[HN Gopher] F-15E jet shot down over Iran
___________________________________________________________________
F-15E jet shot down over Iran
https://theaviationist.com/2026/04/03/iran-f-15e-debris/
Author : tjwds
Score : 301 points
Date : 2026-04-03 16:00 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| uticus wrote:
| Also reported at
| https://theaviationist.com/2026/04/03/iran-f-15e-debris/
| ceejayoz wrote:
| C-130s and helicopters flying low over Iran right after they
| shot down an F-15 in the same spot is wild. Whatever I think of
| the war idiocy, that's brave.
| uticus wrote:
| It's breaking news...meaning it may be inaccurate. CENTCOM
| certainly is saying it's false [0]. But there are enough
| signs of it being genuine, to be concerning at this stage.
|
| Flying low over Iran at this point is planned, expensive
| "standoff" munitions were planned to give way to more
| accurate and less expensive munitions once air superiority
| was reached - which U.S. has been claiming has happened for a
| while now.
|
| [0] https://x.com/CENTCOM/status/2039805134704660622
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > CENTCOM certainly is saying it's false...
|
| Any time this administration cries "fake news" is probably
| a tell.
|
| > Flying low over Iran at this point is planned...
|
| But with C-130s and helos, in an area that just shot down a
| F-15? That's risky. One of the videos shows the C-130
| deploying flares.
| uticus wrote:
| You do have a point. F-18 narrowly missed a MANPAD
| recently too
| jacquesm wrote:
| The other way around.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Update: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/us-fighter-
| jet-went-ir...
|
| > An F-15 fighter jet pilot has been rescued alive by the
| U.S. military after their aircraft went down over Iran, a
| U.S. official said Friday.
|
| > White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said
| President Donald Trump had been briefed on the incident --
| the latest dramatic development in the war, now more than a
| month old.
|
| CENTCOM lied.
| 0x_rs wrote:
| The government would never lie: the "damaged" plane was
| already accounted for, just in the ground, in enemy
| territory.
| netsharc wrote:
| The use of "a" instead of "the" pilot suggests more than
| 1 personnel on the plane, considering F15's carry 2
| people (unless it's some magical F15 I haven't heard of),
| it means there's still 1 guy missing out there.
|
| Or he (I assume) could also have been found dead, and is
| not being mentioned before his family is notified of the
| sacrifice Donald Trump made of his life.
| uticus wrote:
| https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/iran-us-fighter-shot-down
| verdverm wrote:
| CNN is reporting this confirmed by three US sources
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/03/politics/us-fighter-jet-iran
| mothballed wrote:
| If the pilots are recovered we probably won't hear about it from
| either side for hours. Iran will want to get them a mile
| underground before they send out the B-rolls. If recovered by the
| US, they will want them out of theater before anyone knows better
| so they can't be targeted.
| rasz wrote:
| One pilot rescued. Only one seat spotted suggesting other one
| didnt make it.
| uticus wrote:
| Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-war-
| news-2026?mod=WSJ_...
|
| "U.S. Conducting Rescue Operation After Jet Went Down Over Iran"
| uticus wrote:
| why is this not showing at top of HN search sorted by date?
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
| verdverm wrote:
| 1. search time settings, use 24h
|
| 2. the query string, "F-15" (capitalization is still important)
| oceansky wrote:
| It's in the front page now. It's how I found it.
| wesselbindt wrote:
| The article says this is the first jet that was shot down by
| enemy fire this war, but this confuses me. Was the F35 that was
| downed a while back friendly fire or something? Are F35s not
| fighter jets?
| hypeatei wrote:
| That one was damaged and managed to land safely, iirc. Depends
| on your definition of "shot down" I guess, but the pilot didn't
| eject, so...
| malfist wrote:
| We have always been at war with Eastasia
| ge96 wrote:
| I thought the IR video of that showed it made the missile
| detonate before the missile hit, maybe shrapnel hit the jet
|
| Then again idk the jet exhaust becomes more significant not
| sure if afterburner or damage
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1ry6ma2/f35_...
| jeffbee wrote:
| That's how anti-aircraft missiles always work.
| ge96 wrote:
| In that video it seems like something shoots at the missile
| is what I'm saying from the F35
|
| Someone said maybe a form of DIRCM
| eqvinox wrote:
| You're talking about a single "dash" on the frame before
| it goes all white. First question, if it were a laser,
| would be what exactly are you seeing there? A laser from
| the side is invisible, there'd need to be dust there, or
| the air would need to have turned into plasma. I don't
| think either makes that much sense. Second
| question/problem would be... it would have failed/be
| malfunctioning because --
|
| -- pretty much _all_ AA munition works by exploding in
| close proximity to the target and showering it in
| shrapnel. So this might even have "helped" the
| missle/shell against malfunction in its fuse. And
| considering that this is designed to work like that, and
| it's likely not the greatest quality work on the Iranian
| side, it's also possible that the thing is already
| exploding and just ejected some piece of intentional
| shrapnel (or unintentionally itself) early, ahead of the
| actual detonation.
|
| Or the Iranians edited that "dash" into that one frame,
| it's not exactly like it's a reputable source and it's in
| their interest to confuse things. Maybe they want the US
| to believe that the countermeasures are malfunctioning
| and helping their attacks, so they turn it off...
| ge96 wrote:
| Yeah I was also thinking the the dash might be the
| missile itself
|
| The single exhaust plume does become multiple on the F35
| suggesting damage
| ok_dad wrote:
| The missiles have what's effectively a flak shotgun shell
| at the tip, when they're pointed at an object and close
| by it shoots flak in a tight cone towards the front.
