Biden And Black Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Bomb Muslims In Syria And Iraq Photo: President Joe Biden salutes as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin places his hand over heart during the playing of "Taps," during the National Memorial Day Observance at the Memorial Amphitheater in Arlington National Cemetery, May 31, 2021, in Arlington, Va.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin orchestrated a U.S. military bomb strike Sunday on facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region.
Militants in the Muslim countries have vowed to retaliate, calling the airstrikes a “blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty,” CBS reported.
The targets were facilities used by Iran-backed militias in unmanned aerial vehicles or drone attacks against U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq, according to a statement from Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby.
The militias said they will strike back.
“We said before that we will not remain silent over the continued presence of American occupation forces in Iraq, which goes against the constitution, the Parliament’s vote, and the will of the Iraqi people,” the Coordinating Committee of the Iraqi Resistance, an umbrella group of Iraqi Shiite militias, said in a statement confirming that the groups had sustained casualties.
“We in the Coordination Committee of the Iraqi Resistance will avenge the blood of our righteous martyrs from the perpetrators of this heinous crime,” the group said. “With God’s help, we will make the enemy taste the bitterness of revenge. And if the enemy repeats its aggression, it will see what will not please them.”
A four-star general, Austin faced scrutiny when Biden first nominated him. Austin retired in 2016 as the chief of the U.S. Central Command, overseeing military operations in the Middle East. Austin has been on the board of directors of weapons manufacturer Raytheon Technologies, one of the largest U.S. defense contractors. Some saw this as a conflict of interest.
Lawyer Justin Amash, who served as the U.S. representative for Michigan’s 3rd congressional district from 2011 to 2021 as a Libertarian, tweeted, “There’s no legal authorization for U.S. troops to be in Iraq or Syria. Bring them home and stop bombing people under the guise of self-defense.”
Aaron Maté @aaronjmate, host of Pushback Show, tweeted, “The US is the real dictator of Syria. No Syrians elected it to join with Gulf dictatorships & other “allies” to wage a catastrophic Dirty War. No Syrians voted for the murderous US sanctions starving their country. And no Syrians voted for these bombs.”
The U.S. has had a long history of bombing Syria.
Journalist Ben Norton, assistant editor of The Grayzone News, tweeted, “The Biden admin just bombed Iraq and Syria, both countries the US military has illegally been occupying for years, despite their gov’ts calling for the US to leave. Bombing Iraq and Syria is something all US presidents agree on, Democratic or Republican.”
During President Barack Obama’s presidency, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) played an “outsized role as Congress decides whether to approve military strikes in Syria,” TheGrio reported in 2013. Obama wooed the CBC, whose 43 members were all Democrats. The CBC at the time was a critical swing group although most opposed the Syria intervention, TheGrio reported.
Still, the CBC was instructed to “limit public comment” on the issue, Foreign Policy reported. Some still spoke out. “We must learn the lessons of the past. Lessons from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and others,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, who was opposed to Syrian intervention.
By 2014, Obama had called for airstrikes on Syria with coalition forces. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Jordan had joined in the U.S. attack on ISIS targets near Raqqa in Syria. The U.S. also launched airstrikes against terrorist organization the Khorasan Group, CNN reported.
In 2017, President Donald Trump called for airstrikes on a Syrian government airbase in response to a chemical weapons attack that had been carried out earlier, CNN reported.
“Hopefully the idea that the United States could be conducting ‘defensive’ airstrikes in the ‘Iraq-Syria border region’ is too self-evidently absurd for anyone to take seriously any more,” Michael Tracey tweeted @mtracey.
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