A Willing Belligerent

During a news briefing at the White House, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan announced that US naval destroyers had “joined Israeli air defence units in firing interceptors to shoot down inbound missiles”. Praising the “professionalism” of the Israeli military, Sullivan also lauded the “skilled work of the US military and meticulous joint planning in anticipation of the attack”.

Of course, not once has it occurred to the Biden administration to meticulously thwart Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where officially more than 41,000 people have been killed in less than a year although the true death toll is without a doubt exorbitantly higher. Nor has the ‘so-skilled’ US military deemed it necessary to interfere in the wanton butchery currently going down in Lebanon, where Israel just killed more than 700 people in less than a week.

And while many an international observer has sounded the alarm that the US could now be “dragged” into a regional war–warnings that will only increase after the Iranian missile attack–in reality, the US is not really being “dragged” anywhere.

Rather, the US is in a position entirely of its own making. And the fact of the matter is that the US is already at war. US troops are very much in action in Israel as they would manage advanced air-defense systems supplied after Iranian retaliation.

To be sure, even prior to the launch of the genocide, the US habit of flinging billions of dollars at the Israeli military on an annual basis long ago made it transparently complicit in Israeli efforts to disappear Palestine. Since October 7, 2023, the billions have only multiplied, despite Biden’s intermittent squawking about cutting off the supply of certain offensive weaponry to Israel.

In August, the Biden administration approved a $20bn weapons package to its Israeli partner in crime. On September 26, the Reuters news agency reported Israel’s announcement that “it had secured an $8.7 billion aid package from the United States to support its ongoing military efforts and to maintain a qualitative military edge in the region”.

The package was said to include “$3.5 billion for essential wartime procurement… and $5.2 billion designated for air defence systems including the Iron Dome anti-missile system, David’s Sling and an advanced laser system”. The United States has so far spent $22.76 billion in military aid to Israel after the start of the Gaza war.

In other words, Israel will be increasingly well-poised to “defend” itself against legitimate responses to its own actions–actions that quite literally qualify as terrorism.

In the end, it’s not rocket science: the financial and military support consistently extended to Israel by the US does not denote a country that is being “dragged” into a conflict. It denotes a country that is, for all intents and purposes, an active belligerent in the conflict.

Although the Biden administration continues to claim ad nauseam that it desires a ceasefire in Gaza, the road to a ceasefire in a case of genocide does not go through billions upon billions of dollars in weaponry to the genocidal party.

 In the fog of the latest war one thing, at least, is clear: the US is already a primary belligerent.

[Contributed]

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 19, Nov 3 - 9, 2024