|
| Flak spreads the damage better and does more kinetic
| damage than trying to ram a plane with a missile and
| hoping the concussion from a the resulting explosion
| damages something.
| xeromal wrote:
| Almost like a seeking flak shell. I had no idea.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| The F35 was able to make an emergency landing in a gulf
| country. This one actually went down in Iran.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I'm not sure a plane can be landed when the crew ejected.
| azernik wrote:
| Assuming you're both referring to the events of 19 March,
| they did not eject from the F-35. I know of no event during
| this war where an F-35 crew ejected.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| > emergency landing
|
| https://preview.redd.it/f35-i-shot-down-in-
| iran-v0-0gdyroc4o....
|
| I think it's ok to say that it crashed into the ground but
| the pilot survived.
|
| With 'emergency landing' people assume it was just a rough
| landing whereas the plane here is completely and utterly
| broken.
| amelius wrote:
| "Flawless victory" is becoming sillier every day.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| Yep. It's just a lie.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| It's called Operation Epic Fuckup for a reason.
| salemh wrote:
| Operation Epstein Fury
| einpoklum wrote:
| Operation Epic Fail.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Military aviators train for this, being alone behind enemy lines
| (look up SERE school if you're curious, one of the craziest
| training courses outside of special forces) and there is a
| special force just for aviator recovery behind enemy lines, US
| AirForce Pararescue. Hopefully they'll get the aviators back
| quickly, the last thing our country needs is American hostages
| making this ridiculous war harder to stop.
| tokai wrote:
| Prisoner of war, not hostage.
|
| edit: I'm baffled by the amount of downvotes pointing out the
| objectively correct terminology can get. Its not a matter of
| opinion, military personnel captured by the enemy are pow no
| matter their treatment. A hostage, by definition, has been
| abducted.
| spwa4 wrote:
| That is assuming Iran holds itself to the Geneva conventions,
| which ... seems like an extremely risky bet to make.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| Especially after the double-tap on civilians and first
| responders the US just did on that bridge. Or the threat
| for no quarters from the secretary of defense. Or the
| threats to destroy critical civilian infrastructure for
| water or power.
| empyrrhicist wrote:
| Or Hegseth running his mouth about exactly this issue...
| nemomarx wrote:
| Prisoner exchanges are a pretty strong motivator for any
| group, even hardline ones. If the Taliban was up for
| exchanges I think the IRGC is pretty likely to want to keep
| prisoners for that too.
| mothballed wrote:
| I would note ISIS put out some high res, professionally
| edited video of burning a (Jordanian?) pilot to death
| while inside a cage. Quite savage, but the propaganda
| effect is more profound than about anything else I've
| seen.
| spwa4 wrote:
| Yes, after that video it was clear that Daesh and
| everyone in their little caliphate would be hunted down.
| And it was, they were. They were attacked everywhere they
| tried to return to. From minor girls returning to the
| Netherlands to 45 year old men (trying to) return to
| South Africa, all were persecuted, and that one video had
| a lot to do with that happening. After that video, even
| muslim nations started hunting these people.
| potatototoo99 wrote:
| And yet, they are still around, made famous and split
| into separate groups, still actively fighting on multiple
| fronts all over Africa. And if the Iranian government
| falls for sure they will be coming back with a vengeance
| in the area.
| craftkiller wrote:
| Does the US have any prisoners to exchange? Wouldn't we
| need boots-on-the-ground to capture enemy combatants?
| nemomarx wrote:
| Israel probably has some prisoners that Iran might want
| released, is my thinking?
| tjpnz wrote:
| Why wouldn't they?
| spwa4 wrote:
| First: count the responses to my thread of people
| suggesting Iran cannot/should not be held to the Geneva
| convention: 4,5 (I'm counting the Hegseth comment as 0.5)
|
| The point is there are a great deal of people, even in
| the US, who advocate that it is unreasonable to hold
| people fighting the west in general and US in particular
| to the Geneva conventions. I don't know where this idea
| comes from, because morally it is of course indefensible,
| but there you go.
|
| I would expect the number to be bigger in Iran. I would
| expect the number among IRGC extremists to be even higher
| than in Iran in general.
|
| Second: war crimes have 2 interpretations. First as
| violations of the Rome treaty which require that the
| state where the warcrimes happen has signed the Rome
| treaty. Iran hasn't.
|
| The second interpretation of warcrimes is that they are
| violations of the Geneva conventions, and the reaction
| would be that the UN security council intervenes. Well,
| the UNSC has preemptively declared they will not hold
| Iran to account for warcrimes (to be exact: France,
| Russia and China have declared they will veto). So at
| minimum you can say that Iranian warcrimes will not have
| any "official" consequences.
|
| The world and the UN have decided that warcrimes "don't
| count". As in there will not be any consequences unless
| the government of the country where they happened
| implements those consequences.
|
| Third: Iran has already kidnapped a US civilian (a
| reporter, Shelly Kittleson) and are holding her hostage.
| This is already a violation of the Geneva convention.
| They have also kidnapped hundreds of foreign nationals of
| other nations and are also holding them for ransom, which
| is also a violation of human rights, ie. a warcrime.
|
| So those are my three reasons Iran won't hold itself to
| human rights standards.
| sokitsip wrote:
| Iranians have dignity. Something American top brass
| doesn't even know the meaning of.
| spwa4 wrote:
| You mean the army shooting 40.000 protestors just 2
| months ago including 1000+ children, then executed a
| child that won an international wrestling competition,
| now accusing everyone else of warcrimes?
