Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told CNN on Monday that he was drawing up an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) against Hamas, Hezbollah, and other groups in the region if the Gaza war escalates.
“I hope I never have to mark this bill up. But we have a situation in the Middle East that’s growing day by day with intensity and if Hezbollah gets involved, Iran has already threatened if Gaza is, you know, if Israel goes, you know, if IDF (Israel Defense Forces) goes into Gaza that they’re gonna come out,” McCaul said.
When asked if the White House requested the authorization, McCaul wouldn’t say. “I don’t want to confirm that. It’s just that there is concern that — we, I’m currently, we’re currently drafting one in the event it’s necessary,” he said.
McCaul said the AUMF he’s working on would apply to Iran as well if Tehran enters the fighting. “I’d prefer not to put Iran as a nation-state in there. It would be more Iran proxies, you know, like Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran-backed Shia militias, but if Iran gets directly involved, then we would have to put them on the list,” he said.
The US has deployed a huge amount of firepower near Israel, including two aircraft carrier strike groups. The Biden administration has said the purpose of the deployments is to “deter” regional actors from entering the war, implying that the US would directly enter the conflict if Hezbollah launched a significant attack on Israel.
Correction, last paragraph, word missing: a significant what?
i would add the word “retaliatory” =
“…. if Hezbollah launched a significant retaliatory strike on Israel. ”
hey, DeCamp, fixed it for ya. look at me, i’m a writer too!
As America should. “Never Again” is more than a slogan, it is about making sure the largest and most horrendous genocide in human history is never again repeated, with this week’s violence and terrorism against the state of Israel further underscoring its importance in the “modern world”. The world has come together to condemn Hamas’s unjustifiable terrorism and support Israel, and we can only wish the brave souls of the Israeli Defense Forces godspeed in their mission. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5eaeb7f3581163d19c3db26247664d2339e86d9df360fe193865e209222a4f90.jpg
She knows about the 75 years of occupation, raids, children killed, bombing, potable water shut off, electricity shut off. She is one of the indoctrinated to not consider Palestinians children as being human. F*k her!!
How can the state of Israel “ …not consider “Palestinians”… as being human” because of its counter-terrorism and anti-genocide operations that take every reasonable measure to reduce civilian casualties while the actual “Palestinian” pseudo-governments can openly call for the genocide of the Jewish people and commit, fund, and support violent acts of terrorism to further this goal? The recent statement by one of the Defense Ministers has also continued to not be valid, as in context he was clearly talking about Hamas. But thats great! So I guess you’d be fine with Canada hypothetically launching missile terrorism and cross border genocide against the U.S. and leveling cities like New York because they were “close to the border”. And if you feel bad about any of the people who might die, you shouldn’t, because Canada wont accept the oppression of the 45th parallel! As well as the lack of political representation in the Quint! We must extrapolate the isolated incident of Tarnak Farms into an indictment against the entire American state! I’m going to have to end this hypothetical here, as in the real world the U.S. would absolutely crush Canada militarily (Israel has underperformed in some combat aspects), but you need to understand that this not a logical path you want to go down. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b5e27ae5f9e2c99aed565c7eada089e9cef8306dcad167ad405d2de6cef0152c.jpg
If Canada had put the 300 million of us all into Arizona, surrounded it with soldiers and wire, and choked the life out of it for 57 years, we may have something to contemplate …
If Canada had actually committed actions along those lines, Arizona would probably not be a very “fun” place to live in. However, minor political disputes can be settled without large scale atrocities and deaths of innocent civilians, and any movements that attempt to use these tactics for their political goals and policies immediately cease to be legitimate political entities.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/105a53d1c625e875b9e4edadbcf2060a511476cd0ee570ff3d385a9654cbe207.jpg
eat sh-t and die.
I think you will find after this latest last little massacre that Israels support among American Jews might be taking a bit of a hit.
If your referring to false claims about the hospital explosion being due to IDF operations, you’ll find this was not true.
False claims?
You’re a filthy blood soaked liar!
the brave souls of the Israeli Defense
Keep saying that and I’ll keep posting this:
Forces:https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/98ebb18320140836a9f9ae9fbbbbe226877810dc5f258458df33ac555f6a06e2.jpg?w=320&h=247
Once more then:
Why should isolated individual cases of violence and/or extremism be an indictment against the state of Israel while the actual “Palestinian” pseudo-governments can openly call for the genocide of the Jewish people and commit, fund, and support violent acts of terrorism to further this goal. This is a deliberate distortion and should be treated as such.
