Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told Congress on Wednesday that the US should be targeting Iran’s Quds Force, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), following a drone attack in Syria that killed a US contractor.
“We do know that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard [Corps], and specifically their Quds Force … that group there is what we need to be targeting, and targeting them very harshly over time, and that’s exactly what we plan on doing,” Milley said, according to Al-Monitor.
The Pentagon said the drone that hit a US base in Syria last week was of “Iranian origin” but provided no evidence for the claim. President Biden ordered airstrikes against facilities the Pentagon said were used by groups affiliated with the IRGC, referring to Shia militias that operate in Syria.
According to Iranian media, Tehran denies that the US targeted facilities aligned with Iran and says the airstrikes hit a “rural development center and a grain center.” The Pentagon later claimed the strikes targeted “two IRGC-Quds Force targets” and estimated at least eight militants were killed in the airstrikes, but said they weren’t Iranian. Other unconfirmed reports put the death toll at 19.
If the US starts targeting Iran’s Quds Force directly, as Milley is suggesting, it could spark a full-blown war with Iran. The US and Iran were brought to the brink of conflict in January 2020 when the Trump administration launched a drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who was the commander of the Quds Force at the time.
The US occupation of eastern Syria always risks sparking a wider war as US bases frequently come under attack. According to the Pentagon, since January 2021, there have been about 80 attacks on US troops in Syria.
The Pentagon claims all of these attacks were “Iran-backed” but never provides evidence for the assertion. Many of the Shia militias operate independently of Tehran, and other groups in Syria would have an interest in attacking US forces, including ISIS, which is an enemy of both the US and Iran and would benefit from stoking a conflict between them.
As the Ukrainian war is drawing down to a negotiation by the disgraced gym instructor on Russia’s terms, it’s time to start another. The defense industry is truly the pig in the DC trough. And it’s sad witnessing blunder after blunder as U.S. is losing its position on world stage.
What blunder? The MIC is making bank!
That’s true, but some of us are looking at the consequence on the entire country.
They think they’re making bank,as did the heads of Nazi Germany’s military industrial complex until they reaped the whirlwind when the red army took Berlin.
I would say the U.S. losing its role as the worlds unipower is a good thing but the demented powers in the west will most likely take us to a world war before they give us their position as the ‘exceptional nation’.
ISIS is as much an enemy of the US as the army is the navy during their ball game. It’s always been a bullshit screen for naked neocolonial theft and domination. Milley is just doing his job as a good little parrot.
This is a policy statement, of a sort that a uniformed officer has no business making.
Milley is way out of line to say it. This is far outside his proper role.
I agree. I feel the same way about every “elected politician” in our government’s “policy” for dragging us to certain death. They are all way out of line. As well as the MSM. We didn’t want WWI or WWII but we still ended up in both exactly the same way we’re going to end up in WWIII.
NA: My thoughts exactly.
It’s almost funny: When Trump was in, Miley felt the need to reassure China he would give them a heads up if he thought he was planning something funny, but with Biden in office, it’s no holds-barred with the mad dog act. A more honest general, Smedley Butler finally saw the light and wrote “War is a Racket” (free on line at Gutenberg). That was 90 years ago- when will Americans wake up to it?- when hamburger is $100/lb?
Our War Party isn’t satisfied with a 2 front war, they want a 3 front war – Russia, China, and Iran.
Oh, h*ll, we have “special” ops going on in 85 countries.
Don’t forget North Korea.
Sorry I don’t see anything new here. The US has as far as I can see, an unaltered interest in fomenting as many wars and insurrections in as many places as possible.
This is not news. Simply put: this is who and what we are.
Or have become
Two World Wars have taught us nothing.
Of course not. We have not had a World War on our soil.
no one will ever get near our soil other than mexican drug cartels
Well, the MIC jokers did learn from Vietnam that no nation is so small that unlimited billions cannot be poured down the rathole to feed the pigs at the trough- and while 60,000 dead young boys finally brought that to an end, they have figured out how to keep the game going in Ukraine without getting GI’s killed. It actually may take Americans setting themselves on fire like Buddhist monks to draw some attention to this fact.
“it’s been 2 whole weeks since i killed me a man…”
The man must be up at all hours of the night looking for some new place to start a war.
Those bags under his eyes would be testament to that. It looks like you could store some tactical nukes in those things.
You’d think it would be difficult to talk about Ukraine’s sovereignty when we are claiming self-defense in a sovereign country on the other side of the world who has made it known that we are not welcomed. You’d think.
Is that an irony?
You’d think.
there should be a new political party – the Irony Party.
separate from the 3rd “Independent Party” which is ineffectual at best. the Irony Party could actually win by simply pointing out the foolishness and even malevolence of the other 3 parties.
John Stewart could easily be a POTUS if he wanted to .
lol.
But this is different. It’s being proposed for made up reasons.
The operative part of that is ‘you would think’, something I’m not sure of which Our Dear Leader and his posse do very often.
