Pentagon officials are celebrating the fact that American warplanes recently destroyed more than 80 “targets” in Syria and Iraq. Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary, could not say how many people were killed in the strikes but acknowledged that there were likely “casualties.” According to the New York Times, “Syria and Iraq have said that at least 39 people — 23 in Syria and 16 in Iraq — were killed in the Friday strikes, a toll that the Iraqi government said included civilians.”
The Pentagon’s strikes were in retaliation for drone attacks by “Iran-backed militias” on a U.S. imperial base in the northeastern part of Jordan, a country that lies about 7,000 miles from the United States. The drone attack killed three U.S. soldiers and injured several more.
It’s not certain that the people killed in the U.S. military strikes in Syria and Iraq were the same people who carried out the drone strikes on the U.S. imperial base in Jordan. But that doesn’t matter, at least not to the Pentagon. All that matters is that the military targets in Syria and Iraq were “Iran-backed” militias.
Of course, U.S. officials and the U.S. mainstream press treat all of this as perfectly normal. Just another day of killing and mayhem in the life of the U.S. Empire. Yet, objectively speaking, it’s about as far from normal as it can be. In fact, it’s extremely aberrant behavior, one that is characteristic of a far-flung military empire.
The episode does provide a valuable lesson on how the conversion of the U.S. government to a military empire has served to destroy the express protections in the Bill of Rights.
Consider the Fifth Amendment. It expressly prohibits the federal government from killing people without due process of law. It doesn’t provide any exceptions. It doesn’t say: “unless the killing is done in retaliation for the killing of U.S. troops stationed in imperial outposts several thousands of miles away from the United States.” It says “No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.” Period.
Don’t count on the U.S. Supreme Court to enforce this part of the Constitution. The Justices made it clear a long time ago that they would not interfere with the Pentagon’s imperialist operations, especially the ones that involve the killing of foreigners.
U.S. imperialists would respond, “But Jacob, what would you have us do? We can’t just let foreigners kill our troops who are stationed on our imperialist outposts several thousands of miles away. We have to be tough and respond by killing people, even if the people we kill aren’t the ones who killed our imperial troops. Otherwise, we will be considered weak and people will take advantage of us.”
Well, there is one good response to that: Close your imperialist outposts all over the world and bring all U.S. troops home. In that way, they won’t get killed anymore by people who don’t like imperialist outposts and who are determined to rid their countries of them. And then the Pentagon will no longer have to kill people in retaliation, including people who had nothing to do with the killing of U.S. imperialist troops.
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Of course, that’s not an option for U.S. imperialists and interventionists. So, they keep U.S. troops in harm’s way thousands of miles away. Then, when they are killed, they use the killings to justify killing the Bill of Rights as well as people who have nothing to do with the killing of U.S. troops.
Moreover, consider the dark irony here. Did you notice that I wrote that the Pentagon’s strikes included targets in Iraq? Yes, that Iraq — the nation that the Pentagon attacked, invaded, and occupied after the 9/11 attacks — the nation that had absolutely nothing to do with those attacks. Here we are today watching the Pentagon, once again, attacking and killing people in the very nation in which the Pentagon waged its war of aggression under the label “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
But it’s just another normal day in the life of the empire: death, suffering, impoverishment, and the destruction of life, liberty, property, and the U.S. Bill of Rights.