On Wednesday, the Pentagon’s website listed the names of the 18 American soldiers killed in the Iranian attacks since 28 February. By Thursday, the figure had dropped to 14: a technical error to be rectified, a Defence Department spokesperson said curtly; a deliberate decision, sources told the New York Times, because the four missing from the roll call were killed after President Donald Trump had signed the ceasefire, and are therefore not considered to have died in action. It is interesting to note what happened after the figure was revised. In the meantime, these are the four soldiers involved in the so-called technical error: Isabella Gonzales, aged 19, from Texas; Tyler Feehan, aged 25, from Hawaii; Angel Rampersad, aged 28, from New York; and Michael Emmanuel Swinton, aged 30, from North Carolina. The first three were killed in an Iranian attack on a US base in Jordan last Friday; the fourth was killed in Erbil, Iraq, and an investigation into the circumstances of his death is currently underway.
The Trump administration is providing little information on the targets and damage caused by the Iranian attacks, stating that the information is classified and that revealing details could pose a security risk. There is also a legal issue regarding the duration of the conflict: after 60 days of war, the President is required to seek authorisation from Parliament to continue the conflict, which has not happened (and the non-binding votes held so far have seen many Republicans voting alongside Democrats against this unpopular conflict), not least because the ceasefire interrupts the count of days. This is why the distinction between war and a ceasefire becomes significant, even if it is a technical matter: American soldiers were killed whilst on duty, their bodies have only just returned to the United States, their relatives are organising funerals, and Isabella Gonzales’s mother said, composed amidst her tears, that her daughter was serving her country, was proud of her work, and that she is proud of Isabella. The Trump administration, which is so cautious when it comes to counting the dead and wounded, had previously had no qualms about accusing Democratic presidents of having blood on their hands due to casualties in poorly managed conflicts – or during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Today the tone is different, and the death toll stands in stark contrast to the rhetoric regarding the state of the Iranian regime: Trump supporters have claimed that Iran’s military capabilities have been destroyed, yet American soldiers are still being killed; Trump supporters are calling for further funding for a conflict they claim to have effectively already ended.
Then there are the worst of them, those who insist that the four soldiers who were killed and erased were not serving their country: they were serving Israel, which dragged the United States into this senseless war.
