"Tower 22." The attack on a secret U.S. military base in Jordan that threatens a wider war.
750 American military facilities remain open in 80 nations and territories around the world. No other country in human history has been so extended.
As of September 2022, there are 171,736 active-duty military troops across 178 countries.
There are around 750 U.S. military bases in at least 80 countries, though Al Jazeera says the number “may be even higher as not all data is published by the Pentagon.”
By comparison, China has has about eight foreign military bases. One is in Djibouti and some on human-made islands in the South China Sea.
No country in history has deployed so much military personnel so widely around the world.
Now as the war in the Middle East is escalating, a drone attack has brought to light a secret U.S. base in Jordan known as Tower 22.
Tower 22 is where three U.S. troops were killed and dozens wounded after a drone hit the secret military outpost.
Tower 22 holds a strategically important location, opens new tab in Jordan, at the most northeastern point where the country's borders meet Syria and Iraq.
Little is publicly known about the base. But it includes logistics support and there are 350 U.S. Army and Air Force troops at the base.
The drone attack on Tower 22 has prompted President Biden to threaten Iran which would seriously escalate the war that was initiated by Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
Biden’s backing of Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians is now spiraling out of control and becoming a dangerous regional war, and possibly a global one.
The first deaths of American troops under fire, however, will require a different level of response, American officials said, and the president’s advisers were in consensus about that as they consulted with him by secure videoconference on Sunday. What remained unclear was whether Mr. Biden would strike targets inside Iran itself, as his Republican critics urged him to do, saying he would be a “coward” if he did not, as one put it.
However, Republicans seem divided on how or whether to respond at all, reflecting the split between old school globalists and MAGA America Firsters.
Tucker Carlson branded Republican lawmakers "f—king lunatics" on Sunday as a growing number called for military retaliation against Iran for a deadly attack in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members.
"F—king lunatics," Carlson wrote on X, specifically responding to Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, who have called for strikes.
Graham recommended in an X message to "hit Iran now. Hit them hard." The hawkish senator has called for strikes on Iran in the past, urging that the country's oil fields be targeted.
The demands of #ceasefire and #de-escalate have never been more necessary.