Israel is not being condemned primarily ” isolated individual cases of violence .”
It’s being condemned for 75 years of mass murder against Palestinians.
Thats great. Surely if your going to repeat such an assertion so many times you must have some pretty good evidence to back it up though, right? Just wondering if we’re ever going to get it…
The mass murder is ongoing.
Of the more than 3,000 killed and 12,000 injured in Gaza, 70% are children, women and the elderly, said Dr. Ashraf al-Qudra, a spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israel-gaza-live-updates-dod-says-islamic-jihad-responsible-for-hospital-blast/ar-AA1ipWbl?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=NMTS&cvid=f9481e076b6846bdae32df5eac22b530&ei=26
Okay, why would the Israeli military target areas that could cause civilian casualties (I do find it particularly ironic the article you cite begins with disproving a false claim of Israeli strikes against “Palestinians”)? Perhaps the non-representative (barely half of the population of Gaza supported a statement of attacking Israel) illegitimate Hamas terrorist organization hides its weapons, equipment and personnel in civilian infrastructure oftentimes through either coercion or without consent in order to influence the media and the general world. Israeli governmental policy toward “Palestinian Resistance” has taken every possible step toward “reconciliation” and general de-escalation, with Israeli security forces even pulling out of Gaza, granting the region effective self-government, their ostensible goal, yet terrorist attacks and calls for genocide from these organizations did not cease. Israeli Security Forces routinely allow children hoping for “martyrdom” to attack their tanks and personnel, strikes against known terrorists use special forces instead of explosives for fear of civilian casualties, something that results in far more military casualties, yet this muted response wouldn’t qualify as self-defense? If killing were truly the reasons for this conflict, wouldn’t the conflict cease when Hamas became the de-facto government in Gaza and gained control of the entire territory of Gaza without an Israeli Security presence? But I guess you can only condemn violence when it goes one way, right?
“Israeli governmental policy toward “Palestinian Resistance” has taken every possible step toward reconciliation.
Does that include blockading Gaza and turning it into an open air prison?
” the article you cite begins with disproving a false claim of Israeli strikes against “Palestinians”)?”
No it states that the DOD rejected those claims. Israel lies and the US swears to it.
And what’s with Palestinians in parenthesis.
Are you one of those Zionists that denies the existence of the Palestinian people?
I don’t particularly believe in “ethnic groups”, as when you look at human genetics the artificial barriers between people tend to break down, but I do disagree with the “justification” of using a “Palestinian” state to support crimes against humanity directed against Israel. As for your “open-air prison” comment, you clearly don’t know what your talking about, as most prisoners would be very jealous of a prison without any substantial security presence from the people “keeping them in there” or something and only occasionally filtering out the worst types of weapons from between the prison and the outside world. You don’t have to believe the U.S. government on everything, they have famously made mistakes on the existence of WMDs in Iraq (although that was mainly Dick Cheney’s fault and not the wider intelligence community), but you noticeably don’t particularly seem to have any other credible sources of information so good luck!
I supported Israel in my youth as my family was pro-Israel. In the ’80’s I was involved in Peace Now.
It was only with the election of Ariel Sharon that I joined the anti-Zionist camp. Events in Palestine since then have only strengthened my anti-Zionist convictions.
My primary political strategy is to organize around ending US aid to Israel. As the older, far more Zionist baby boomers leave the scene, that will become a much more obtainable goal.
I am not ant-J-wish. I have far more J friends than Arab friends.
To me, opposing aid to Israel is one facet of opposing US militarism and imperialism.
Quite interesting.
Quit trying to avoid moderation with wordplay to obfuscate the string “Jew” or you’re gone.
BTW, I respect what this website does and do not wish to tarnish it in any way.
Peace Now!
Well, moderation time can be quite lengthy and that disrupts the flow of the discussion.
I have never written a hateful, bigoted or callous comment about “Jews” in my life, and never plan to.
I will honor your request, slugger };-)> but I would ask, have I used the term in any objectionable way whatsoever so far?
