil designs.

In the current turmoil in the Mideast, Iranian proxies attack and kill Americans but Biden’s White House worries about a too-strong U.S. response. How else to characterize the U.S. reaction to a January attack that killed three Americans and injured more than 30 others in Jordan near the Syrian border? As the Wall Street Journal reported, the administration leaked word of its retaliation in advance, enabling Iranian commanders in Syria time to flee the U.S. strike.

That kind of record set the stage for the ever-deteriorating U.S. support for Israel in its just war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. A strong president standing up for America’s ally would have rallied support around the world, maintained backing through the inevitable difficult and bloody days of urban warfare, and combat efforts to isolate Israel.

But the U.S. abstained from a crucial UN Security Council vote, allowing passage of a resolution calling for a cease-fire that would be detrimental to Israel’s war effort. The resolution didn’t even demand that Hamas release the more than 100 hostages it still holds, five Americans among them.

Following a mistaken attack that killed seven aide workers, Biden, in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanded an immediate ceasefire. If only he would demand that Hamas surrender and release all hostages — something that could actually end the war and the suffering in Gaza.

Now he’s calling for a six-week cease-fire, at least once doing so without requiring Hamas release hostages. Sensing weakness, Hamas pushes for a deal that would effectively end the war with a permanent cease-fire, ensuring the terrorist organization survives to commit more atrocities another day.

Biden loudly tries to bully our ally but largely stands silent against the terrorist enemy of Western civilization. Biden and his State Department mindlessly repeat false accusations that Israel is conducting its campaign against Hamas by ignoring the rules of war and inflicting too many civilian casualties.

That unfounded, distorted and perfidious narrative only reinforces the blood libel of genocide hurled against the Jewish state from Israel’s enemies and antisemites in America and Europe. The record is clear that Israel exposes its own soldiers to injury and death in trying to avoid civilian casualties among the Palestinians. Hamas hides behind those civilians, pushes them into harm’s way and contrives to block Israeli efforts to evacuate civilians to less dangerous areas of Gaza.

The numbers bear all that out.

The Gaza health authority controlled by Hamas claims 33,000 Palestinians have been killed since Hamas broke a cease-fire and started the war with a horrible massacre Oct. 7. Israel says a third of Palestinians casualties are Hamas terrorists. But leave that aside for a moment and let’s accept the Palestinian number.

This war is six months old. That’s about 180 days. That calculates to an average of 184 deaths a day.

On the one day of Oct. 7, Hamas savages slaughtering Israelis in their homes and at a music concert killed 1,200 people, and Hamas intentionally targeted civilians for murder, rape and kidnapping.

If Israel were indiscriminating killing Palestinians in Gaza — population more than 2 million packed in the small Gaza Strip — it could easily register a death count of 1,200 a day, and by now the Palestinian casualty toll would be 216,000 dead or more.

That the Palestinian death toll is only a small fraction of that number attests to the lengths the Israelis go to in adhering to the international norms of warfare. Make no mistake: the actual war criminals dedicated to genocide are the Hamas savages.

The steady retreat from an initial strong backing for Israel after the Oct. 7 atrocity is motivated by a fearful Biden awash in a political panic over Muslim voters in Michigan and Minnesota threatening to withhold votes for his reelection bid.

A week ago, a Muslim demonstration in Dearborn, Mich., with a majority Arab population, erupted with shouts of “Death to America!”

Besides the scandal of illegal aliens crossing into this country at our southern border, the Dearborn hate-America fest reveals that we have a problem with legal immigration. Who are we letting into our country? That’s something that needs more attention.

Biden shies away from strong support for Israel and Ukraine and gives comfort to Hamas and Russia. What must China be making of all this?  President Xi Jinping becomes increasingly vocal and belligerent about his desire to take over Taiwan, by invasion if he deems it necessary.

As America’s military budget under Biden struggles to keep up with inflation, Xi builds and expands his military.

As the Pentagon promotes “anti-racist” theories in military training and Secretary of State Antony Blinken worries about pronouns, China pumps up the martial fervor of its army. As noted previously in another johnkassnews column Biden has forgotten or failed to learn the lesson forced on America on 9/11.

