While president Joe Biden is hesitant to oppose the senate parliamentarian’s ruling on $15 minimum wage, he had no problems in unilaterally issuing the us military to strike a site in Syria used by two Iranian-backed militia groups in response to rocket attacks on American forces in the region.
"The US early Friday launched half a dozen missiles on a Syrian site it described as depots used by Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayid al-Shuhada, two Iranian-backed Iraq militias it claimed were behind a deadly 15 February attack on an American base in northern Iraq and another 22 February attack on its embassy in Baghdad," The Independent UK reports.
The strikes were meant as a calibrated and proportionate response to rocket attacks on United States facilities this month which left one person dead. But, the death toll may be far more.
"The strikes may have killed at least 22 people, according to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a monitoring group based in London, potentially prompting an unexpected blowback against the first military action ordered by president Joseph Biden," The Independent writes.
"'The airstrikes have left great human and material losses,' said a report by SOHR, specifying the destruction of three trucks loaded with ammunition. Another source told Reuters that at least 17 people were killed in the airstrike."
"It took a few weeks but we’re back into it," said John Idarola. "And we have to see if the Biden Administration's approach to Syria and the greater region is going to be significantly different from the Trump Administration or from Obama’s," he added.
No official death counts have been released yet, but if the high reported death toll, if confirmed, could have unintended consequences both for the fragile Iraqi government of prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and Washington-Baghdad relations.
Moreover, no one killed was reported to be Iranian. This also comes at a particularly important time, right before the United States is negociating with Iran to re-enter the nuclear deal.
The Pentagon say's this was Biden's attempt to send a string message. “The operation sends an unambiguous message: President Biden will act to protect American and coalition personnel,” said the Pentagon statement. “At the same time, we have acted in a deliberate manner that aims to de-escalate the overall situation in both eastern Syria and Iraq.”
However, as host of TYT Deep Dive Jordan Uhl pointed out, this type of response only leads to exponential growth in the region of other people who hate the US.
Moreover he noted that the United States have no business being in Syria in the first place.
"Across the board they're saying the strike on Syria was a defensive measure. We shouldn't have even been in Iraq in the first place, we shouldn't be claiming defense when you're in a country you shouldn't have been in for the past 20 years or so. This is a war on the behest of corporate interest and military interests. Raytheon and Lockheed are ecstatic tonight," Uhl said.
"This is a campaign and an administration who said they wanted to restore relations with Iran, they wanted to reenter the Iran Nuclear deal and before any meaningful diplomacy was attempted they bombed an Iranian backed military base in Syria?One person unilaterally approved that. That is galling," Uhl added.
Cenk Uygur agreed, saying, "Why do you think Iran attacked us in the first place? We killed their lead general and we backed out of the deal."
"We’ve reneged on every single promise." said Uygur. "And now we’ve proved the right wingers right because instantly the dems are more militaristic than Trump was. So how’s that hope and change thing coming along?"
"For the folks who were saying we’ll hold him accountable later, this is later," he added.
Many progressives agree, and is criticizing the hypocrisy of the unilateral decision on the strikes, while the inaction on rasing the minimum wage continues.