Antiwar.com chose to put that word and variants of it in “auto-moderation” status before I came along as a moderator, so not my call. It would honestly be easier for me to have them all go up and just delete the ones that violate our guidelines than to have to manually approve every last non-guidelines-violating comment that includes the word. I mean, I have to read every last comment anyway. But attempting to get around the moderation scheme with little tricks is itself a violation of the guidelines that it’s my job to enforce.
Damn, I’m meta violating the rules again
I’ll try to stop };-)>
Palestinian in quotes again, aye?
Are you denying the existence of Palestinians again. Not surprising that a psycho also insinuates genocidal ideation.
Zionists believe that some lives are more valuable than others.
Zionism is a racist supremacist ideology.
Oh no, not another unsupported statement. What an absolutely devastating reply that completely eviscerated the substantive points I’ve made. I guess I’m going to have to figure out how to support the “Palestinian” militant and terrorist organizations after reading your comments, but so far I’m having trouble finding any evidence they care about either civilian casualties or preventing genocide…
You made no substantive points. You never provide any sources or cites for your vile Zionist proclamations.
Now you try to fault Palestinians for the Israeli mass murder occurring in Gaza.
Your views are disgusting and brutal racism.
I clearly cite sources against you (reader context – in an exchange below this, I don’t particularly feel like transferring them all here), but even if I hadn’t your claims here are all unsupported and questionable analysis. But if we can do that let me try:
Your writing unsupported accusations and claims against the Jewish state in their legitimate and justified self-defense counter-terrorism and anti-genocide operations. And the best part is you can’t ever prove me wrong because I don’t ever have to cite any sources or prove any of my assertions, so I guess you’ll just have to live with that forever…
The big problem today is anti-Palestinianism not antisemitism.
Amidst death, destruction, human suffering and horror these are words many people will not want to hear, but they are true, nonetheless.
Most of the world has long seen the solution to the problem of Israeli-Palestinian conflict as two states or, more recently, one secular state for all the people who live on the land that Israel now controls. Most of the world recognizes that the lack of national rights and unfair, unequal treatment of Palestinians motivates resistance to Israel. But rather than progress to some such solution, the past decades have seen the exact opposite. Why?
Deeply embedded racism against Palestinians is one obvious answer. For supporters of a “Jewish state” Palestinians are an obstacle, the “other” preventing the fulfillment of a Zionist dream of “greater Israel”.
What’s growing day-by-day are the war crimes Israel’s committing accompanied by WW protests from Jakarta to Harvey, LA.
It doesn’t bode well for the “New Middle East;” maybe Netanyahu should have waited to color the West Bank and Gaza a part of Israel.
How much has Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) been paid or promised by Israel from the 10 billion it has requested? America sends dole to the beggar .Beggar gives some back to bribe the politicians .
Would that include a no-fly zone really the only conceivable reason for sending aircraft carriers.
Dear American parent,
Get your body bag ready if your child is deployed to the hell hole called the ME. Your child will be sacrificed and die in misery and unnecessarily in a far off land that has nothing to do with your country’s security. Should your loved one become a victim on the battlefield like your predecessors in Vietnam you will be lied to by a callous and uncaring government about the circumstances surrounding your child’s demise.
Sincerely,
History repeating itself
It just occurred to me that the Middle East plus Afghanistan and Pakistan is the current Colosseum in which these states are the gladiators and President Biden is the Caesar who can signal thumbs up or thumbs down. Nothing has changed. Amazing.
.. and Iran. They have been desperately seeking war with Iran for over four decades now, 1979-2023 is 44 years.
Neocon McCaul never started a war he didn’t love. The neocons have been dreaming of the day they had an excuse to bomb Syria and Iran once again. Most of the world, including Russia and China, are seeking ways to dial down this conflict. The good ole USA, instead, is throwing gasoline on the fire. What a disgusting country!
Load your gun and book a flight Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX).
These Israel first politicians should volunteer their kids to go die for the Zionists.
Would somebody tell this clown that he represents Texas, not Israel.
Fuck Isreal and the neocons and zionist supporters. No one should join the military because you won’t die for our country but will die for the evil Zionist! I stand with Russia and Palistine. Fuck Ukraine and most of all fuck Isreal!