The planner of that monstrous attack, Osama bin Laden, put it this way: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”

But of course Biden probably doesn’t want to be reminded about anything about bin Laden. Remember that when the opportunity came during Obama’s presidency to kill bin Laden, Biden was for holding back, waiting for more confirmation about the terrorist’s whereabouts, and worrying about the political fallout from killing him. Fortunately Obama and his other advisers ignored him and ordered bin Laden’s death.

Joe, always the faint-hearted. Obama once characterized the man who was his vice president this way: “Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f*** things up.” Former Secretary of State Robert Gates once described Biden’s record on foreign policy over 40 years in government this way: “He’s been wrong on nearly every issue.” Faint-heartedness combined with poor judgment.

Today the world is a much more dangerous place than during the Trump years, when no new wars erupted to involve America.

In these perilous times, no one should underestimate the possibility of a miscalculation that could ignite a possibly unrestrained cycle of escalation. But the lesson of history, best articulated among recent presidents by Ronald Reagan, is that strength is the best protector of peace.

Biden’s presidential record on foreign policy may go down in history as the most flagrant appeasement by a world leader since the disastrous record of Britain under Neville Chamberlain in the years leading up to World War II.

The fundamental question, the one voters must face in November, is this: Does Biden have the wisdom, judgment and courage to lead the United States in a time of peril?

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Steve Huntley, a retired Chicago journalist now living in Austin, Texas, has contributed other pieces to johnkassnews, from an examination of the secret jail for Christopher Columnbus and other politically problematic public art to an essay on Americans suffering from Joe Biden gas pain.

For almost three decades Huntley spent most of his career in Chicago journalism at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he was a feature writer, metro reporter, night city editor, metropolitan editor, editorial page editor and a columnist for the opinion pages.

Before that he was a reporter and editor with United Press International (UPI) in the South and Chicago, and Chicago bureau chief and a senior editor in Washington with U.S. News & World Report. Northwestern University Press has issued soft cover and eBook editions of Knocking Down Barriers: My Fight for Black America by Truman K. Gibson Jr. with Steve Huntley, a memoir of a Chicagoan who was a member of President Roosevelt’s World War II Black Cabinet working to desegregate the military.

Comments 35

  1. Thank you, Steve!
    “Biden’s presidential record on foreign policy may go down in history as the most flagrant appeasement by a world leader since the disastrous record of Britain under Neville Chamberlin in the years leading up to World War II.” True and Powerful words, sir.
    Thank you and please pass on to John my wishes for a speedy and complete return to health.
    John Bush

  2. Steve, as usual, spot on – and scary !!

    Yet, there is still 1/3 out there who think this is all ok.

    That’s more scary than the inept clowns we have calling the shots. What bad needs to happen here during the party celebrating and promoting more of this later on this summer. What bad needs to happen here for those fools to wake up.

  3. By comparison with Chamberlain, you diminish Chamberlain. There was no way at that time Britain could help Czechoslovakia and his Chief of the RAF told him he hadn’t the resources to protect British cities from German bombers. France was not interested in challenging Germany as shown in the occupation of the Rhineland and without the French Chamberlain had no effective way to engage. Churchill was clamoring for a response but Britain needed time to gear up and make military arrangements with France and Belgium, which the latter would not do, to get troops and equipment on the continent. Germany’s weaknesses were not known, and Mussolini stepped in to defuse the crisis. Austria had joined Germany and with Hitler’s encouragement of the Germans in the Sudetenland, a dominant group demographically, and Chamberlain believing in the principles offered by Wilson of self-determination in the Fourteen Points, a powerful political idea which still resonated, and perhaps some understanding that the Trwaty of Versailles was badly flawed, not appeasing Hitler was thought to trigger another major European, or at least a British- German, war. Remember that no major fighting on Grrmany’s western border occurred after the destruction of Poland, until the following year and France collapsed in just a few weeks. Britain came within days of losing nearly all her troops on the continent, an indication, if one were needed, of Britain’s unpreparedness even two plus years after Munich. In the interim Britain built up her RAF just enough to defeat the Luftwaffe.