|
| I think I'll need some reeducation on this concept of
| "dignity" you speak. Could you explain further?
| sokitsip wrote:
| Right. Go watch CNN. "Back to the Stone Age" will surely
| save so many of the lives spared.
|
| Come on US media tell us the truth, you want to save
| people by killing them or to just kill them?
| g8oz wrote:
| None of those numbers are verifiable. The opposition has
| every incentive to lie. And let's not forget there was a
| lot of armed agitators amongst those protesters. Mike
| Huckabee let the cat out of the bag with a tweet boasting
| of how a mossad agent walks beside every protester.
| throwawaypath wrote:
| False. Khamenei himself acknowledged "thousands of
| people" had been killed during the protests:
| https://www.thetimes.com/world/middle-east/article/iran-
| youn...
| Saline9515 wrote:
| So how is bombing schools, dessalination plants and
| hospitals helping Iranians exactly? If that's what the US
| is really looking for?
| hvb2 wrote:
| > Iran has already kidnapped a US civilian (a reporter,
| Shelly Kittleson) and are holding her hostage.
|
| Expect there to be a lot of operatives of the US in Iran.
| Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it wouldn't
| be the first time a CIA or something operative is caught
| and this is the cover.
|
| In war the first victim is always the truth
| watwut wrote:
| France vetoed proposal about opening the straight by
| force. France and Europe in general dont want to dragged
| into this war.
|
| Also, I dont see UN punishing Israel or American war
| crimes either ... so it makes sense to not apply
| "whatever goes" standard to aggressors and different one
| to the defender.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Reprisals are legally permitted to a limited extent if
| you're a victim of war crimes, as Iran is.
| nprz wrote:
| What has Iran done to show it would not uphold Geneva
| conventions?
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| The US doesn't hold itself to the conventions, why should
| the country it started a war of aggression with?
| rbanffy wrote:
| If you throw away your principles because you are
| fighting an unprincipled enemy, you are no better than
| them.
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| There is no if. We've already done that. So yes, we are
| no better than them. So answer the question. Why would
| Iran follow conventions it's enemy that started a war of
| aggression is not following?
| ofrzeta wrote:
| Becaus two wrongs don't make right. If they are smart
| they will stick to the convention.
| saimiam wrote:
| It's such a shock to the system to realise that
| "unprincipled enemy" referenced here is the US.
| kelnos wrote:
| That's a lovely thing to say, but if your existence is
| being threatened by an aggressor, I wouldn't blame you
| for throwing out the rulebook.
|
| In my view, if someone invades your territory and starts
| attacking you, you have no obligation to follow any sort
| of "principles" or "rules" when it comes to how you fight
| back. _Anything_ you need to do to the attackers in order
| to defend yourself and your people is, by definition,
| morally defensible.
|
| (Do note that I said "need". Doing arbitrary messed-up
| things that don't actually further the goal of driving
| back the attackers is not ok.)
| decimalenough wrote:
| FWIW, during the Iran-Iraq war (where Iraq invaded Iran),
| Iran used a bunch of pretty questionable tactics like
| suicide squads of child soldiers.
| epolanski wrote:
| America has never played by the rules.
|
| US exceptionalism is a prominent feature of every
| republican and democratic president since decades.
|
| It's sad, because if US did, and led by example, it
| could've pulled serious weight internationally on plenty
| of matters.
|
| Instead it can only do so by economic or military
| leverage, which, at the end of the day is not enough of a
| leverage to avoid confrontation.
| tenthirtyam wrote:
| They're going back to the stone age, remember? The Geneva
| convention wasn't around then AFAICR.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Hegseth explicitly ordered to give the enemy "no quarter".
| n2j3 wrote:
| We are expecting Iran to honour an International Convention
| when US and Israel have squarely shat on every convention's
| face, so to speak.
| bz_bz_bz wrote:
| The person you're replying to is very explicitly not
| expecting them to honor the International Convention...
| n2j3 wrote:
| The funny thing is that I am, even if that puts me in the
| naive minority in this thread.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| It's not naive to have adult expectations for adults
| cestith wrote:
| As a matter of fact, if Iran comes out of the war having
| not committed war crimes they'll have a huge worldwide
| moral and public image victory over the United States and
| Israel.
| watwut wrote:
| They already targetted civilian infrastructure, so they
| already commited war crime. They also threatened to
| attack universities wh8ch is war crime on itself (after
| attack on their universities).
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| Iran has for nearly fifty years pursued unilateral
| hostilities against the US and Israel, including funding
| numerous terrorist groups and militias to wage war on
| them. It _can't_ negotiate its way out of this quagmire
| because the IRGC's core ideology and mission is _hatred_
| (and hostage-taking).
|
| In addition to waging continuous offensive militia
| operations, it's been cultivating a conventional and
| nuclear offensive option which it most definitely would
| use if it had it, because again, the IRGC's reason for
| existence is to "resist" Israel and the US, by which they
| mean obliterate those nations. What Trump recently has
| been saying about Iran is exactly what Iran has been
| saying for decades about the US and Israel.
|
| One of those militias went all Leroy Jenkins in 2023 and
| prematurely initiated the current hot war, which Iran is
| losing. In frustration, Iran has embarked on a terror
| campaign of bombing neutral neighbors to punish them for
| ... friendly diplomacy with the US I guess, and bombing
| civilians in Israel. And annexing an international
| waterway.
