The US launched another round of airstrikes in Iraq on Tuesday as tensions continue to soar in the region.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the strikes targeted three facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah and other “Iranian-affiliated groups,” referring to Iraqi Shia militias.
A correspondent for Al Mayadeen said the strikes targeted positions of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in several areas. The PMF is a coalition of Iraqi militias that was formed in 2014 to fight ISIS and is part of Iraq’s security forces. The correspondent said strikes on Jurf al-Nasr, a town south of Baghdad, killed at least two people.
Austin said the strikes were in retaliation for attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria that started in mid-October in response to President Biden’s support for the Israeli slaughter in Gaza. He claimed the US does not “seek to escalate the conflict in the region.” But the US has launched several rounds of airstrikes in both Iraq and Syria that have only escalated the situation.
The Iraqi government of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, the US’s supposed partner in Iraq, has been furious with the US over the airstrikes. Al-Sudani has been calling for the US-led coalition in Iraq to leave, but there’s no sign the Biden administration is preparing for a withdrawal.
US forces in Iraq and Syria have come under attack over 140 times since October, and about 70 US troops have been injured. No US soldiers have died so far, but The New York Times reported on Sunday that President Biden and his top aides believe it’s just a matter of time before Americans start dying.
The Times report said that if an American is killed, President Biden will likely attack Iran directly even though Tehran has denied it’s involved in the attacks and the US has shown no evidence that the Iranians are directing the operations.
But if we leave who’s gonna bomb people?
USM’s speciality -weddings.
And funeral processions………………and anything in between.
Yes, … so long as their defenceless.
“We”? Leave me out of this murder mafia! If the USA “leaves” it will just create another “terrorist” group, unleash it on Iraq, and intervene to fight “terrorism”. Not until there is a legal plateau akin to Nuremburg will these war criminals ever be held accountable to the human race!
Wow, well at least the Americans and the Iranians can agree on something, “let’s bomb Iraq”!
Lets not.
The time is ripe for Iraq to form a regional alliance. It’s never to late to exercise for good health.
When the entire world unites against the US and Israel these two pariahs will have a come to Jesus moment but it will be much to late. The damage is done.
It’s their money they are worried about, otherwise, they’d have kicked our sorry asses to the curb a long time ago. But we have threatened to beggar them like Afghanis, so they are grudgingly standing pat.
Shows again not to put your nation’s money in $$$ if you can help it …
Does Iraq have a bunch of dollars the US won’t let go of? Otherwise Dilma Rousseff is now president of the BRICS New Development Bank in Shanghai and I’m guessing she would help of she can.
Their reserves and central banks are controlled by the US … there would be financial chaos is we closed their access to (their own) money.
But at some point they will have to bite the bullet and let go.
Qatar is holding the rest of the money that is Iran’s. I keep asking myself….why?
And it’s impossible to think the US wouldn’t cut them off. I’d be shocked if they haven’t already got the word.
Swarm the Al Assad air base and the US embassy in Baghdad. Use non-lethal methods to the extent possible so as to minimize injuries and deaths to American personnel. Take them all prisoner and then trade the American personnel for the dollars currently held captive in American banks.
Messy for sure, but this would get them out of the US occupation and Iraqi-reserves-held-captive bind that they are currently in.
This conflict and constant bombing of other countries must stop before it goes Nuclear not that Biden and his cronies give a damn.
Wise words Wendell. I am really glad we have sound voices such as yours!!!
We have many voices but no power.Sometimes be I feel we are pissing into the wind but we must not stop.
War is nothing else besides good business for the US but not so for those where bombs are landing. karma can be and will be a bitch when it lands on the US and Israel.
Get out of Iraq now! To bad the antiwar movement died after Obama was elected.
I don’t recall much of one before he was elected.
At least the msm begrudgingly reported the lies. Now they only promote them.
Well, they feed at the most easily accessed trough.
I mean there was an antiwar movement, but unfortunately it was one that was based on partisan politics and not any true antiwar convictions.
Code Pink was just as hard on Obama as they were on Bush.
Yes they were, but most “liberal” Americans take their cues from the MSM not Code Pink. Now if NPR told them to get in the street and put on some pussy hats or say burn down a police station then we might see some movement.
I recall the frequent polling of the manipulation of public opinion. They needed a better than 50% of public support to go to war in spring before the hot summer. They made it, they invaded in March and it was a military cake walk as expected and after that total disaster for Iraq.
Americans are too complacent, too naive. We have not had the pleasure of having 2,000 lb bombs dropped on our cities, or our cities fire bombed, or nuked to rubble. All most Americas care about is their cable bill, the menu at Denny’s restaurant, is the weather nice enough for a drive to the beach.