    Biden, however, has no understanding of what is happening in the world. (See China’s recently published new map outling what she claims is hers, a reflection of Hitler’s ambitions.) His military staff is grossly incompetent and they together have ruined recruitment and patriotism. It is hardly possible to believe all these actions are unintentional, but I will offer that the cause is rank stupidity and one cannot fix “stupid”.

  4. This is right on the money. But will this make a difference to most of the voters who are too stupid to vote their own best interests in November? Probably not. They will buy the leftist Democratic party line for do otherwise would require effort and thought. That would require them to actually think and analyze. Isn’t going to happen.

  5. Thanks for a well stated column. Nero fiddling while Rome burns, along with Chamberlains foolishness does tell us how such leadership (or lack of same) ends up. Biden wants to be all things to all people and beg for votes from bit Muslims and Jews. I see a Dem fest in Chicago this summer that will make ‘68 look like a walk in the park. All Joe and the Dens know how to do is Buy votes. Reinstating the student loan forgiveness is another example. China is biding its time till after the election. You will see Xi devour Taiwan as it today has our economy for lunch. The pundits fawn and Joe goes on his merry way.
    Best to John to feel better soon.

  7. Humbly suggested edit of last para: The fundamental question, the one America must answer in November, is this: Does the United States electorate have the wisdom, judgment and courage to elect a President that will effectively lead the United States in a time of peril?

    Thanks for the post.

  8. Great column, Steve!

    Biden and Company continue to gaslight the American people stating
    that not only is everything good, it’s getting better.
    Well, it is not better, it’s much worse.
    People are worn out from his vapid rhetoric.
    In the meanwhile our enemies increase in strength.

  9. Spot on sir! Spot on!

    The weakness that President Biden exudes has allowed our enemies to easily discount America and our resolve. What frightens me is when (not if) a foreign aggressor invades our soil, what will our government’s response be? Negotiation? A quick UN speech followed by a photo op?
    Between the political elite espousing woke rhetoric and a military hamstrung focusing on social issues like using the right pronoun, America is in a weak state indeed. Its just a matter of time before China annexes the Marianas and Hawaii as historical Chinese islands and part of the BRIC Co-prosperity sphere.

    1. Indeed, sir. If I may offer one thought, re: your comment “What frightens me is when (not if) a foeign aggressor invades our soil, what will our government’s response be?” If I may suggest – – – that invasion is EXACTLY what we’re seeing on our southern border. There is no way that many millions of ‘unknowns’ from the plethora of countries (including how many Chinese?) mostly all men of military age, are up to any good. No one seems to know who exactly is flying all of them into Mexico for the last dramatic ‘walk to freedom’ – in their nice new shoes, clean clothing, new backpacks, cellphones charged….riiiiiight. Joe’s response? He’s using our tax money to redistribute these invaders all about the country – planeloads of them landing, usually at night, at “B” city airports, as the “immigrants” melt into the night. Millions of dollars given to NGOs like Catholic Charities to “relocate and assist” this newly forming army, and the PR machine working 8 days a week to convince anyone who will listen that “…if only Gov. Abbott would keep these migrants in Texas! This is HIS fault!” The FACT is, the Biden adminstration knows full well what’s happening, and they know the ‘invaders’ need only tackle something as simple as our woefully-exposed electric grid, or the easily tampered-with valves on the gas lines that bring Jet “A” fuel to our big airports…and the job will be done.

  10. Excellent column, thank you. Sadly our Elections have become something to fear. Many voters just simply do as they are told by Leaders who care only for their self interests. They make promises they have no intention of fulfilling. They are supposed to work for the people they represent. Yet most appear to only work for themselves. My hope is that somehow, someday this Great Country will return to be truly the USA.

    Wishing John well. May he get better and stronger soon.

  11. President Biden has been a disaster from day one and he continues to get worse by the day. I simply do not understand how anyone can vote for this man. He says the economy is better! What? Every single thing is more expensive by far than it was when President Trump was in office. The world is in turmoil! I pray the voters of the United States wake up before it is too late.

    Get well soon, Mr. Kass. My heart goes out to you and your family.

  12. Great column. I have always wondered if the Russians have all the evidence needed to send Hunter to jail and are blackmailing our president with it. Same for the Iranians who support and feed Hamas; do they have the 33,000+ emails from Hilary?

