From The War Zone, January 30:
The decision by Khataib Hezbollah to pause attacks on U.S. forces is unlikely to change the Biden administration’s plans.
As the Biden administration ramps up plans to respond to a deadly attack on U.S. forces in Jordan on Sunday, an Iranian-backed militia group responsible for numerous strikes on U.S. troops in the Middle East says it is putting a pause on those actions.
Khataib Hezbollah (KH) announced “the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces - in order to prevent embarrassment to the Iraqi government,” the group said on Telegram Tuesday. “We will continue to defend our people in Gaza in other ways.”
The Pentagon has yet to assign blame on who carried out the attack on Tower 22 Sunday that killed Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Georgia; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders of Waycross, Georgia; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett of Savannah, Georgia and wounded 40 others.
However, KH has been blamed for many of the more than 160 attacks in Iraq and Syria against U.S. forces that have taken place since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
"Central Command is still assessing, but again, we are confident that this attack was sponsored by Iranian-backed proxies," the Pentagon's top spokesman said on Tuesday.
Asked about whether the KH statement would change any planned kinetic response against Iran or its proxies in the wake of the Tower 22 attack, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said “actions speak louder than words."....
....MUCH MORE
Sometimes it seems people will do whatever they think they can get away with.
Which means if you disagree with their actions the consequences you impose for their behavior have to be so painful that they never again reason from that premise.
Or you just grin and bear it.
That includes everyone from the folks mentioned above to American politicians to...well you name it, there are a lot of folks who push and push and push. They should not be surprised if someone pushes back.
Or, as Rudyard Kipling put it:
Dane-geld
A.D. 980-1016
IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: –
"We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!
It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: –
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: --
"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"
