US approves plan to bomb Iraq and Syria
Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
The country approved plans to widen the scope of the regional war originating in Israel’s genocide in Gaza
Following an attack by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq against US foreign outpost “Tower 22”, which killed three US soldiers stationed near the Syria-Jordan border, the United States has approved plans for a multi-day strike against Iraq and Syria.
The death of three US troops, the first casualties among US forces in a widening conflict in West Asia, drew attention to the hundreds of US military bases and outposts spread throughout the world.
In confirming responsibility for the attack, an Islamic Resistance official declared, “If the United States continues to support ‘israel,’ there will be an escalation.” and that “All American interests in the region are legitimate targets.”
The United States is using the strikes as a way to continue to blame Iran for the wider resistance in West Asia. The strikes will purportedly be against “Iranian targets.” Resistance organizations such as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq are frequently accused of being Iranian “proxies” by US officials and in the mainstream press.
Contrary to seeking peace for the hundreds of thousands being slaughtered in Gaza, the United States and the Western world have continually chased escalation. Earlier in January, the US and the UK began an airstrike campaign against Yemen, in retaliation against the nation’s casualty-free blockade of the Red Sea, which Yemeni forces claim to be carrying out in solidarity in Gaza. The only deaths surrounding the blockade have been suffered by Yemenis, and have been as a result of the US and UK’s bombing campaign.
The United States and several Western nations have also directly worsened the plight of Gazans by cutting all their funding to the UNRWA, due to dubious accusations made by Israel that some UNRWA were involved in the October 7 operation.
Original article republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.
US, UK Bomb Yemeni Capital as Part of ‘Sustained’ Attack on Houthis
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“The U.S. just bombed Yemen again,” the peace group CodePink noted. “The U.S. is illegally attacking Yemen so Israel can continue illegally attacking Gaza.”
Anti-war voices on Monday condemned the start of what appeared to be the “sustained” assault on Yemen by U.S. and U.K. forces that top Biden administration officials have reportedly been planning—without congressional approval—in a bid to stop Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping.
“The U.S. just bombed Yemen again,” the peace group CodePink lamented on social media. “The U.S. is illegally attacking Yemen so Israel can continue illegally attacking Gaza.”
The intensified attacks on Yemen—an impoverished nation reeling from a decade of civil war and U.S.-backed Saudi-led airstrikes—come amid Israel’s 108-day assault on Gaza, which has killed over 25,000 people and drawn a response from the Houthis in the form of largely ineffective missile and drone strikes.
“Today, the militaries of the United States and United Kingdom, at the direction of their respective governments with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, and the Netherlands, conducted an additional round of proportionate and necessary strikes against eight Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the Houthis’ continued attacks against international and commercial shipping as well as naval vessels transiting the Red Sea,” a joint statement from those six nations explained.
“These precision strikes are intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade and the lives of innocent mariners, and are in response to a series of illegal, dangerous, and destabilizing Houthi actions since our coalition strikes on January 11, including anti-ship ballistic missile and unmanned aerial system attacks that struck two U.S.-owned merchant vessels,” the statement continued.
According to the six countries, Monday’s attacks “specifically targeted a Houthi underground storage site and locations associated with the Houthis’ missile and air surveillance capabilities.”
Fatik Al-Rodaini, a Yemeni journalist and human rights activist who founded the charity Mona Relief, reported on social media that “massive explosions have been heard loudly in the capital Sanaa,” while multiple videos published online showed large explosions rocking the city, raising fears of civilian casualties.
Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti vowed on social media Monday that “the American-British aggression will only increase the Yemeni people’s determination to carry out their moral and humanitarian responsibilities towards the oppressed in Gaza.”
“The war today is between Yemen, which is struggling to stop the crimes of genocide, and the American-British coalition to support and protect its perpetrators,” he added. “Thus, every party or individual in this world is faced with two choices that have no thirds: either to preserve its humanity and stand with Yemen, or to lose it and stand with the American-British alliance.”
Asked last week if bombing Yemen was working, U.S. President Joe Biden—an ardent supporter of Israel’s assault on Gaza—replied: “Well, when you say ‘working,’ are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.”
Some Biden administration officials have said it may take weeks or even months to stop Houthi attacks on Israeli-linked commerce. U.S. bombardment is nothing new to Yemenis, who have suffered American air and drone strikes—as well as occasional ground raids like the one in which 8-year-old Yemeni American Nawar al-Awlaki was killed—since the George W. Bush administration.
According to the U.K.-based monitor Airwars, U.S. forces have killed an estimated 154-273 Yemeni civilians in 181 declared actions since 2002.
In an article published by The Nation Monday, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) asserted that “President Biden has both the constitutional obligation and a political imperative to seek congressional authorization” for attacking Yemen.
“To be sure, the president is afforded the authority under the Constitution and the War Powers Act to repel a sudden Houthi attack on the United States, its territories, possessions, or its armed forces, in the narrow case where self-defense requires immediate action,” the congressman added. “But in the absence of such a national emergency, the president must seek authorization from Congress.”
The online activist group RootsAction weighed in on the latest U.S. war—which Biden administration officials won’t admit is one—by accusing the president of seeking to “starve the region’s poorest country.”
“Joe Biden is starting a war on Yemen with no exit plan. Just more forever wars that no one wants,” the group said. “The Democratic Party expects us to vote for this in November?”
Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
- Biden Urged To Reject Military Attack On Yemen As Red Sea Tensions Soar ›
- Amid Fears Of Wider War, US Reportedly Drafting Plans To Bomb Yemen ›
- ‘This Is Illegal’: US Lawmakers Slam Strikes On Yemen ›
- Biden Admits Bombing Yemen Isn’t Working, But Says US Will Continue Anyway ›
- Fears Of Wider War As US, UK Bomb Yemen ›
- US-UK Strikes On Yemen Prove No Lessons Learned ›
Morning Star: As the general election looms, the left has choices to make
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-left-and-election
2024 is almost certainly a general election year. Westminster rumours of a May poll are rife, but the autumn remains the more likely option for beleaguered premier Rishi Sunak.
An essential function of a democratic election is to offer the possibility of a change of government. The forthcoming contest, however, seems to offer little more than a shift in administrators of the same anti-popular policy.
The problem facing voters wanting significant change — the majority of the electorate one can assume — is the state of the Labour Party. On the most pressing international issues — Palestine and Ukraine — its policy is identical with the Tories: war and more war, as Washington directs.
Domestically its priority is sticking within the narrow parameters of Treasury orthodoxy. Anything involving spending public money is, even after 13 years of austerity, ruled out. So too tax rises on the rich.
The Green New Deal is diluted further by the day, and privatisation looks like extending its tentacles into the NHS.
Even more positive Labour policies, like extending trade union rights, are clouded by a scepticism as to Keir Starmer’s sincerity, given his well-earned reputation for dissimulation and double-dealing.
…
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-left-and-election
Meet the Companies Profiting From Israel’s War on Gaza
Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“As global resistance to war and apartheid grows, it is important that the public know exactly who is making this violence possible.”
As of Wednesday, a U.S.-based Quaker group’s online database listed over two dozen companies profiting from the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces have spent the last 10 weeks waging what experts call a “genocidal” war that sent defense stocks soaring.
Backed by $3.8 billion in annual military aid from the United States, Israel declared war on October 7 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack that killed over 1,100 people. Since then, Israeli forces have killed over 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza—sparking massive protests demanding a cease-fire around the world, including many led by Jewish people.
“War and attacks on civilians will never bring safety or peace to Israelis or Palestinians.”
The growing death toll, displacement, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and difficulties in delivering humanitarian aid to the besieged enclave have also increased scrutiny of a $14.3 billion package for the war that the Biden administration requested from Congress as well as criticism of the U.S. weapon-makers and billionaire donors who are arming and enabling the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“The scale of destruction and war crimes in Gaza would not be possible without massive weapon transfers from the U.S.,” said Noam Perry of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the group behind the tool, in a statement Wednesday. “As global resistance to war and apartheid grows, it is important that the public know exactly who is making this violence possible.”
As the AFSC webpage details:
Shortly after October 7, the U.S. government started transferring to Israel massive amounts of weapons. Among these weapons, Israel received more than 15,000 bombs and 50,000 artillery shells within just the first month-and-a-half. These transfers have been deliberately shrouded in secrecy to avoid public scrutiny and prevent Congress from exercising any meaningful oversight.
Some of these weapons were purchased using U.S. taxpayers’ money through the Foreign Military Sales program; some were direct commercial sales purchased through Israel’s own budget; and some were replenished U.S. military stockpiles in Israel, which the Israeli military may also use. A list of known U.S. arms transfers is maintained by the Forum on the Arms Trade.
The webpage notes that the list is based on reporting, social media, and other open sources, and “focuses on weapons used by Israel because all Palestinian militant groups are already sanctioned and receive no support from Western governments or corporations.”
For example, Boeing, the world’s fifth-largest weapon manufacturer, makes F-15 fighter jets and Apache AH-64 attack helicopters used by the Israeli forces, as well as “multiple types of unguided small diameter bombs (SDBs) and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits” that have been used “extensively” during the war, including in a bombing of Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.
After decades of Israeli occupation forces using Caterpillar’s armored D9 bulldozers to “demolish Palestinian homes and civilian infrastructure in the occupied West Bank and to enforce the blockade of the Gaza Strip,” the machines “have been crucial in the Israeli military’s ground invasion” of the enclave, according to AFSC.
While both of those war profiteers are based in the United States, the list isn’t limited to U.S. firms, also calling out the world’s seventh-largest weapon manufacturer, the U.K.’s BAE Systems, and Israel’s largest weapon manufacturer, Elbit Systems, “one of the primary suppliers of weapons and surveillance systems to the Israeli military.”
Other companies on the list include weapons giants such as General Dynamics, General Electric, L3Harris Technologies, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX—formerly Raytheon—as well as vehicle companies AM General, Ford, Oshkosh, Toyota, and drone manufacturers AeroVironment, Skydio, and XTEND.
The list also targets U.S.-based Colt’s Manufacturing Company, which makes firearms including the M16, and Emtan Karmiel, an Israeli firm that “delivered some 12,000 rifles” to the country’s forces within a week of October 7. It also includes Israel Aerospace Industries, a state-owned manufacturer that “makes multiple weapons systems specifically for the Israeli military.”
Other Israeli firms listed include Plasan, which makes the SandCat light armored vehicle, and MDT Armor, which is owned by the Israeli company Shladot and makes the David Urban Light Armored Vehicle used by the military for patrols and reconnaissance.
The other foreign firms on the list are ThyssenKrupp, the German company that built four warships for Israel, and Nordic Ammunition Company, which makes the M141 Bunker Defeat Munition, a shoulder-fired “bunker-buster” rocket.
“As a Quaker organization with a long history of work in Palestine and Israel, including in Gaza, we support a full arms embargo to both Israeli and Palestinian militant groups,” Perry stressed Wednesday. “War and attacks on civilians will never bring safety or peace to Israelis or Palestinians. We need a permanent cease-fire and to work toward a just and lasting peace in the region.”
Original article by JESSICA CORBETT republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).