US B-52 bombers arrived in the Middle East on Saturday as part of a new deployment to “defend” Israel amid speculation over whether or not Iran will respond to Israel’s October 26 attack.
“B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers from Minot Air Force Base’s 5th Bomb Wing arrived in the US Central Command area of responsibility,” US Central Command wrote on X.
The Pentagon announced it was beefing up its military presence in the region on Friday, saying Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered the “deployment of additional ballistic missile defense destroyers, fighter squadron and tanker aircraft, and several US Air Force B-52 long-range strike bombers to the region.”
The Pentagon said the purpose of the deployment is the “protection of US citizens and forces in the Middle East, the defense of Israel, and de-escalation.” The US also recently deployed a THAAD missile defense system and about 100 troops to Israel.
Iranian officials have been vowing there will be a response to Israel’s attack, which killed four Iranian soldiers and one civilian. Israel launched the airstrikes on Iran in retaliation for the October 1 Iranian missile barrage that was fired into Israel in response to a string of Israeli escalations and assassinations in the region.
Axios has reported that Israeli intelligence suggests Iran is planning to launch a major attack from Iraqi territory and that it could happen before the US presidential election on November 5. However, a report published by The Wall Journal on Sunday said that Iran didn’t want to influence the US election and would likely wait until after.
The Journal report, which cited unnamed Arab and Iranian officials, said Iran has told Arab diplomats it’s planning a complex response against Israel that would involve more powerful warheads and other weapons not used in its previous attacks on Israeli territory. One source said Iran would likely target military facilities again “but much more aggressively than last time.”
Another Axios report said the US warned Iran that if it attacked, the US wouldn’t be able to restrain Israel. “We told the Iranians: We won’t be able to hold Israel back, and we won’t be able to make sure that the next attack will be calibrated and targeted as the previous one,” a US official told Axios.
And who is going to deploy forces to protect Lebanon?
The B-52 can in no way be considered a defensive weapon, there is no use for it except as an attack platform.
And they're deploying troops and offensive weapons in the service of "deescalation"? George Orwell must be spinning in his grave fast enough to power a generator that could power the entire East Coast.
Israel and the US are both "off the rails" and are in need of a punishment that is on scale for the genocide they have perpetuated in Gaza, and the killing fields of Lebanon. If Iran can deliver with the resistance let them do so..
Israel is by U.S. law a "major non-NATO ally". They have been attacked by multiple countries, including Iran.
Countries defend their allies under attack, or they have no allies and no deterrence.
Countries do not need to aid their allies when they attack all their neighbors at once, that’s not how any of this works. When your ally is being stupid you tell them so, not just automatically join them.
So, Israel is being "stupid" because they seek to attack a military organization (Hamas) that actively seeks their destruction? And they are "stupid" to fire back at Hezbollah, which is attacking their cities? And – according to you – the non-stupid response to Iran's missile attacks is – what? Do nothing? That is a rather unique military strategy.
Yes.
Big Deal…!
Part of me must resist yawning. The rest of me is routinely reflexive. Strategic bombing aircraft vs a more-powerful/asymmetrical "enemy"? C'mon, man! Have our fruit-saladed chests/scrambled-egg hatted commanders learned nothing at all? Asked and answered.
C'mon Marcus, we are using 1950's tech (carriers and B52s) … it can't possibly fail.
“ Today, I am planning to engage in an extreme act of protest against the genocide of the Palestinian people… Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid?
What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”
–Aaron Bushnell, February 25 2024
REMARKABLE!!! He was too good of a person for us!!! I don't even know how he happened in this country!? Anybody has ideas!?
A true compassionate American.
I'm glad Nelson Mandela was never unhinged enough to set himself on fire during apartheid.
"The US warned Iran that if it attacked, the US wouldn’t be able to restrain Israel. 'We told the Iranians: We won’t be able to hold Israel back, and we won’t be able to make sure that the next attack will be calibrated and targeted as the previous one,' a US official told Axios."
Gee, that sounds a lot like the old 'Good Cop / Bad Cop' game, with the US playing Good Cop. Like, "I don't want any harm to come to you, but my buddy over there, when he gets steamed, there's just no telling what he'll do and I can't hold him back." Said the gorilla, pointing to the capuchin monkey.
