Thread by @ClimateAudit

this is such garbage reporting by US media: what US calls "Iranian-backed militia" are units of Iraqi military. Iraq is majority Shia so there are Shia units in Iraq military. Hard to see how bombing Iraqi military units is going to improve US-Iraq relations.

https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1365096049027776522

Iraq asked US to withdraw forces from Iraq as they are not currently fighting ISIS. US military in Iraq has become hostile occupying force that has no strategic purpose, is a target for local resistance, creating pointless risk of larger conflict to "honor" their sacrifice.

an astounding replay of events of Dec 29, 2019. Biden admin says that there was a rocket attack near Irbil in Kurdish area in northeastern Iraq. The Dec 2019 rocket attack was in nearby Kirkuk, also in Kurdish area, where ISIS cells were also active, making attribution obscure

US revenge for poorly attributed Dec 2019 attack was on Iraqi "militias" hundreds of miles away to west on Syria-Iraq border, opposite end of Iraq. So is Biden attack on Iraqi "militias".

Trump admin purported to bomb Kataib Hezbollah militias (which is not "Hezbollah"). So did Biden admin.

while US describes Kataib Hezbollah as "Iran-backed" militia, they are formally (according to my prior research) the 45th and 46th brigades of the Iraqi army and under Iraqi (not Iranian) military command. (Nor are they part of "Hezbollah", a common confusion).

in both incidents, US bombed a border point. US has been sulking for several years about re-opening of Baghdad-Damascus trade route (millennia old), despite efforts of US (and Israel) to sabotage trade between Iraq and Syria.

one of the most decisive (and totally unreported) events of Syrian civil war was the lightning advance of Syrian Tiger Forces from Aleppo to relieve the Deir ez-Zor siege, then down the Euphrates to re-open border at al-Qaim, relieving US border siege at at-Tanf.

while Syrian Tiger Forces were battling ISIS to eradication, US allowed ISIS cadres to escape from Raqqa and bombed Syrian govt forces who had crossed the Euphrates to pursue ISIS. US now stands in ISIS' place as illegal occupier of eastern Syria.