In Iraq and Syria, the United States deployed many of the same justifications that Israel does today.
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, The Progressive
We have both been reporting on and protesting against U.S. war crimes for many years, including those committed by U.S. allies and proxies like Israel and Saudi Arabia: illegal uses of military force to try to remove enemy governments or “regimes”; hostile military occupations; disproportionate military violence justified by claims of “terrorism”; the bombing and killing of civilians; and the mass destruction of whole cities.
Most Americans share a general aversion to war but tend to accept a militarized foreign policy because we are tragically susceptible to propaganda, the machinery of public manipulation that works hand in hand with the machinery of killing to justify otherwise unthinkable horrors.

This process of “manufacturing consent” works in a number of ways. One of the most effective forms of propaganda is silence—simply not telling us, and certainly not showing us, what war is really doing to the people whose homes and communities have been turned into America’s latest battlefield.
During the most devastating campaign waged in recent years, the U.S. military dropped more than 100,000 bombs and missiles on Mosul in Iraq, Raqqa in Syria, and other areas occupied by ISIS (or Da’esh). An Iraqi Kurdish intelligence report estimated that more than 40,000 civilians were killed in Mosul, while Raqqa experienced even more destruction.
Recent Posts
ICE Sent 600 Immigrant Kids To Detention In Federal Shelters This Year. It’s A New Record.
November 24, 2025
Take Action Now This year ICE has sent more immigrant children into the federal shelter system than in the previous four years combined. New data…
The Return Of Nuclear Proliferation
November 24, 2025
Take Action Now A recent article in the establishment security journal Foreign Affairs makes the case for nuclear proliferation among America’s…
Are Zohran Mamdani and Katie Wilson Democratic Socialists or FDR Democrats? They Are Both
November 23, 2025
Take Action Now This is fitting: For more than a century, socialism has been integral to American progressivism, championing early many of the…
Leaders Across EU Deliver Unified Message to the US: ‘No War on Venezuela’
November 22, 2025
Take Action Now “We condemn in the strongest terms the military escalation against Venezuela,” said progressive leaders from countries including the…