    I am cynical to be sure, as I do not trust any politician but……

    K Mason

  13. Agree that foreign policy is a weak mess and that geriatric Joe + administration needs to own it.

    Regarding the stronger support for Ukraine, seems the news of the recent months is the Republicans continuing to bicker over and politicizing the sending of more aid. Incoherent foreign policy is another cross-aisle symptom of our politicians always in campaign mode.

  14. The only problem I have with this column is that any of this is Joe’s doing. Not being very bright to begin with, now he’s a senile old fool that wanders off the stage in the middle of speeches looking for his ice cream. The guys that are controlling him are the same nomenklatura that controlled Obama and brought about the rise of ISIS. That the world is going back to the chaos of the early teens as this klown kar of buffoons mismanages things yet again comes as no surprise.

  15. Thank you for an excellent and articulate column.
    One word DON’T as vocal diarrhea as spoken from the White House is laughable.
    I remember my grandfather first generation and legal immigrant telling me about becoming an American. He told me he was asked if he would willingly pick up arms to defend America? He gave a resounding yes. Thus I come from a family of veterans.
    What happened? I see so many who hate America. Why? To chant death to America is atrocious and unacceptable. Is this a reflection of DEI? Oh wait this is nothing. Don’t look at this. Let’s instead look at parents who demand a better education for their children. Let’s look at and prosecute them. Shame that father whose daughter was assaulted at school in a bathroom and blame her for a male who identifies as a female. Let’s accept biological men in sports and locker rooms.
    Now I’m faced at the golden age of paying student debt for the first time in my life.
    Pandering and more pandering.
    Sadly each day I find myself asking WTH.

  16. Steve – Perfect take on our current state of affairs. Joe mumbles (and the rest of us) have become the laughing stock of the world. Apparently the leftists, who wish to rewrite history, forgot some of the most important lessons we learned the hard way. “Lets just be nice to them and they won’t attack us” mentality has never – and will never work. Adversaries and foes fear one thing – strength and military power, along with the willingness to wield that power. They all know Joe won’t wield it, cause he’s such a wimp, controlled by even wimpier leftist/socialists who think their way is the only way. History is just that – history. Good, bad, indifferent. It is what it is, and all their handwringing and diatribes won’t change it, and shouldn’t change it. We should study it, learn from it, and endeavor to not repeat our mistakes, which apparently we continue to do now, over and over. Appeasement of any kind, at home or abroad, has never been successful! Wake up America, time for a change, hopefully before it’s too late.

  17. Good article BUT HOW ABOUT AN ARTICLE ON DEXTER REED SHOOTING. CANT ANYONE WRITE ONE. ARE YOU WRITERS TOO SCARED. LETS HEAR FROM YOU SCRIPTS FOR GODS SAKE

    1. What would you like the article to say? Should it start by reminding the reader that Dexter Reed was unintelligent enough to fire a shot at a police officer? What did he think would happen??? Why in the world is “the community” upset that a guy with a record, who happened to be black, shot a police officer who also happened to be black. There is apparently NO sympathetic concern for the wounded officer, brave enough to go do the kind of work most men would walk away from in a nano-second. Why not? Is he not black enough? Are they so trained to immediately jump to the support of the miscreant? Why?

      1. How about defending the police! Where’s the balls of our scribes. Too scared of getting canceled. Where is Valas? Without support these cops will be indicted by states attorney. Someone needs to point out rules cops must follow when shot at. Where the FOP on this.

  18. It’s not a Dexter Reed shooting. It’s a Dexter Reed murder. This is true. Chicago media says so. Dexter was on his way to turn in a gun that he found on the street to the local gun buyback program run by Mayor Brandon to stop young black boys from being shot by police before he was accosted by the
    racist police . Chicago police officers are quite well compensated financially in order to enable them to absorb bullets. That’s their job. Dexter was terrified by these racists and valiantly tried to protect himself. We exist to stop the misinformation spread by social media and their ilk. We strive to propigate the truth. There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission. If we wish to make it louder we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image. Make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur. Or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour sit quietly and we will control all you see and hear. There is nothing wrong with your television set….