|
| What Trump and folks on this board don't seem to realize
| is that war with Iran is more like fighting a bunch of
| lawyers. You hurt them kinetically and they make you feel
| like you hurt yourself, get all confused. They slaughter
| 35k of their own people and shut off the Internet; the US
| mixes up the boundaries of an IRGC naval base in a much
| more constrained horror and the UN starts strutting
| around.
|
| Narratives do matter for winning wars and between Trump
| derangement syndrome and the IRGC's natural cleverness at
| permanent victimhood, it's the narrative that's at risk
| in a war between great nations that, unfortunately, sadly
| has been perfectly inevitable for decades.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| It's not unilateral, the US have been deeply involved in
| Iran since the 50's and the overthrow of the democratic
| government in order to allow the US companies to continue
| to steal Iran's oil.
|
| Then of course they had to deal with Irak who invaded
| them using US weapons and intel. Including use of sarin
| gas, thanks to US intel.
|
| The argument about democracy in Iran is hypocritical
| given that neither Trump or Israelis care about it at
| all. They just want weak client States.
|
| The Iranians didn't wake up hating the USA one day and a
| little techouva would be healthy if we want this conflict
| to end.
| spwa4 wrote:
| So you're saying, as soon as a party does something
| serious against you, say taking your embassy staff
| hostage (just to select a random thing one might do),
| then ANY future and continued hostilities, no matter how
| immoral the means used, are justified, even 50+ years
| later? I mean, you're singing the praises of long-term
| revenge. Oh and the 1979 revolution was a socialist
| revolution that even had support from the KGB.
|
| So that's great. Then, of course, anything the US does
| against Iran's islamist regime is justified according to
| you! Excellent news, that. Strange, I got a different
| impression from your tone.
|
| P.S. you are now supposed to say that it merely means
| "you understand why" they act like this, not if it's
| justified. Even though you absolutely won't understand
| the US killing a few hundred Iranians in revenge.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| I'm saying that violence between the two countries wasn't
| unilateral and that the US have a long history of
| aggression against Iran, culminating now. My post is
| quite clear.
|
| Ending a cycle of violence also requires to accept where
| you did wrong. The US have been bombing the world since
| 1943, with for the most part, little effect aside on the
| suffering of the civilians under fire.
|
| The only intelligent move to stop the cycle of violence
| with Iran was the nuclear deal framework made by Obama,
| which of course was terminated by Trump, which worked
| very well as the current war shows.
|
| Bombing Iran during negociations, killing their supreme
| leader and negociators, commiting war crimes, won't
| clearly solve anything.
|
| When I read such post, I feel that many people supporting
| the war in the US just have a sadistic instinct that
| needs to be expressed, whatever the consequences.
| losvedir wrote:
| How am I reading this? Wasn't the regime mowing down tens
| of thousands of its own citizens prior to this war? I
| mean, not a "war" crime, I guess, but it seems ludicrous
| to give them any "moral victories".
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Maybe Iran is more civilized than the Barbarians attacking
| them.
|
| We have to wait and see if Iran is fighting a woke war.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| It's a "well, actually" and counter to the HN guidelines
| tokai wrote:
| Only for someone breaking the guideline of "Assume good
| faith".
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I didn't downvote you, but a terse "well actually it's
| prisoner of war" doesn't really add to the conversation.
| Imagine doing that in person, you'd annoy everyone around
| you. If you explained why it's distinct and what that
| might mean for downed crew I think it wouldn't have been
| down voted
| cromka wrote:
| No, they wouldn't annoy _everyone_ around them, that 's
| just your subjective projection. I, for one, found it an
| important distinction that highlights how easy it is to
| skew a narrative towards a more sympathetic one. It saw
| it as having similar value to those Instagram posts
| juxtaposing headlines reporting on "dead Palestinians" vs
| "killed Israeli victims".
| bobchadwick wrote:
| There's a significant difference between a hostage and a
| prisoner of war, and in this context that distinction seems
| highly relevant.
| NickC25 wrote:
| ...but we aren't at war, according to the President and his
| secretary of Defense (war).
|
| what a fucking mess.
| ks2048 wrote:
| Not a Prisoner of War - a Prisoner of a limited military
| excursion.
| butlike wrote:
| It's more of a 'romp' than an 'excursion,' if you will.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Prisoner of a three day military operation.
| lokar wrote:
| Do they train for a "no quarter" conflict where injured or
| surrendered combatants are killed?
| rbanffy wrote:
| Hegseth is not in charge of the Iranian military.
| lokar wrote:
| But he did publicly declare his intention to commit war
| crimes.
| two_handfuls wrote:
| In case anyone else doubted this, I will save you the
| time to look it up. Yup, it's sadly true.
|
| https://www.commondreams.org/news/hegseth-no-quarter-
| interna...
| lokar wrote:
| Yep. And war crime seems to have lost all meaning in the
| US.
|
| But, even if you dismiss the idea of international
| standards, this is clearly very bad for US soldiers (and
| sailors, airmen, etc). I wonder if they see that.
| jMyles wrote:
| > But, even if you dismiss the idea of international
| standards, this is clearly very bad for US soldiers (and
| sailors, airmen, etc). I wonder if they see that.
|
| Even if you dismiss the idea of international standards,
| a no-quarter declaration is against _US law_,
| specifically subject to the penalty of death with no
| other lawful penalty defined: https://www.govregs.com/usc
| ode/title18_partI_chapter118_sect....
| asdff wrote:
| We've already committed several war crimes.
