Iraqi sources told several Arab media outlets on Monday that an airstrike near the Iraq-Syria border killed a commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The strike reportedly occurred either late Saturday or early Sunday, and some accounts say it was a drone strike.
Some of the sources identified the slain military leader as Muslim Shahdan, a senior IRGC commander. Other reports say the IRGC commander could not be identified, but all accounts say three other people were killed in the same event. The commander was reportedly struck in a vehicle that was entering Syria from Iraq.
Iran has yet to confirm or deny the report, but if it is true, the IRGC commander’s killing comes just days after prominent Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed inside Iran and would ratchet up tensions in the region even more. All indications point to Israel being responsible for Fakhrizadeh’s death.
Israel has also been known to launch airstrikes inside Syria against what it deems Iranian-linked targets, something they stepped up in recent weeks. Israel has also been making a big deal about Iran’s presence in Syria recently. Last week, Israel demanded the UN Security Council take action against Iran’s presence in Syria and dropped leaflets in the country urging the military to cut ties with Iran.
While Israeli airstrikes so far east in Syria are apparently rare, they do happen. The US also occasionally carries out airstrikes in eastern Syria against Shia militias. In January, the US killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Iraq by drone strike.
Since Fakhrizadeh was killed, Iranian officials have made it clear they will make a measured response in hopes of avoiding provoking a war with the US before President Trump leaves office. Israel seems eager to start a broader military conflict with Iran before January 20th.
Todays warfare tactics are not the same as grandads were, Thank Goodness.
No longrr do a majority of unemployable males from opposing nations have to gather together To face invadin or to invade another nations males.
Today our military are all volunteers, 99% of whom will never hear, see, or fight a visable enemy until after they retire o.n pensions or become police.
And in US we cannot even tell we are at war unless we attend or watch on TV or internet sporting events and when we are asked to donate to soldiers kids toys at christmas or food on thanksgiving.
The question of “Do you want to donate”, are usually asked by part-time minimum wage uninsured cashiers who earn less than a soldier.
All military and police uniforms are to be looked uppn as warriors and protectors of your kids of up to 50+ years old video war gamers and non military males and females freedom to wear hats backwards.
The bonus paid tp join military and qualify to be a drone pilot is just a few thousands less extra than US medium income, on top of their military salary which was already higher than 49% of american workers, and does not require a student loan to aquire.
No nation on earth has as many many or as highly paid. Spec op assassins who go quietly about their specialty, killing civilians in foreign lands.
So keep killing and help Israel do the same in those foreign lands, we are in a peaceful land and want it to stay that way.
We need them until Jesus comes to thank us for softening up the enemy making his jpb easier
No need to worry here in states. God has beem on US and Israels side at least since shortly after end of korean conflict and be sure to thank a uniform for your freedom.
if you are black or brown skinned or just plain poor and homeless it may just be best to ignore police and let white folk walk towards them while. Smiling widely having a hand pointed at them, you can smile but do not move to quickly around cops or rich white folk.
The two premier terrorist states on the planet are the US & Israel, and we should be behind their sick illegal doctrines based upon racism.land theft and utter greed. We are not safe, and we are not a democracy, or a shining beacon of light on a hill. What we are is deluded, delusional, and deserving of the chaos coming home to roost…Israel is the same..an outlaw country with no relevance to speak of.
I was working on a very similar comment.. Israel seems to me to have lost its soul trying to gain too much of the world & has lost all semblance of humanity. If there is an antichrist for our time, I nominate Netanyahu..
The US, Israel and Australia–in each country outsiders took over native lands and have oppressed the native peoples.
Don’t forget every other society as well.
Common practices in the Americas prior to Europeans: War, cannibalism, slavery.
Is it worse when a European takes land from an Amerindian than when an Amerindian takes land from another Amerindian?
The wars between Amerindians were over tribal superiority, very different from a totally different race, with its sense of religious superiority, coming and taking things over.
Not necessarily different. Amerindians had nations and religions. Tribal hatred can be fierce, and tribes can make themselves look distinct from other tribes.
Imagine encountering the Aztecs or the Caribs.
Europeans had diseases and great numbers in Europe, eventually technological superiority and greater numbers actually here. Europeans were united due to circumstance.
There’s always a loser, and obviously a great many things done by Europeans were wrong. But Amerindians are also fallen humans, just like Europeans.