Willy Milley is running out of places to bomb, and need new wars, to justify the pentagon’s budget.
The US Air Force announced that the Lockheed Martin hypersonic weapons program would be terminated due to test failures. The defense contractor also faces significant software delays for its stealth fighter jets.
Dont panic though they have already been showered with vast amounts of coin for their failures. It would appear that their ability to develop and produce cutting-edge weaponry is encountering difficulties.
I am sure Russia can sell them some. Oh wait…..maybe not.
Dave, please send this paragraph to the pathetic Pentagon…!
They know.
I know. I was hoping sending such statements from people and journalists could turn off Pentagon ignorance for a while…!
The solution is simple: get the f*ck out of Syria and there will be no more dead “contractors”!
!!!
Can you believe they refer to them as “contractors” as if they had visas to enter Syria and conduct business there. But where are Congressional leaders standing up to say that with troops stationed there, we are engaged in bald-faced undeclared war, in which Geneva convention protections for P.O.W.’s, for example do not apply.
Milley Says the US Should Attack Iran’s IRGC Quds Force (because) The Pentagon said the drone that hit a US base in Syria last week was of “Iranian origin” (but provided no evidence for the claim.)
following that logic, russia should attack the US for providing drones and munitions to ukraine
And not just Russia. The list is looooong.
Milley makes Jeffery Dahmer look like Mr.Rogers. Send him to Ukraine so the Russians can give him a special welcome.
Evidence free babble by our top military officials. How reassuring.
We are all Netanyahu now, screams the neocon chorus. Let’s bomb someone, anyone. Because we are mad. We huf and puf. But Russia is still there. And with just one finger (with additional helpbfrom pinky) holds NATO powered Ukraine stuck in place.
Let’s take it out on Iran. And Saydis will pay for perfidious behavior. And India, and China, and Mexico, and, and everyone. We are mad, real mad.
I learned a new word today: Perfidious. 🙂
“Milley Says the US Should Attack Iran’s IRGC Quds Force”
War in Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and proxy war in Ukraine. Next is China and then where?
Insane America!
And we have learned since then that it was Israel that demanded that Soleimani be killed. Is anyone surprised?
For the crime of organizing militias that beat back ISIS. The Izzies wanted ISIS to destroy Syria, which is pro-Palestinian. ISIS shelled Palestinian neighborhoods in Damascus, as they opposed the Islamists. When ISIS accidentally shelled Israel once, they apologized.
The man is a jackass. Military grunts should be seen and not heard. They are not public figures. They are not policy makers nor are they people who should place themselves in a position to be commenting on policy. Blabbermouth.
I always enjoy your sense of reasoning OB, always.
The worst thing is he knows it. He is a miserable puppet on a string.
Might want to rethink that strategy, Millie- with Iran and the Saudis getting friendly, Riyadh just might take offense to their new found friends being attacked. A few spigots turned off and oil prices skyrocket in the US.
https://media0.giphy.com/media/fpXxIjftmkk9y/giphy.gif
“The Pentagon claims all of these attacks were “Iran-backed” but never provides evidence for the assertion….”
what the pentagon says/claims is irrelevant – the US is in Syria illegally and so everything that it does in Syria, regardless of any so-called USA intention or motivation, is a war crime and/or a crime against humanity. That’s the end of the story.
and the occupied peoples of Syria have every right to resist/attack and force out the aggressor and its imperial ‘allies’
With Biden and Milley in charge, what could go wrong? Just put Buttigieg in charge of the logistics of weaponry and Kamala in charge of PR to ensure “success”.
The Russian MOD is fighting a very successful war of attrition disarming NATO (Ukraine was disarmed in March 2022), tank by tank, artillery by artillery, air defense by air defense. Russia now will fight NATO to the last European.
NATO overall has accumulated the following equipment losses;
404 Aircraft, 227 helicopters, 3622 UAV’s, 415 Anti Aircraft systems, 8472 tanks inc. APC’s, 1076 multiple rocket launchers, 4462 rocket launchers and 9199 military automotive equipment.
What the empire looses in the Ukraine, they loose for the final Russian attack on NATO. Remember Russia attacked Ukraine just as NATO was about to unleash in the Donbass. Russia has shown they will pre-emptively attack to defend the Motherland when the time is dictated by events on the ground.
One of the world’s top scholars on Ukraine-related issues, Ivan Katchanovski a Ukrainian-Canadian political scientist at the University of Ottawa, had tabled overwhelming evidence to show that the Maidan protesters were killed by pro-coup snipers. operatives firing from protester-occupied buildings. This of course was suppressed.
The murder of over 50 protesters and police triggered the downfall of President Viktor Yanukovych. Brian Christopher Boyenger a US sniper ran a NATO covert operation out of the Ukraina Hotel. This NATO covert operation was responsible for the mass murder in the Maidan protests.
Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland must be arrested and stand trial for their many many crimes against humanity of which the Maidan mass murder was one example of huge number of war crimes.