| estearum wrote:
| Actually even just _declaring_ no quarter is itself a war
| crime.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Hes also liable for the death sentence, 18 U.S.C. SS 2441
| -- War Crimes Act (1996) & 10 U.S.C. SS 950t -- Military
| Commissions Act (more relevent)
| lokar wrote:
| They won't face any US law. AIUI, they have been getting
| letters from the DOJ office of legal counsel that say
| it's legal. This effectively immunizes them (the DOJ
| can't turn around and charge you with a crime, if they
| advised you beforehand it was not a crime).
|
| The best shot would be to turn them over to the ICC
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Alas, the USA isn't signed up to the ICC.
| lokar wrote:
| Sure, but, if somehow they fell into ICC custody
| overseas...
| estearum wrote:
| Right but the reason we have rules against people declaring
| no quarter is to prevent a race to the bottom. It is
| absolutely reasonable to respond to a no quarter
| declaration in kind, which is... again... the entire reason
| we have prohibitions on it.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| No, we actually train to be tortured and held if caught, but
| everyone knows the risks before you take off. Captured
| marines or soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan,
| we're clear eyed about it.
| croes wrote:
| And lied to about the reasons of the war.
|
| Now they even lie about it being a war, while they claim
| they have already won the war, that isn't a war.
| bulbar wrote:
| ... But conducted by the self proclaimed Department of
| War.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Every war since Korea, we're very used to this.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| The other wars were woke. This is not a woke war.
|
| I wish I was joking.
| ray__ wrote:
| Care to elaborate on this?
| surgical_fire wrote:
| _" No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building
| quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically-
| correct wars. We fight to win," Hegseth said."_
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
| politic...
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| What's the value of having a civilian SecDef if he
| blathers on like this?
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| It's a self-soothing performance of self-importance, like
| everything else this administration does.
|
| This is not an administration run by adults who model
| consequences.
|
| Everything happens to reassure the Commander in Chief -
| and the people behind him, like Miller and Vought - that
| they're exceptionally special and gifted people who can
| have anything they want and do anything they want, to
| anyone, without limits.
| wat10000 wrote:
| There's pretty clearly negative value in having civilian
| leader whose most notable accomplishments are being a TV
| opinion host, and quitting the Army because they decided
| he was too dangerous to be allowed to serve as a guard
| for a presidential inauguration.
| croes wrote:
| To win what? Because it's not a war and not a game. So
| what else can be won?
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I know you're not.
|
| I've found that most of our population has almost no
| connection to the people that actually fight wars, and
| therefore have no idea what they think. With the
| exception of a few criminals, none of us desire to commit
| war crimes. None of us want to send rounds into civilian
| infrastructure, seeing regular people struggle to get
| food, fuel, and water in Iraq did not make me feel
| powerful and it was obvious it did not advance our goals
| on the ground.
|
| The jingoistic commentary people hear from politicians
| and former military podcasters that don't fight anymore
| is repugnant, and this backsliding in the (at least
| attempt at) honorable execution of war is not going to
| bode well for our country. It's probably trite when we're
| double tapping girl's schools, but I want to think that
| purposely striking civilian infrastructure, universities,
| hospitals, water resources... this was all something "we"
| didn't do.
|
| This is actively devaluing the meaning of being a Marine.
| Maybe this already happened in Mai Lai, maybe this was
| further chipped away by Abu Ghraib, maybe letting Eddie
| Gallagher off... etc etc. But this feels different in a
| way I've never felt before.
| propagandist wrote:
| Thank you for expressing your humanistic thoughts, but do
| consider the history of the institution and the
| government.
|
| What's different this time is that they haven't bothered
| with the PR.
| kelnos wrote:
| Why do it, then? I'm not trying to be inflammatory or ask
| loaded questions here, I'm genuinely curious (as someone
| who, as you note, has almost no connection to the
| Americans who fight in wars; I have friends who are vets,
| but have been out of the military for years), and I just
| don't understand.
|
| I absolutely believe you when you say that none of y'all
| want to commit war crimes, fire on civilian infra, bomb
| schools, etc. And yet that's happening right now, in
| Iran, and the soldiers continue to follow orders and
| carry out this travesty. I get that refusing an order is
| not something any soldier will do lightly, but when a
| school gets hit in Iran, do the soldiers conducting that
| strike not know what they're attacking beforehand?
|
| Even if they don't, do they never find out? Do they not
| see that some large N% of targets that have been hit have
| ended up being civilian targets? When they're ordered to
| fire on a new target, do they not question whether or not
| it's a civilian target, given past history?
|
| I ask these questions from near-complete ignorance; I
| really do not know how this works, or what kind of
| information any officer or soldier has when they're about
| to follow the orders they've been given. But it just
| seems insane to me that people continue to follow these
| orders, assuming they know how many civilians have been
| killed through previous actions. I just cannot imagine
| being in their position, and actually trusting that my
| superior officers were ordering me to do things that will
| later turn out to be morally defensible. (If _any_ of
| this war is morally defensible, which I don 't think it
| is.)