I should've read your comment before I made mine. Great minds think alike. I particularly like the "Said the gorilla, pointing to the capuchin monkey." Excellent. Be careful. I might "Biden" it. LOL
I always enjoy your wry sense of humor NA!
I enjoy yours too
This is just for our electorate that is uncomfortable with genocide. In reality, Israel has created a with-us-or-against-us situation, and we are trapped.
A classic zugzwang. Whatever decisions we make will likely be a bad one yet, we cannot avoid making decisions.
Zugzwang?!
;-}
A chess move that will worsen a player's position.
B52s are slow and certainly not stealthy…. Whom are they going to bomb with these? Probably easy targets with S300s from Iran.
So whom are they threatening? Lebanon?
They can carry heavy bombs and tactical and strategic nukes and fire from out of range …
What S300s?
I am also weapons illiterate! ;-/
me too.
I do think they are not as nimble like fighter jets because they carry heavy cargo, maybe, I don't know.
“We told the Iranians: We won’t be able to hold Israel back…" WAIT!? ARE WE PLAYING "GOOD COP!?" …….So obviously obvious. …We are paying good money to whoever is coming up with drivel!? …You. must. be. $hitting. me!
Yes, us and most of EU are the good cop to Israel's head breaker cops … and the citizens of the "west" swipe right and laugh at the funny kittens and puppies …
The world is not with the genocide, even the west:
PALESTINE ONLINE * @OnlinePalEng
With tears full of solidarity feelings, people emotionally reacted as they passed by a pro-Palestine protest in Oslo, Norway.
Video
https://x.com/OnlinePalEng/…
Thank you.
Video
https://x.com/YasasinSeriat…
Anybody else remembers the tension rising against Iran before the last elections with Trump trumpeting how he was going to destroy Iran!? I mean guys. The election season is already disgusting enough for God's sake.
For good measure, he pulled out of the JCPOA, simply because Obama agreed to it.
Exactly. Keep the agreement the same in principle, change a few insignificant words and put Trump's name on it and Trump would have been bragging to the world how he got Iran to agree to the NPT on steroids.
And Biden did not change as much as a comma on the Trump policy, he continued on Trump's path.
Out of sheer and/or morbid curiosity, HAS there been a US election season that didn't inevitably veer into "disgusting" ?
Funny 🙂
I mean, young Johnathan Kerry windsurfing was “embarrassing” more than “disgusting”, but each Presidential tilt starts off promising civility and ends up in a Ba’ath of bickering and recriminations.
”Peace train, peace train! Come take me home again!”
Another Axios report said the US warned Iran that if it attacked, the US wouldn’t be able to restrain Israel. “We told the Iranians: We won’t be able to hold Israel back, and we won’t be able to make sure that the next attack will be calibrated and targeted as the previous one,” a US official told Axios.
A bald-faced lie.
Yes, it's like I can't stop my right hand from doing what it wants … sort of like Strangelove's hand:
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=dr+strangelove%27s+hand&&mid=E2EC1F01A3ECDA6BFAB6E2EC1F01A3ECDA6BFAB6&&FORM=VRDGAR
MEIN FUHRER ! I CAN WALK !
I miss Peter Sellers so.
Precisely. We could "hold them back' by denying Israel more weapons. Full stop.
More accurately, "we won't pretend to try to hold them back".
Thomas Massie
@RepThomasMassie
“Those who wax eloquent about ‘threats to our democracy’ are really worried about the threats to our bureaucracy.”
Well said
@VivekGRamaswamy !
8:58 AM · Nov 4, 2024
Truth, right there.
Targets for Iran.
I always enjoy healthy cynicism HD.
The U.S. has also deployed stealth bombers. The B-52 is good for attacking areas that do not have anti-aircraft rockets. Just a show of force, I imagine.
The stealth bombers will be used. Doppler radar can recognize them.
During the second Gulf War, I cannot remember which country it was, but one country detected the bombers coming and going.
What are they there for? Carpet bomb Gaza, Lebanon, Iran?
Sure, it is the Biden administration that is behind the lunacy, but it is a bipartisan affair to allow Israel to do what it is doing.
I cannot fathom that representatives of "the most powerful country in the world" are so afraid of that speck known as Israel that they risk a conflagration that will continue to expand.
