For the first time since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, US warplanes are flying sorties against targets in the Middle East from an aircraft carrier positioned in the Mediterranean Sea. The attacks are being launched from the USS Harry S Truman, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
Though it’s the first time in a long time attacks are being launched from the Mediterranean, the Truman has been involved in attacks on ISIS for months. It only passed through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean yesterday, however, and had previously been parked in the Persian Gulf off the Iranian coast.
The deployment in the Gulf made news back in January, when an Iranian surveillance drone flew over the Truman, sparking fury from US Navy officials, who insisted that such flights are “abnormal and unprofessional.”
While deployed near Iran, the Truman was involved both in the war against ISIS and in supporting the Saudi War in Yemen. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has recently left Norfolk, and is believed to be heading into the Gulf.
It is rare for the US to not have a carrier parked near Iran, adding to constant American threats to attack Iran. There was a brief gap in carrier presence last fall, between the departure of the USS Roosevelt and the Truman’s arrival.
Vice Admiral James Foggo III insisted that the deployment is just the US “continuing to project power ashore against terrorists,” though its position in the Mediterranean might conceivably make it more vulnerable to naval attacks by ISIS, which controls some of the Libyan coast.
Oct 26, 2010 – US Imperialism 1900-2010
Timeline of United States military operations; dates show the year in which the US dispatched troops.
https://youtu.be/Q51NFAkmE-g
As a Canadian it makes me feel sick at the stomach realizing that my country was a part in a great deal of it. With few exceptions but that could be starting to change now.
Putin, from the beginning Assad was warned about you-you sale your mammi to gain power-sorry Assad now you have to find a nuclear weapon to save your head.
Interesting comment once it’s interpreted for what it means. Are you a Spanish American?
Quite sad really as it’s ill-informed and contrary to nearly everything that we’ve been trying to establish as fact here at antiwar.com. We can learn something from it and so I’m interested n hearing more of the same.
DON G. – Mr. Putin should’t have let this go so far, now the West say to late to stop let’s go all the way- Iran is back on the State Department List- Sell like nuk!
Now you seem to be saying something entirely different than how I translated it. Fair enough and for now it’s my mistake. I don’t think Putin could have been proactive any quicker. He couldn’t have known the level of the challenge to Russia before the Nato reaction on the Ukraine. That, I would say, has a lot to do with Putin taking a stand on Syria and most understand that by extension Iran.
Iran has never been off the US list of countries that will be invaded. The key difference now is that Russia appears to be standing up again after the years in which it didn’t since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Your comment, ‘Sell like nuke’? Sorry I don’t understand that.