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I don't have a good answer for you. I expected the upper
| and middle officer corps to conduct themselves with honor
| and they aren't.
|
| I'm going to bet that pilots aren't briefed to hit a
| school, they get a target package that says this is a
| legit target, an IRGC command post or something. There
| are multiple layers of detachment between the person
| picking coordinates, entering them into a JDAM, and the
| pilot releasing that weapon so who is ultimately
| responsible (and this is by design, everyone can tell
| themselves a story right now to sleep at night.)
|
| But you do know what you hit, in the version of the
| military that I was in there would have been a detailed
| investigation into the chain of failures that led to
| striking a school with children in it. I'm sure it weighs
| heavily on the every person involved in that decision.
| Cold comfort for the parents of those kids, but something
| like that leaves a life long scar on the people
| responsible.
| propagandist wrote:
| There have been so many crimes and zero accountability. I
| frankly wouldn't know where to start, but maybe a good
| example is "collateral murder", which Assange has been
| persecuted for revealing for the better part of the past
| two decades.
|
| At least we're not pretending anymore.
| lokar wrote:
| And they have DOD lawyers (with backup from the DOJ)
| saying the whole thing, and specific targets, are legal.
| Along with that, much of the most Sr leadership (of both
| combat forces, and legal) have been fired and replaced
| with MAGA loyalists.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > the soldiers continue to follow orders
|
| We want them to. At the same time that we sit at our
| keyboards and philosophize about how soldiers should
| refuse to carry out unlawful orders, we [collectively] do
| not _really_ want them spending all _that_ much time
| pondering it. The most obvious cases, sure, but in
| general we want them to do what they are told, and do it
| quickly. That is why there are lawyers in the field to
| make fast judgements.
|
| The better solution is to try and not routinely find
| ourselves in the position of the country being led by
| criminals.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| It's not not woke, it's wokeness of a different kind.
| They exclude those who disagree with their brand of
| orthodoxy, it seems like to me they're firing anyone who
| says no to the ground invasion.
| themafia wrote:
| Maybe you shouldn't be.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| As he said. Military members are pretty clear eyed about
| things.
| Lerc wrote:
| Interesting, I had interpreted their comment to be asking
| if they were trained to carry out a no-quarter order.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Unless I missed something, Only Hegseth was promising no
| quarter (ie war crimes)
| swyx wrote:
| he what? this is on the record?
| piperswe wrote:
| https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4
| 434...
|
| > Our response? We will keep pressing. We will keep
| pushing, keep advancing, no quarter, no mercy for our
| enemies.
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| Yes, he said it in front of reporters at a Pentagon
| briefing.
| asdff wrote:
| If they landed anywhere near a town they are probably captured.
| The kuwait video from the f15 that was hit with friendly fire
| was crazy. Like 6 suvs worth of locals immediately surrounded
| this guy and they were threatening to beat him with a
| galvanized pipe.
| pram wrote:
| TBH I went through SERE school (aircrew) and I questioned its
| value, since the training is in eastern Washington/northern
| Idaho area mountainous woodland environment and all the evasion
| they showed us relied on that kind of cover and "bushcraft"
|
| And you know, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran are definitely not
| eastern Washington lol
| cactusfrog wrote:
| Eastern Washington has a lot of hot desert
| pram wrote:
| Washington indeed has a giant desert but it's in the middle
| fwiw, the SERE school is in Spokane
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Spokane is in the Eastern arid region of the state.
| pram wrote:
| What an absolutely pointless thing to get pedantic about.
| Put "spokane washington" into Google images and tell me
| if that looks like a desert to you.
| hedgehog wrote:
| They're also wrong. The geographic center (around
| Ellensburg or so) is also in what is known as Eastern WA
| (east of the Cascades).
| cbron wrote:
| Spokane is Eastern Washington, the college in Cheney is
| literally called Eastern, its just not a desert.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/Yud6EFprZeaVDaeQ6
|
| This is the view outside of Fairchild AFB, which runs the
| training course in question.
|
| Wikipedia reports that Spokane has a Mediterranean
| climate, as does Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province
| where this F-15 is reported to have been shot down.
| cbron wrote:
| Spokane is not desert. Even surrounding territory is more
| plains. Some desert military training happens at Yakima
| much further west.
| ericmay wrote:
| You'd get additional specific training for deployments and
| the skills are transferrable. But obviously they can't train
| everyone in every biome that we have, otherwise you'd spend a
| whole year just flying around to different areas of the
| country to train and on a 4-year contract it's just not going
| to work time-wise.
| ambicapter wrote:
| If you're doing SERE school you're probably not on a 4 year
| contract. Pilots have 10 year contracts.
| budman1 wrote:
| some enlisted air crew go to SERE. loadmasters, airborne
| intelligence, and SMA (Special Mission Aviators).
|
| As an added benefit, enlisted air crew have no
| restrictions on mustache length or on professional wear
| of the uniform.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| Add Huey crew chiefs to this list
| eddieh wrote:
| Iran isn't just central Tehran. Look up the Zagros Mountains
| and the Alborz Mountains. Or just look at a picture of the
| northern Tehran skyline, it is at the foot of the Alborz, a
| huge mountain range. There's plenty of woodlands and forest
| too. Some parts of the Hyrcanian forests get over 50 inches
| of annual rainfall, which isn't Forks, WA, but it is
| substantial.
| overfeed wrote:
| You're reinforcing parents point by highlighting the
| variety: at most, just 1 of the areas is a close match to
| the terrain at the training grounds.
| eddieh wrote:
| Not really, if you're entering Iranian airspace from the
| Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, or Europe, you're flying
| over either the Zagros Mountains or the Alborz Mountains.
| Unless you crash/eject in a city, you're almost certainly
| going to be in the mountains. Look at a map.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Sounds like typical one-sized-fits-all, checkbox military
| nonsense. Perhaps there are better and/or climate-specific
| SERE courses in one or more services? Because if it's
| ineffective, it's a waste of time and money more so than
| usual and puts expensive-to-replace personnel at risk.
|
| Seems like it's all about vacating the area and busting out
| the CSEL (or NGSR when materialized) personal SAR comms is
| the best way out, or it may well turn into a weeks(s) long,
| nonstop spy-shit ordeal getting out. Perhaps some forethought
| and packing with knowledge and specific local-appropriate
| items (and chunk of cash) would help more than MIL-STD
| Walmart camping aisle prepper bullshit.
