US Bombed Girls school killing 168
Richard Mellor
7-21-26
US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, was at the Senate Appropriations Committee today pleading for more money to continue the unprovoked and illegal war the Trump menagerie and US Congress are waging against the people of Iran.
I say the “people” of Iran as the US can’t be at war with the government or heads of state as the US rogue regime has mur*ered them. Apparently, the operation that was only supposed to last a day or so is not going as planned.
Hegseth said the cost of the war was $25 billion back in April but has risen $12 billion in two months and is now estimated at a cost of $37.5 billion. Apparently the Iranians are prepared to defend their country against US aggression, even those who oppose the present government.
The Trump regime is asking for close to $70 billion for what it said in June were “operational costs”. At that time it threw a few billion at US farmers and a billion to renovate Penn Station in New York City, but make no bones about it, the US is losing the war it instigated against Iran and is asking for more money to continue it and in some way save face. The US is bringing in more air power and its running low on military hardware and needs to increase production and “delivery of high demand munitions.”
Hegseth says the extra funding is needed to achieve what he calls, “peace through strength.”, in the region. These requests are in addition to the $1.5 trillion the Pentagon wants in the upcoming defense budget. Pouring more money down the drain but more profits for the investors in the defense and fossil fuel industries.
But we are at a point in the game now where the vast majority of the people of the world, including millions of Americans, understand that the main source of violence and instability in the region is the presence of the US and its settler colony, Israel. In addition, Iran’s has shown it has the ability to inflict some pain of its own, primarily against US bases in the Gulf States, regimes acting as US imperialism’s flunkies in the region.
Much of the damage to US military facilities in the region that cost the US taxpayer billions to install and maintain has been hidden from the US public. The many forever wars the US has waged over the past three or four decades killing a few million people and displacing millions more, have been tolerated by the American people because the body count has been relatively low. The sacrifice of these corporate ventures with regard to loss of life has been borne by a small section of American families.
As I read the Pentagon’s request for more money in April, it “….included $21 billion for munitions. as well as $4 billion for a new program that would launch a group of satellites to track airborne targets from orbit.”
One can only Imagine what we could do with that money here at home. Or even using it to help others in other countries as opposed to using it to destroy their infrastructure, kill their people and bomb them to the stone age.
Hegseth’s statement about peace through strength is the same old rhetoric. Peace doesn’t come from bullying and dominating others, but these are imperialist wars and US. Imperialism, albeit the most powerful military force in the world, is losing its influence on the world stage and is fighting to maintain its position.
Hegseth will likely get his way as the Senate Appropriations Committee is staffed by like minded people. Both parties of capitalism, Democrats and Republicans agree on foreign policy; they are both war parties. So what is actually happening is Hegseth is appealing to his colleagues for money, more accurately, our money. The US working class will foot this bill and desperately needed social services will suffer because of it. The Democrats will whine a bit given the opposition to this war among the public; some 64% are opposed to it from what I have read. But outside of taking to the streets we have no alternative in the political arena.
Hegseth said today that the Americans that died in an Iranian attack on a US military facility in Jordan, in response to 9 days of US bombing, “…should not be forgotten..”. What hypocrisy. These people do not care about the American people or young workers in the military. Hegseth, Trump and the warmongers in the US Congress are responsible for those deaths, Iran is not the aggressor here.
If this appeal for even more money for weapons of mass destruction, was a direct appeal to the millions of people in America whose living standards have been savaged by both Republican and Democratic administrations alike, Hegseth would walk away empty handed.
I listened to that famous speech today by Mario Savio at a protest in Berkeley in 1964. It’s a powerful statement and is as valid today as it was then, even more so.
“There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus -- and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it -- that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all.” Mario Savio Berkeley 1964
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