  19. To that excellent analysis I can only add that it is presumed to flow from someone who was scripted in softball interviews back in 2021, and today can’t order an ice cream cone without cue cards.
    It has to be assumed that Obama and his associates are behind the curtain, and whistleblowers aren’t working to leak those details to the press, as every deep state element did to thwart the Trump administration.
    I hear Biden speaking, but see Obama’s lips are moving.

  20. Spot on Steve, right on the money. Not only is Biden weak on the world stage but he is treasonous on the home front. Letting untold number of adversaries, foreign hostiles, and terrorists into our country along with illegitimate asylum seekers is dangerous…especially at this point in time with so much hostility and war going on in the world. America doesn’t need a bulls eye on its back. Biden is not only weak, he is the King of Gaslighting (i mean lying). He said inflation was skyrocketing when he took office, but his administration is working to bring it down. What Bulls***t. He caused inflation.

  22. Comrade Biden certainly isn’t “faint-hearted” when he imposes ever more draconian regulations on the American people in pursuit of re-election. Everybody has to buy an electric car, electric stoves, new light bulbs and any number of other things in pursuit of green energy? And where’s that electricity supposed to come from? The sun? Wind? Please.

    And he’s not too “faint-hearted” to ignore the Constitution, Congress and the Supreme Court by offering to cancel student loan debt, imposing nationwide “red flag” laws to corral gun owners or implementing DIE rules to okay racism against white people.

    And Comrade Joe is not too “faint-hearted” to weaponize the government and use it against his political opponents. If he wins re-election in November, by this time next year Steve will be imprisoned for writing this type of column.

  23. How about defending the police! Where’s the balls of our scribes. Too scared of getting canceled. Where is Valas? Without support these cops will be indicted by states attorney. Someone needs to point out rules cops must follow when shot at. Where the FOP on this.

    1. Where is Vallas? Are you totally dense? If you I read his Facebook posts you would know where Vallas is. If you made any effort, and paid attention and ceased your sanctimonious never ending windbaggery, you’d know he came out 100% on the side of the cops – the cops who risked their lives and were shot at first.

  25. Valerie Jarrett was Obama’s puppet-master and Iranian operative. This Chicago slum-lord remains unexamined by the American media.

    Steve Huntley, as always, casts a cold eye on the un-American policies continued by a stooge in the White House. I love to see Mr.Huntley turn his attention to the root cause of these policies – Valerie Jarrett.

    Well done, Mr. Huntley! The game’s afoot!

  26. Mr Huntley, thanks for the excellent math proving the exceptional care Israel is taking to prevent civilian casualties. WRT Ukraine, perhaps Hussein Obama can convince a dozen or so of his donor class billionaire friends to write personal checks to Volodymyr Zelensky. As a taxpayer, I would even authorize a 2X match with federal funds, as long as its a loan, and collateralized not with Ukrainian assets but the assets of the same donors.

    Separately, I agree with professor Dershowitz’s idea of the US backing the Israeli effort to topple the Iranian regime. I’ll just bet Israel does a FAR better job at regime change and securing a lasting peace (finally) than the US Democrat leviathan could ever dream of doing (see Ukraine). And then I would be just fine with nominating Israel as the new de-facto Leaders of the Free World.

  27. It’s a minor thing, but the Afghans fell off the planes out of Hamid Karzai International Airport (KIA) in downtown Kabul. I flew in and out of there and it’s an airport in the center of a massive city. Had we maintained our presence at Bagram, which we left earlier without notifying the Afghans we were doing so, it would have all gone much smoother because its far more isolated and larger with a perimeter that is designed to be defended instead of a civilian field.

    All your points, however, are absolutely valid. His leadership has been shameful.

    1. It’s a minor thing, but the Afghans fell off the planes out of Hamid Karzai International Airport (KIA) in downtown Kabul. I flew in and out of there and it’s an airport in the center of a massive city (maybe not the CENTER, but it’s directly adjacent to Kabul on the northwest side if I remember right). Had we maintained our presence at Bagram, which we left earlier without notifying the Afghans we were doing so, it would have all gone much smoother because its far more isolated and larger with a perimeter that is designed to be defended instead of a civilian field.

      All your points, however, are absolutely valid. His leadership has been shameful.

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