By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

Quick hypothetical: Let’s say that you are a member of a disenfranchised global minority, and some pompous foreign superpower is building bases all over your ancestral homeland, a homeland which they have spent decades bombing to smithereens. Then let’s say that this same superpower decided to use these bastard bases to annihilate another disenfranchised global minority. Under such extraordinary circumstances don’t you think that the rational and moral response that you and your kin might take is to gather whatever arms you have available and confront these hostile invaders? Don’t you think that under such extreme and extenuating circumstances that you might accept weapons from pretty much anyone willing to provide them? And would doing any of these things make you or your neighbors the “terrorists” in this scenario?

You don’t have to answer all of those questions right now. In fact, all I really want to know is can you relate. Because I can and it’s getting downright infuriating feeling like I’m the only one. I may be a decadent gender bending infidel, but I am also very familiar with the condition of being stepped on and if some pompous foreign army was using an illegal base in Altoona to carpet bomb Queer kids in Jamaica, I would light that motherfucker up with whatever ordinance I could get my hands on. This is what the Shiite militias of Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen are doing right now, and Kali help me, I don’t believe that they deserve to be vilified and annihilated for it.

There are some 3,400 American troops in that region. 900 in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq, and as bad as I may feel for the misfortunate life choices of our brave men and women in uniform, they are not there handing out stickers and bubblegum. They are there to serve as an advance force for America’s various imperial enterprises in the region, and right now that means assisting the American puppet regime of Israel in committing genocide against the people of the Gaza Strip. The Shia militias in the region that have formed over the last two decades to deal with the fallout from our post-9/11 hijinks have decided that they aren’t OK with this, especially considering that the Americans assisting it have long occupied their nations in blatant disregard for every international law and rules-based order in the book.

Over 160 attacks on US bases have been launched by various Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria alone since America’s homebase in the Pentagon began supplying Israel with the ordinances they require to flatten hospitals. These rebel forces have mostly used cheap drones and artillery, some of it undeniably supplied by the only truly autonomous Shia republic in the region, and most of these attacks have been little more than pot shots lobbed at the imperial parades of the powerful in order to send them a simple message of anguish from the powerless. Until recently, these attacks have resulted in little more than minor head injuries for a handful of occupying troops. Tragically, that changed recently with the drone strike on Tower 22. But just what the hell is Tower 22 exactly anyway?

A shadowy collection of trailers just this side of Jordan’s border with Syria, Tower 22 houses some 350 American soldiers allegedly there to fight ISIS. But the last time I checked, what was left of ISIS in that region was in shambles and it was our new enemies in these Shiite militias who put them there. So, what the fuck are all those troops still doing on the Syrian border then and why does Jordan seem downright frightened to even acknowledge their existence?

American troops are at Tower 22 to facilitate the 900 American troops illegally occupying the oil fields of Eastern Syria with some help from our own proxies in the region. Our reason for this illegal occupation, as expressed explicitly by none other than Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, is to prevent the government of Syria from rebuilding their shattered civilian infrastructure after a decade of fighting ISIS, who let us not forget began as a loose knit coalition of western and Saudi proxies themselves.

So, let me play that back for you just one more time. The United States is using bases typically reserved for starving out indignant Shiites in Syria to facilitate the wholesale annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza and who are the fucking terrorists here? Why, the scary brown people of course. This is why our liberal progressive president, Joe Biden, has seen it fit to respond to this “terrorism” with more goddamn terrorism, because that method of madness has really worked out smashingly over the last couple of decades. 125 bombs were delivered to 85 targets by nuclear capable B-1B bombers in the opening salvo alone, killing at least 40 people, including civilians, across Iraq and Syria.

But it’s OK everybody, this isn’t a war crime! Those dead bodies don’t belong to real people, just Iranian proxies.

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