| boogieknite wrote:
| far from pc but i grew up hunting along the snake and the old
| guys always called those hills "Bin Ladens" bc it looked like
| the pictures of where news reported he was hiding
| nielsbot wrote:
| Relevant: This is a very interesting read:
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5150259-u-s-air-force-su...
| uticus wrote:
| previous conversation at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47626347
| npn wrote:
| the last time US wanted some country to reset back to Stone Age
| the same thing happened. turn out those aircrafts are not
| undefeatable at all.
| dmix wrote:
| It's pretty normal for planes to go down in a war. They've
| flown 5000+ sorties, it's a pretty huge accomplishment this is
| the first one lost over Iran. Especially considering all of the
| last decade's speculation about how tough attacking Iran would
| be.
|
| You'll never be able to fully suppress all of their manpads.
| Even if you destroy the bulk of their air defence network.
| verdverm wrote:
| First to go down in Iran, but a surprising amount of
| attritions thus far
|
| - 3x F-15 friendly fire
|
| - 2x KC-130 refuel mid air collision (1 loss, 1 damaged)
|
| - 1x F-35 damaged
|
| - 1x AEWACs base strike
|
| - 3x KC-130 base strike (same)
|
| - 1x F-15 (this one)
|
| 2-3 a week is not great for the greatest military, more than
| half attributable to Iran.
|
| With 300+ US casualties, that's ~10/day, a fatality every ~2
| days. No boots on the ground (that we know of, sure there are
| some elite ops in the country)
| dmix wrote:
| You must not have read about all the hype Iran had before
| the war and before 2024 especially. The US airforce/navy
| has performed extremely well. In Desert Storm they lost
| far, far more aircraft and that only lasted 1.5 months
| (Iran is 1 month in). Even the ballistic missile strikes
| against Israel haven't been exceptionally notable,
| considering Iran is going full-bore and has thousands of
| ballistic/cruise missiles and drones. They _should_ be able
| to do much more to regional military bases.
|
| The main issues with this war are strategic questions and
| people mocking the presidents inconsistent communication.
| But otherwise for an air campaign this has been about as
| good as one could expect - within the limits of what an
| air-only campaign can do.
| sokitsip wrote:
| And that's exactly why sharing a video might lead to
| prison sentence somewhere?
| verdverm wrote:
| I wouldn't draw comparisons to Desert Storm, 36 years ago
| and a differently composed US military, along with all
| the ISR advancements since then.
|
| > They should be able to do much more to regional
| military bases.
|
| _Could_ , they are not going all out, but they do keep
| striking gulf states on the regular
|
| > people mocking the presidents inconsistent
| communication.
|
| _Asking questions_ , we the people deserve some clarity
| instead of half a dozen changing reasons and being told
| we already won, but still need to win, and that we'll be
| done in a few weeks a few times now. We the people have
| to pay for this, we deserve answers, _especially what 's
| the plan for when the shooting stops_?
|
| Israel, or at least Bibi, seems to be the only one who is
| very clear about the goals and intentions.
| bwat49 wrote:
| the big difference with Iran is the strait of hormuz. It
| doesn't matter how "well" it goes if it stays closed and
| torpedos the global economy
|
| > inconsistent communication
|
| I feel like "inconsistent communication" is putting it
| lightly, with trump going back and forth between "we
| won", "we'll take the oil", and "whatever we'll leave"
| often within the same day.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Does it matter? US is a net oil exporter, and not exactly
| starved for Gulf oil. And every day the strait stays
| closed is a day other Gulf states have a very pressing
| reason to conflict with Iran. As if Iran didn't give
| enough of those to the entire region.
|
| Iran isn't somehow able to exert infinite economic
| pressure forever. They can play the chaos monkey, but how
| much does it helps them? Threats only work on those who
| cave in to them.
| bwat49 wrote:
| It does matter because oil is a global commodity, the
| fact that the US is a net exporter doesn't stop the
| prices from going up and other follow-on impacts to the
| global economy.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| It means that US isn't hit the hardest. There's no "we
| have to end the war this month or our country grinds down
| to a halt". Just the slow grind of economic pressure
| that, I remind, affects more countries than just the US -
| and many of them far stronger.
|
| US leadership can just say "this isn't enough to deter
| us" and proceed with the rest of the war however they
| want.
| verdverm wrote:
| The Iranian regime is betting that they can outlast
| Donald Trump on this front. Trump's War is very unpopular
| and they don't care what the Iranian people think or
| suffer through.
| kakflelajf74 wrote:
| > US is a net oil exporter, and not exactly starved for
| Gulf oil
|
| I suggest not taking anything Trump says as the truth: ht
| tps://xcancel.com/chrismartenson/status/20395237040617722
| 3...
| intended wrote:
| Holy shit, thats really saying the quiet part loud.
|
| "Does it matter?"
|
| Yes, Who cares about the rest of the world?
|
| Nations shutting down, businesses shutting down, and all
| because the elected leader of America got involved in a
| war to avoid accusations of pedophilia.
|
| And lest we forget, this is _the_ nuclear superpower.
| Thank god there is no conspiracy theory about Nukes being
| useful so far. I have more faith that the administration
| will bend _towards_ conspiracies than away from them.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| I don't see Iran trying, and failing, to hold the world
| economy hostage as a reason to go against "no
| negotiations with terrorists".
| verdverm wrote:
| If oil hits $200/barrel and inflation is double digits,
| people will have different priorities.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _The main issues with this war are strategic questions_
|
| That's an exceptionally nice way of saying we invaded a
| country for no valid military reason, starting a war of
| aggression.