There is also a risk of losing the hegemony of the dollar as well as trading might, if one pays attention to what transpired at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia a few days ago.
And we have no potential competent leadership to end the holocaust caused by the beastly megalomaniacs in Tel Aviv and Washington DC. With all the insane officials on the lose it looks bad for the world, neither one of the two candidates for president appears to even notice. We have no really legitimate president with a clean bill of mental health in government. How can it be explained to keep supporting the war in Ukraine, a country without a legitimate head of state, a little clown whos term is over still throwing Ukrainian men in the meat grinder for American interests and his personal wealth.
I am all for Defunding Israel!…
;-/
I absolutely agree with Israel's right to defund itself.
Plus an active war crime tribunal, with Netanyahu and Biden at the top, and all their war criminal partners with them, the deceptive, lying journalists are just as guilty and must be included and held to account.
Biden and Netanyahu and their close advisers must be insane, normal people can't do what they are doing. They beat Hitler.
They believe they will win any war, all they have to do is bomb the enemy nation to hell. That is all it takes, see Israel and the annihilation of Gaza and Lebanon, they can't lose when all they have to do is to bomb and kill women and children, the USA is good at that, remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Libya, Cambodia and Laos, Panama, and little Grenada, the bombing of the withdrawing Iraqi army after the Gulf war , and the carpet bombing of Germany like a Tag Team US and UK when they had already won the war.
Touché ole!
"B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers from Minot Air Force Base’s 5th Bomb Wing arrived in the US Central Command area of responsibility,"
Based on the photo that is a flying fortress. It provides a big exposure to be hit, not like drones. What planes do the Israelis use to bomb Gaza with 2000 lb. bombs?
No US war for Israel!
End the Zionist control of America!
The B-52 can be used both for targeted attacks – like JDAM bombs directed against, say, an Iranian military facility – and mass bombing attacks, directed against, say, southern Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah (and many civilians) a la Vietnam.
They're there because the US expects further escalation and is preparing to directly attack either Hezbollah or Iran or both (probably including Iraq and Yemen.)
Just another step to the inevitable Middle East war.
Watch Iranian air defenses against Israel and imagine giant B-52 evasion tactics.
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/223528/VIDEO-Air-defense-systems-activated-in-Tehran
Aircraft carriers were brought home for the same reason. Iran hit an oil platform in the Mediterranean Sea and could do the same to a big ship,
US weapons are old -fashioned because much of the borrow and spend weapons program goes to buy votes in congress and students are struggling with bankster debt and have little time to invent.
Iran wants to de-escalate too. That's why "peace thru strength" is their motto?
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/11/04/netanyahus-imaginary-war-narrative-strategy-if-it-works-fine-if-not-no-big-deal-well-try-something-else/
Alastair Crooke
Israel is continuing to destroy through bombing and demolition homes and entire villages in Lebanon. This is not about a 'buffer zone,' it's really about the Zionist plan to annex No. Lebanon into the greater Israel project. And, what is Wash. doing? Nada! The Zionist cancer has now spread into stage 4. Check out the greater Israel maps here: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=greater+israel+maps&iax=images&ia=images So, now you see why Israel's neighbors don't like them.
Israel has no interest in annexing Lebanon. But they want to make it safe for Israelis in the north to return to their homes. Southern Lebanon was lousy with Hezbollah tunnels and arms stored in almost every home. So, too bad.
More lies. See my post on the greater Israel agenda which includes No. Lebanon. And, taking another neutral country’s land for that agenda is simply theft, which is something Israel is good at. And, never mind the people there, they must be considered ‘der untermensch’ because they are being killed along with their homes destroyed.
Well as much as I trust your sources why don’t we wait a few months to see if Israel withdraws after there is a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah.
They don’t? See maps of greater Israel here. See greater Israel map here and notice Lebanon. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=greater+Israel+map&iax=images&ia=images
We know what Israel wants. But "ya can't always get what ya want"
I doubt you know anything about Israel that you haven’t read on Al Jazeera
Warped people end up dying of the rage that has consumed them.
The Pentagon said the purpose of the deployment is the “protection of US citizens and forces in the Middle East, the defense of Israel, and de-escalation.”
US forces don't belong in the Middle East. Israel doesn't belong anywhere and in American lingo desolation means "let the fox guard the hen house."