This. A very important, if not most important part of our abject ignorance and carelessness, is the fact that we’re never on the receiving end.
And we do have a controlled press.
England has been on the recieving end and their govt supports this crap
Please don’t forget Point Spreads and Pornography.
It was after 9,11 and WMDs and the iraq thing,
People did not like the war, it was infavoralbe amongst a lot of people and we wanted out of the whole mire
Obama then ran on “Hope and Change” It was a generic play that made no explicit detail, He got elected and nothing changed except no one could find a 40 hour a week job anymore because employers didnt want to give health care and people got taxed for not having it. Meanwhile bushes downwind reletive made a big buisness in healthcare and the dems got richer on the stock market play
Originally the whole “hope and change” thing was a play on the peoples distaste for being in iraq post 9,11 and no sign of getting back home and back to normal.
Biden is working extra hard to start another war with every passing day. I think he’s going to succeed. I hope he’s not elected as the President who succeeded in starting the most wars in their first term!
All true, but Biden is only continuing what all the others before him started. American bases’ in Iraq are the provocations Bush left behind.
Biden will finish the job the Reagan neocons started, the total destruction of Europe and the ME and with it the USA.
The alternative is Mr. Trump. In the last election, in 2020, Nina Turner said it best when she said the choice is like eating half a plate of sh*t. It is still sh*t. So the government we have received from our pulling the lever to elect did not change anything (just as Biden said “nothing would fundamentally change”), things just got worse. There is no way we can vote out the MIC, CIA, AIPAC, Big Banks. I hate to be a pessimist, but I really cannot help it. Orwell was right.
Only candidates vetted and approved by the political establishment and the CIA can be elected. That goes for all democracies in Europe. How else could we get all the Zelensky marionettes?
Biden is working extra hard to read the script without wandering
“ He claimed the US does not seek to “escalate the conflict in the region.”
And by that, Lloyd meant that as long as the US can squat on Iraqi land and no one is foolish enough to have a problem with that, there will be no escalation.
The accomplishment of the American political establishment including the neocon controlled presidents will be total destruction of everything they touch.
They deindustrialized the USA first then Germany and the EU and now NATO is next. They are looking how to provoke Russia to attack Europe, NATO, the new reason for the Europeans to buy more weapons from the American MIC. The American neocons are the most deceitful people.
Biden ” believe it’s just a matter of time before Americans start dying.”
The sooner the better, he keeps thinking.
US forces have no business in Syria and Iraq. But the Americans want more war, that is all they know as long as other people get killed. It is profitable business for them.
The skullduggery of the American and Israeli scum has no equal.
They are the poor victims, always.
The yanks threatened to with draw financial help for Iraq if they are forced to leave , my advice to the Iraqi government is seek financial help from Russia / China and kick the yanks out .
Put unwelcome military forces in hostile areas, get the defensive attacks, and then claim self defense. That seems to be our m.o. We’re just poor innocent bystanders just doing “good” against all that “evil”.
And, the people lap that forever recipe to fuel the Complex.
Pretty much it. We know we are not welcome. We know there will be problems. The lie is we are there to defend our “interests”. It would be interesting if Russia were to swarm into Alaska, set up shop, then tell us they were duped into selling for the price paid, and they want it back. Would we then bomb the crap out of Alaska to defend our “interests” there?
The Biden administration screeches about sovereignty of countries, then the two faced *ss hat says we are not going to abide by the request of the sovereign country of Iraq when the Iraqi administration tells the U.S. to get the f*ck out of there.
Hey, we’re The Hegemon, and anybody who doesn’t like it can die.
“Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the strikes targeted three facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah and other ‘Iranian-affiliated groups,’ referring to Iraqi Shia militias.”
Imagine how much world munitions production would have to increase if other countries went around bombing “American-affiliated groups,” such as the armies of the despots we prop up and enable in the Middle East.
I dare Biden attack Iran directly…!
I wouldnt doubt in the possibility that an American has already been killed somewhere in Iraq.
The days of US or any other kind of hegemonic rule are over. Period. We must utilize a true, long, lasting PEACE, to sustain ALL of us. We are moving beyond Earth NOW and in order to do that, we do it PEACEFULLY or there will not be much of a world left! I get mad at Israel and the US but I love you very, very much. Utilize Peace and you guys save ALL our asses!
Upvote Donna, but for me personally, I doubt if any significant number of “we” will ever leave mother earth … we are tied to our home by bonds that can’t be broken.
That ship sailed long,long ago. The creation of the Frankenstein that was the OSS, then the CIA, plus the additin of the power of the MIC sealed that fate. Add the power (and the fear by congress of) AIPAC, and you have the recipe for authoritarian rule, not by our elected representatives who shill for the money just to gain a position to look like they are doing their best for us. A sick carnival of lies.