By Caitlin Johnstone
The US is again illegally bombing nations on the other side of the planet which it has invaded and occupied and branded this murderous aggression as “defensive”.
“At President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region,” reads a statement by Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby. “The targets were selected because these facilities are utilized by Iran-backed militias that are engaged in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks against U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq. Specifically, the U.S. strikes targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq, both of which lie close to the border between those countries.”
Even more absurd than the fact that we’re all still pretending this clearly dementia-addled president is “directing” anything is the claim that these actions were “defensive” in nature. It is not possible for occupying invaders to be acting defensively in the nations they are occupying an invading; US troops are only in Iraq by way of an illegal 2003 invasion, a bogus 2014 re-entry, and a refusal to leave at the Iraqi government’s request last year, and they are in Syria illegally and without the permission of the Syrian government. They can therefore only ever be aggressors; they cannot be acting defensively.
It’s like if you broke into your neighbor’s house to rob him, killed him when he tried to stop you, and then claimed self-defense because you consider his home your property. Only in the American exceptionalist alternate universe is this considered normal and acceptable.
The only actual defensive action that the US could legitimately take to protect troops in Iraq and Syria would be to remove US troops from Iraq and Syria.
[…]
As former US representative Justin Amash pointed out following the bombing, there is no actual legal authorization for US troops to be in Iraq or Syria in the first place. As journalist Glenn Greenwald highlighted, there is also no legal basis for bombings on the military personnel in those nations either, no matter how “Iranian-backed” they are.
“I know it’s boring to note this but Biden has no legal authorization to bomb ‘Iranian-backed’ targets in Syria and Iraq, making it illegal,” Greenwald tweeted, adding, “But Obama bombed Libya after the House voted against doing so, and few of the Sacred Rule Of Law mavens cared.”
The legal justification the Biden administration is using for this airstrike is the same bogus one it used for its airstrikes in Syria this past February: not counter-terrorism, but an extremely weird and broad interpretation of Article II of the US Constitution.
[…]
The Most Revolutionary Act 
Ha . . . 😦
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Unfortunately, Aunty, I’m afraid the American people are the only ones who can stop this insanity.
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Ah, but my wife’s liberal friends assured me that Uncle Joe would end the war. They did, and so did others, with such vitriol. If only we grasped irony as a country on the whole.
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Someone should have told them that it was Joe Biden who managed Obama’s foreign policy for him – and started the illegal war in Syria in the first place.
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They don’t believe me. 🙂 After a time, I won’t lie to you, I stopped fighting certain folks about it. Now I heckle. It’s what the law allows, sad to say. But the hypocrisy is astounding, as well as lack of appreciation of irony.
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Since War is Money, we can look forward to more… I hate that I have come to that conclusion!
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Deb, I believe the only thing that will end this insanity is the collapse of the US dollar. And with more and more nations selling off their dollars, I believe that is fairly imminent.
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I agree that the Ponzi dollar is so inflated that it is ready to burst. China and Russia seem to be figuring this out, thus the demonization of those two countries by vested US interests.
War is only money in a barbaric world. The US empire is founded on hubris, and the humiliation of its collapse should be cleansing. Grow food, if you can find un-poisoned soil, air, and water
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The dollar isn’t the only aspect of the US that is going bust, Katherine. So is the infrastructure, social fabric and, ironically, the military. The US military is so weakened now (in terms of troop discipline and skill) that they can no longer win any war anywhere – not even a nuclear war. All they can do now is bombing and rhetoric. They’re like violent anarchists breaking windows.
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