Three US soldiers killed. At \u201cTower 22,\u201d a US base in Jordan. Near the borders of both Syria and Iraq. By \u201cIran-backed militias,\u201d we are told.\u00a0 A \u201cred line\u201d has been crossed.<\/p>\n
Not the 30,000 Palestinians slaughtered in Gaza. That was no red line for the United States, whose wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan caused the deaths of millions.<\/p>\n
But killing US soldiers\u2026 THAT is a red line.\u00a0 \u201cWe have no choice now but to drop some bombs on you, Iran, or at least on your \u2018proxies\u2019 in the region.\u00a0 But we won\u2019t bomb you too hard.\u201d The US says it does not want all-out war. Iran says the same.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
All three soldiers were African Americans<\/strong> in a US Army Reserve engineering unit in the state of Georgia.\u00a0 They were Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, an Iraq War veteran.\u00a0 And two young women, Spc. Breonna Alexsondra Moffett, 23, and Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still in shock,\u201d Sanders\u2019 mother Oneida Oliver-Sanders told Atlanta News First<\/a> her home in Waycross on Monday. \u201cKennedy was very athletic, very outgoing.\u00a0 People call her goofy. She was laughing, playing, smiling.\u201d<\/p>\n Breonna Moffett\u2019s parents told the Associated Press<\/a> they hope there\u2019s no escalation in violence. \u201cI just hope and pray no other family has to go through this,\u201d Francine Moffett, the young soldier\u2019s mother, said Monday through tears at the dining table of her Savannah home. \u201cIt takes your heart and your soul.\u201d<\/p>\n The US military may have presented these three young African Americans their only avenue for financial security and\/or a college education. Then they end up at Tower 22 \u2013 human sacrifices to US imperialism.<\/p>\n Veterans Call for Gaza Ceasefire and Withdrawal of US Troops<\/strong><\/p>\n The organization Veterans For Peace offered its condolences to the families in a statement titled, Tragic Deaths of US Troops Must NOT Be Exploited as Justification for Striking Iran.<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIsrael\u2019s continuing slaughter of men, women and children in Gaza is the source of the recent flurry of attacks on US troops. The US should insist that Israel implement a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.\u201d The veterans also called on President Biden to withdraw US troops<\/a> from Middle Eastern countries \u201cwhere they are not wanted, and where they are under constant attack.\u201d<\/p>\n Lindsay Graham and Nikki Haley Can Go to War!<\/strong><\/p>\n Veterans For Peace had <\/em>sharp words<\/a> for politicians who are pushing for war with Iran: <\/em>\u201cThis would be the worst possible development and could lead to the deaths of millions.\u00a0 If Nikki Haley and Lindsay Graham are hungry for war, they can deploy themselves to US bases in Iraq and Syria, or on-board US Navy ships that are sitting ducks in the Red Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n Joshua Shurley, Vice President of Veterans For Peace, invoked the memory of World War II:<\/p>\n \u201cIn 1945, GI\u2019s liberated Nazi death camps in Europe and exposed the heinous crimes that had occurred within their walls,\u201d said Shurley. \u201cFor the US to have come full circle and enabled the current genocide in Gaza\u2026 is a stain on that legacy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Veterans For Peace<\/a> has over 100 chapters in the U.S., many of which are active in ongoing protests against the continuing slaughter of Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza. The 39-year-old organization includes veterans from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and more recent US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Its Statement of Purpose<\/a> calls on veterans to educate their communities about the \u201ctrue costs of war,\u201d and \u201cto restrain our government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations.\u201d Veterans For Peace recently issued a statement condemning the US bombing of Yemen<\/a>.<\/p>\n Gerry Condon<\/em><\/strong> is a Vietnam-era veteran and war resister who serves on the Board of Directors of Veterans For Peace.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three US soldiers killed. At \u201cTower 22,\u201d a US base in Jordan. Near the borders of both Syria and Iraq. By \u201cIran-backed militias,\u201d we are told.\u00a0 A \u201cred line\u201d has been crossed. Not the 30,000 Palestinians slaughtered in Gaza. That was no red line for the United States, whose wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":376,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-45852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"Veterans Offer Condolences, Call for Ceasefire in Gaza"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45855,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45852\/revisions\/45855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45852"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=45852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}