 So, back in July, we talked about an article published in Foreign Policy that explained how drone strikes under the Biden administration, surprisingly, were at an all-time low. And on top of that, the Biden administration imposed a partial moratorium on drone strikes, and this news came after The New York Times reported in March that Biden's administration was limiting the use of drones in areas not specifically designated for war. Now, when I talked about that, I was cautiously optimistic because this was a really good sign. It was coming back in March when he decided to limit drone strikes. It was a good sign when we learned that drone strikes were at an all-time low, and now we're still trending in a really positive direction with regards to the drone war. It's not over yet. Having said that, though, we're now learning that Biden has nearly ended the drone war. It's not done, but he's nearly ended it, which is a substantial improvement compared with his predecessors, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. So as Ryan Cooper of the Week explains, immediately after taking office, Biden set up a new system requiring White House approval for any strikes outside of active war zones and later published Trump's loose rules that enabled so many civilian massacres. Now that the occupation of Afghanistan is over, that requirement applies almost everywhere, and it appears Biden is extremely reluctant to grant approval. Where Trump oversaw more than 1,600 air and artillery strikes in Iraq and Syria during his first 11 months in office, air wars reports just 4 during Biden's term so far. Strikes in Somalia fell from roughly 75 last year to fewer than 10 this year, with no civilian casualties, and in Yemen the annual total dropped from about 18 to maybe 4 with fewer than 10 casualties of any kind. Precise figures are unclear because some strikes are classified. That's a major shift, and this is probably the first you've heard of it. It's not hard to guess why most of the media isn't paying attention to the near-ending of a long-standing and highly controversial policy. US foreign affairs are often treated as little more than a backdrop for narcissistic psychodrama where actions are judged according to how much they make warmongers feel big and strong. Air strikes are generally out of sight and therefore out of mind, and death robots terrorizing little kids don't play well on cable news. But the quiet from Biden and its foreign policy staff is more mysterious. Maybe they're wary of sparking another media backlash as happened with the eggs from Afghanistan, or maybe the fear is Republicans accusing Biden of being weak on terrorism. Risk of backlash is all the more reason to lean into the achievement. Trump proved that if a president is stubborn, repetitive, and boastful enough, he can do a great deal to sway public opinion, especially among his loyal partisans. And here we have a policy that isn't some Trumpian dishonest exaggeration, it's a real achievement. Now, it's important to note that as the article points out, it is the case that data with respect to drones is incredibly unreliable. So keep that in mind and also remember that this doesn't mean that the drone war is over because it's not over. I mean, Biden still does have executive authority to sign off on drones if he indeed wants to do that. And a drone just killed 10 innocent civilians in Afghanistan in August. So I mean, it's not over. And I don't know if he'll actually end the drone war just full stop. But still, this is a very positive development. And I want to encourage leftists to see past their anti-Biden bias and give him credit because we don't want to be as hacky as the corporate Democrats are, right? We want to actually acknowledge things that he does that are objectively good. Ending the Afghanistan war, that was brave, that took courage. And bringing the drone war nearly to an end, that is commendable. That takes courage. Now, if he ends up reversing course and he starts to ramp up drones again, then you attack him for that. You criticize him for that heavily so and I intend to do just that. But when he does something like this, that's good. We have to absolutely applaud him for it because if politicians see that you want something done and then they do it and then you don't give them credit, then they're just not going to take you seriously. I mean, not like Joe Biden listens to the Humanist Report, but you get what I'm saying, right? So if you say, I want X policy and they deliver X policy to you and they see that you're not supporting them still. You're just, okay, you're against them no matter what, nothing they can do. Well, when you over, they're going to say, fuck you. So you can't, you can't do that. You have to be able to be nuanced and objective and impartial and give them credit where it's due. And I say this because the last time when I talked about this, where I read the foreign policy article about how Biden's drone strikes were at an all-time low, everyone was so skeptical and cynical and they were like, oh, well, this is you. Just, you know, you're falling for establishment bullshit. No, it's a fact. This is good, celebrated. Take the win. I mean, for fuck's sake, it's not like Joe Biden is vehemently anti-war, right? Because he is a lot more hawkish in other areas. But these are major, major victories for the anti-war movement and the fact that many people who are purportedly anti-war are silent right here. It says a lot. It says that they're hacks. Jimmy Dore, for example, he purports to be one of the biggest anti-war voices. He purports to care about anti-war and foreign policy the most. But yet, when Biden does things like this, when he withdraws from Afghanistan, he doesn't give him credit. So I would encourage you, don't be a hack, push through your bias and take a win. Now, I do think it's very interesting that Biden isn't boasting about this because if he actually had some political sense whatsoever and it was even minimally savvy, he would be bragging about this. Even though the media shit on him for withdrawing from Afghanistan, what he should be doing is bragging about that. Look, I did what no other president would do. I did what the last two presidents said they would do but didn't do. I ended the war in Afghanistan. I ended the war in Afghanistan. Nobody else had the courage to do that. I did that, though. I took the backlash from the biased media. I took the backlash from both parties. I did that. I saved lives as a result of that. No more wars in Afghanistan. On top of that, I nearly ended the drone war. This is something that a lot of Americans care about and no one else would dare to do. I did that. So the fact that he's not being braggadocious when usually Biden's character is at least somewhat braggadocious is bizarre to me. And the article talks about, as you saw, maybe it's the case that he is anticipating media backlash. I don't necessarily know if that's the case, but I mean, you can interpret this as a more cynical view. I mean, because it is Joe Biden after all. So my thinking is, well, what if he doesn't want to come out and say that he ended the drone war because once you take credit for it, well, if you start doing drones again, then you kind of look like you flip-flopped. Maybe he doesn't want to do drones in the Middle East and North Africa. Maybe he wants to switch and do drones in different areas. I don't know that that's a little bit too cynical, I think, with regard to this because they're actually doing an audit of drones and whatnot, so it seems like they're doing a lot. But I mean, either way, I don't know why he's not bragging about this, but he absolutely should. I fear that maybe he's not bragging because he's gonna reverse course. I hope that's not the case. I hope that he proves me wrong, but still right now this is damn good news and if you don't celebrate it, but you're anti-war, then you have to accept that you're being a little bit of a hack. Fight through that cognitive dissonance. This doesn't mean that you love Joe Biden, it just means that even in spite of all of your disagreements with Joe Biden, he still did something good and he gets credit for that. I mean, during the Trump years, I gave Trump credit for things that he did, even if I didn't like Donald Trump, him trying to repair the relationship with North Korea, even if that didn't go anywhere, even if he was in over his head because he didn't understand anything about Korean politics. The fact that he was trying was better than ramping up hostilities. So look, you should be giving administrations credit where it's due. If they do something good, applaud them. If they do something bad, criticize them. It's that simple. What's right here is fantastic news and the fact that more lefties aren't talking about that has me disappointed because I thought that we were the ones who were the most impartial. I thought we were the ones who were the least hacky. But yet so many people, they just, they don't wanna talk about it because you just can't give Biden credit. Yes, he sucks. He won't cancel student debt. He went back on a public option, but at least in this realm on foreign policy with regard to drones and Afghanistan, he did good. So let's give him credit for that because I wanna see more of this. It's not, again, it's not like he's listening to us and he's not watching to see what lefties are saying about him. But still, I refuse to be a hack like Democratic Party loyalists and Republican Party loyalists. So I'll just take a position based on policy and whoever does that, whoever does what I want, they get credit, period. You know, you know this, you know this thing, thing. You're getting nervous, man, man.