The Pentagon announced on Thursday that it has approved the deployment of substantial air and missile defenses to Saudi Arabia to protect the oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. This includes a Patriot missile battery, and radar systems.
This is only the beginning, as the initial deployment, according to Defense Secretary Mark Esper, will also come with a “prepare to deploy” order for more missile batteries and a THAAD missile defense system.
These deployments come after Saudi oil refineries were damaged earlier this month in a drone attack. The Saudis are the third highest spender on their military worldwide, but their pricy defensive systems have so far proven unable to fend off the drones.
This must inevitably raise the question of whether US forces will do any better. The Saudis, after all, bought all the same costly US arms the American forces will have access to. US officials have been looking to spend more money on anti-drone technology specifically because they aren’t confident that existing, pricy US weapons really work.
The deployment of US troops with anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems to the Saudi coast on the Persian Gulf, however, might make more sense as a move to target Iran, something the US has been very keen to do in recent months. This may just be a continued US buildup with an eye toward an eventual war with Iran.
When they get rekt again by the Yemenis, they’re going to howl about Iran.
It’s almost comical if the situation didn’t involve starving and bombing millions of people to death.
Defending democracy & American values.
Democracy is wasted on morons. You must have an educated and informed electorate for democracy to work.
“American values” includes “Mind your own business”.
Nobody’s dying for solar panels.
Democracy does get in the way of elitists telling the “morons” what to do.
Democracy is a play, produced by elitist propaganda institutions, in turn owned by corporations who depend on a steady supply of morons. Both as workers and as consumers.
We are born genius.
Everything we learn risks making us more stupid.
U.S. Ships More Air Defense Systems That Do Not Work To Saudi Arabia
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/us-ships-more-air-defense-systems-that-do-not-work-to-saudi-arabia.html#more
This is what “locked and loaded” is all about. Don’t believe the BS that Trump and Netanyahu aren’t ready to attack Iran. They both have personal reasons for getting us into a catastrophic war that will enable them to avoid prison once they are out of office. Americans won’t ever vote to oust a war president, no matter how stupid and insane the war is.
Therein we will find the explanation of any false flag attacks, which I still suspect as to the tankers and this drone attacks. I can’t prove it, but I don’t believe the official story any more than the Gulf of Tonkin, Remember the Maine, or the “accident” of the sustained attack on the USS Liberty.
I would agree with you except for the fact that the Houthis have motive, capability, and opportunity – and they’ve said they did it.
Now whether they did as much damage as claimed is another story. But I have little reason to doubt it absent any real evidence to the contrary.
As for the tankers, I don’t buy the official story for that. But there is the slight possibility that it was Iranian retaliation for attacks and sabotage which supposedly has been plaguing *their* ports and facilities in the last year or so. So it’s possible that the CIA and the Israelis and their proxies have been conducting covert attacks on Iran in the last couple years and the Iranians decided to retaliate – which would have been the goal of the CIA/Israeli attacks.
Iran is between a rock and a hard place. If they do nothing, someone else does and they get blamed. If they do anything, they get blamed.
They can do “tit-for-tat” but they can’t actually win that process. All they can do is play into the hands of the neocons and Israelis who want a casus belli for war.
If Iran really was a “theocratic dictatorship” as they are depicted by the West, run by someone who resembles Hitler, they would just say “the hell with it” and launch an all-out war. But that’s not how states usually work, short of an actual Hitler. So Iran is mostly screwed as a practical matter.
People who think Iran intends to and can push the US to the brink of war but, since the US allegedly can’t afford an actual war with Iran, that the war won’t happen and therefore Iran can win this process are simply wrong. The war can and will happen regardless of any consequences to the world economy, or the military consequences for the US or Israel, or Trump’s political career, or anything else that they allege can derail it.
The US can’t “win” a war with Iran – but they can damn sure start one.
All I can say is it’s wonderful to live in a nation that comes to the defense of the poor and defenseless like this. Really makes me proud.
Sure. Why defend America, when you can protect the country that helped give us 9-11 and their oil?
“This may just be a continued US buildup with an eye toward an eventual war with Iran.”
Ya think?
The Houthis successful attack on the Saudis was a neocon wet dream, enabling them to substantially ratchet up the war propaganda.
This is only exceeded by a US blockade of Iran if Iran sank a US ship, or another 9/11 they could blame on Iran instead of Iraq. And I wouldn’t put them – or the Israelis – past orchestrating another 9/11-level attack inside the US to do just that.
And then where will Trump be with his lame “no unnecessary wars” promise (election be damned)?
And note the article today on this site: “Russia to expand its Hmeimim air base in Syria – reports.”
They’re adding a second landing strip and setting up a building to house planes that can defend against drones.
They don’t need these actions to deal with the Syrian insurgents. The drone defense may be due to the Houthis’ success with drones and the fact that the airbase has been attacked by drones in the past, but the second airstrip means they anticipate needing more fighters sent to Syria at some point.
The Russians are preparing for war with Israel and the US.
The backstory here is that the Saudis can’t operate the weapons they buy. If we sell them more missiles to meet a real potential air attack, we have to send people to operate them.
The same is true of aircraft we sell them — they can provide only pilots, and those not very good, but all the ground crew are foreigners on contract through American companies.
We saw the same when the Saudi Army tried to meet the forces of Saddam at their border in the Battle of Khafji. The US had to bail them out, using Marines and Special Forces without the heavy armor of the Saudis and Iraqis.
This is important for two reasons. First, foreign forces are a huge political problem in Saudi Arabia with very damaging and destabilizing effects, which is why we pulled all American forces out before. Second, it exposes the fantasy that the US has an effective ally; they just recycle petrodollars, they can’t even defend themselves.