Sorry, but white (e.g. England, France, Belgium, Holland, Italy) colonization is without parallel in history.
False. It is just recent.
Look at the spread of most any people in the world. You think populations are constant Anyway, every European society is being replaced by foreigners.
Amerindians died from illnesses. Europeans were killed by the Enlightenment.
Look up Genghis Khan. Sargon, the Zulu, China’s recent colonisation of Tibet or how the Chinese became “Han Chinese”, Inca, Ashoka (India). Human social groups expand and contract, as do animal species. Do you think all of these empires “consolidating” conquered nations were homogeneous?
Amerindians were separated by an ocean that hindered, but did not fully prevent travel, until eventually, travel was no longer hindered and the location was more widely known. History.
Will things be any different when it’s India and China sending out colonists? Or, do you believe humanity will suddenly act differently when Europeans are more fully out of power? People will just respect nation-state borders and live in peace like some never-existing utopia that predated European power?
Before Europe came to power, it was raped by Muslims. Kings rise and fall, nations rise and fall, institutions rise and fall. The world changes, but there’s nothing special about Europe and Europe’s history. It’s just more of the same-old human history that has been ongoing and will continue unless and until humanity destroys itself.
I past few hundred years, white colonization is without precedent. Genghis was not a racist, but wanted to rule the entire world.
It was white Christians (Crusaders) who raped/killed Muslims. Check into the conquest of Jerusalem by the Christians….and compare it to what Muslims (Saladin) did when they took it back.
Sorry, but whites do have a sense of superiority.
To the extent that “whites” exist (since the term denoted immunity to chattel slavery, not any particular genetic component, the term has been meaningless in the US since 1865), some of them might have a sense of superiority. Your race essentialism is no different than that of people who claim all African-Americans love watermelon and fried chicken.
White racism is a fact, but they are hardly the only ones who are racist, it’s just that they are more racists than others. Western colonization makes that clear.
Are the Arabs in Libya who reinstated African slavery also bad, or are we only condemning Europeans? Which states in the world hold a different doctrine and would act differently had they the power to do so?
The US misbehaves, but there are plenty of bad people in the world. The US is just powerful enough to exert its evil.
“The bonus paid tp join military and qualify to be a drone pilot is just a few thousands less extra than US medium income, on top of their military salary which was already higher than 49% of american workers, and does not require a student loan to aquire.”
Not to mention the healthcare provided after one leaves the service. Something that a good percentage of people have a difficulty affording. And then you listen to some vets bitch about the prospect of universal healthcare. Only they are deserving.
“Not to mention the healthcare provided after one leaves the service.”
That’s if one has a service-related disability or retires. For someone who just does a hitch and gets out, the only healthcare benefit is the ability to go to the emergency room at a VA hospital if you’re indigent/uninsured.
You can use the VA for more than that. You pay depending on your income level. I get get a wellness checkup yearly which costs me $15. I had a minor out patient surgery that cost me $50. If my income was higher I would have to pay more but still very cheap. So it must be based on income as to whether you are eligible since I only did a 3 year stint and have no service related disabilities.
I’m not sure when you were in, but eligibility has changed over time. I did 10 years in the 1980s and 1990s. I got the “indigent emergency care only” notice after showing up at a VA ER when I thought I’d had a stroke (and had no insurance). They took care of the initial evaluation/medication (it turned out to just be Bell’s Palsy) and told me any further care was my problem.
I was in from 73 thru 76. I applied online when I was about to retire after I found out what COBRA would cost me. There were several levels of what you would have to pay for your care. My projected retirement income put me in the second to lowest category. I recently got a form to fill out to show my income level was still the same to continue my eligibility.
Wow, 4 likes on an antiwar blog for this skreed. In the name of Jesus ?
For me the most remarkable fact is that Iran (like ISIS and the Taliban) always finds new commanders to fill the gaps.
It’s always easy to find new commanders when your fight is against injustice.
Iran should not be mentioned in the same breath as the Taliban or ISIS. Iran is a sovereign country.
“Sovereign country” means the street gang is in full control of the turf it has squatted on and has issued its members fancier colors to wear.
Right, I suppose the libertarian utopia would have no “street gangs” to enforce law…..
Are you suggesting there were no laws enforced prior to 1648?
As a wise man once said…words mean things….a street gang operates outside of the social contract (good or bad as that contract is).
“Social contract” is a utopian fantasy.
Most pop political science is utter bs.
I don’t disagree. But I’m not sure how older pop political science like Belloc is any less utter BS than newer pop political science like Marcuse.
I mean like where Europe rejected Aristotle and what they knew of the past for the Enlightenment. It’s been a disaster. In my experience, every political tradition, no matter the time or culture, is meritorious except for the European Enlightenment. Even Hindus attempting the insane horse sacrifice (Ashvamedha is apparently the term) seem more sensible.
Marcuse is just an anti-European sophist. That’s different. He’s my enemy, but I don’t know that he’s stupid.
Who guards the guardians? Even priests are clearly fallible. Who then can be entrusted with power?
Nations pre-exist the nation-state. Nations held state territory prior to the nation-state, even if Europeans deny this reality.
Europeans say, “our movements are unique, never seen before. We are special.” False. Nothing new under the Sun.
We were talking about “sovereign” nations — the conversion of the overgrown street gangs from hereditary franchises dueling over turf claims of individual chieftains to continuing corporations with mutually recognized territories (“sovereignty” and “borders”). That’s what the Peace of Westphalia brought to the table.
I’m saying, you had nations, city states and other corporations prior to Westphalia. It wasn’t just “King of Kings” like Sargon of Akkad, trying to expand individual power any way they could.
There have been past attempts at borders. Everything doesnt start with Europe. I cant cite it immediately, but I’ve read both Sumerians and Hindu Indians trying to establish borders, reduce conquests.
People have probably been struggling with this sort of issue far into pre-history.
Anarchist/libertarian ideas are nonsense. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong in his comment.
States are a monopoly on force, and there is always an elite in charge. However, I’d agree with you that states can serve their citizenry and can reject the exploitation of outsiders as well. And powers can be balanced to some degree.
Burnham: Balance of power –> Freedom.
Belloc: Christianity –> Freedom.
Both correct.
If a person tries to go vigilante against wrongs committed by Antifa which the state refuses to stop, the state will stop that vigilante. It has the monopoly on force. Anarcho-tyranny.
The Taliban was previously in charge of Afghanistan, with Pakistan’s help.
The theory of constitutional government holds that citizens have a path towards management of their own armed enforcement of the social contract. That this has failed, is no fault of the theory. A street gang is only subject to the laws of survival of the fittest.
The theory is faulty beginning with its assumption of a “social contract” in the first place.
Social contracts come in many forms, from traffic law to genocide. It would be nice if congress were filled with Barbara Lee’s, that it isn’t, is no fault of the Constitution.
A contract has to be agreed to by all who are party to it.
Feel free to name the “social contract” that enjoys such status. A few hundred guys who died two centuries ago had no authority to bind 330 million people today to their “contract.”
Again, our differences will be vocabulary. A social contract, to me, can be established by a despot, enforced and exist until it is replaced. Takes toadies to survive. Social contracts, in large populations, exist tho people are born within them, never having a say in their predicament.
Our difference in opinion here, seems to be that you envision a polity by concensus, or that contract even means consensus.
I tell young people my definition of “relationship”. To me, it means doing things I don’t want to do. If I only did the things I want to do, I won’t have any relationships, plain and simple. So too, social contracts require people to abide by laws they don’t agree with…like, why is it against the law to drive across a red light when noone is around ?
The US constitution has change built in to it’s language. That the US populace can’t be bothered with working to progress that social contract, again, is no fault of the contract, it’s existence or, pitiful history of enactment.
Note on consensus…most protest groups I have been involved with operated under consensus decisions. Organizing groups tended to around 2 dozen people. We understood we were making decisions for people whom did not, or, could not attend meetings. So, was it really consensus? I don’t know, decisions have to be made.
On a lighter note, those bands I attempted to organize within consensus, failed spectacularly. Tho some agreed to the concept, they lied, spectacularly.
“Our difference in opinion here, seems to be that you envision a polity by concensus, or that contract even means consensus.”
I’d say our difference in opinion seems to be that you don’t understand that it’s not about what I “envision” or want. If I point and say “that’s a boulder over there,” it doesn’t follow that what I wish was there instead was a frozen yogurt stand.
#2 “terrorist” leaders are kinda like Star Trek security guards.
That is hilarious.