|
| We're no better than Russia now, with their invasion of
| Ukraine.
|
| > _... and people mocking the presidents inconsistent
| communication._
|
| Well-deserved mockery. He continues to lie about what's
| happening, every other sentence.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Iran's regime is an radical Islamic theocracy that has
| "Death to America" as a matter of policy, supports every
| other radical Islamist militia in the entire Middle East
| region, and tried to build nukes after being told,
| repeatedly, not to build nukes.
|
| I don't know about you, but the idea of a radical Islamic
| theocracy and a well known source of Middle East
| instability having nukes doesn't sit well with me. As far
| as reasons to invade countries go, this alone would make
| for a damn good one.
| platinumrad wrote:
| If a button existed that magically turned Iran into a
| secular-ish democracy(-ish) like Turkey then, yes, I
| would expect the President of the United States to press
| it.
|
| No such button exists, and it's increasingly clear that
| this war will leave the entire world far worse off while
| further entrenching the current Iranian regime.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| "Far worse off" how exactly? "Entrenching" how exactly?
|
| Iranian regime wasn't doing that well even when it wasn't
| actively bombed. And "rally around the flag" only goes so
| far in a country that has been killing protestors by the
| thousands.
|
| I don't see this war ruining Iran's regime overnight as
| is. But if it comes up with a sustained effort to
| pressure Iran, or a ground operation to topple the regime
| directly, it well might.
| overfeed wrote:
| > "Far worse off" how exactly? "Entrenching" how exactly?
|
| Hardliners and the IRGC have significantly more power
| than before, and however few moderates that remain have
| much less political capital and are at much greater risk
| of being purged.
|
| If Iran doesn't win significant concessions tayt the
| sucker-punch attacks will never be repeated again[1],
| they are guaranteed to sprint towards the minimum viable
| nuke.
|
| 1. Bibi will refuse, obviously, and Americas capacity to
| leash him is questionable.
| verdverm wrote:
| Here's an idea I heard put forth because Iran is asking
| for a great power guarantee against future incidents like
| this.
|
| Have China the guarantor, build military bases, and put
| them under their nuclear deterrence umbrella. Iran can be
| assured they won't be bombed, the West can be assured
| they won't have nukes. (in theory, I largely assume the
| CCP will not aid in their construction or let them have
| nukes under such an arrangement).
|
| Thing is, all the little countries are looking at what
| happened to Ukraine (who gave up their nukes), Iran (who
| has not gotten them yet), and North Korea (who has them).
| Their looking and thinking, if I had nukes, I probably
| wouldn't be the target of regime change.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Pretty much.
|
| US military is performing quite well. US political
| leadership is the questionable part of this war.
|
| It would sure be nice if White House gave a reason to
| believe that there's an actual plan for dismantling
| Iran's regime, or Iran's influence, that goes beyond
| "wing it".
| bigyabai wrote:
| > They should be able to do much more to regional
| military bases.
|
| I don't see why they couldn't. The obvious strategy for
| Iran right now is to use cluster munitions and Shahed
| waves to expend as many interceptors as possible before
| sending in the high-throw unitary (or nuclear) warheads.
| It makes sense that we saw the smaller MRBMs first since
| they're the cheapest minimum-viable threat.
|
| > this has been about as good as one could expect -
| within the limits of what an air-only campaign can do.
|
| We're deep in the missile age. Air campaigns like this
| sucked during the Scud hunt, and it triple-sucks now that
| America has to contend with drone warfare. The limits of
| an air-only campaign have been constricting for the past
| three decades, and the death toll can only climb if the
| air war fails.
| verdverm wrote:
| List is outdated, an A-10 has now been shot down.
|
| https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-israel-trump-lebanon-
| apri...
| throwaway27448 wrote:
| Most of those sorties haven't been in Iranian air space.
| That's the entire point of standoff munitions.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| The only ones I'm seeing act like there should be no
| expectation of losing aircraft in a war are social media
| figures who always want to bloviate about something.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| This is the dumbest, most pointless military conflict in American
| history. There is nothing plausible to win, but we can
| conceivably lose everything. A pyric victory is among the most
| favorable outcomes. We are led by corrupt imbeciles. I can only
| hope the outcome includes regime change for the U.S.
| enaaem wrote:
| "We've had vicious kings, and we've had idiot kings, but I
| don't think we've ever been cursed with a vicious idiot for a
| king!"
| karp773 wrote:
| Why didn't Iran use its capability to take down enemy jets for an
| entire month?
| karp773 wrote:
| Downvoters, care to explain?
|
| Seriously, it's been sitting on this for entire month and now,
| all of a sudden, rolled out antiaircraft defense? What's going
| on?
| shigawire wrote:
| Because it obviously doesn't have the capability. Similar to
| how the US has no capability to "win" from the air only.
| karp773 wrote:
| Maybe it was friendly fire but I did not see that in the
| news yet.
| DASD wrote:
| ~15/16 MQ-9 Reapers have been shot down inside Iran. Not jets
| but still combat(strike and reconnaissance) aircraft.
| karp773 wrote:
| I just looked it up. Those are turboprop (slower) but have
| a high ceiling of 50k feet. So Iran did have something
| better than stingers left. Maybe they just got lucky this
| time.
| eqvinox wrote:
| I didn't downvote, but your post sounds like you're implying
| some kind of tomfoolery, deception, or other hidden reasons.
| There are very likely none, it just takes time to adapt to a
| specific enemy, probability slowly increases while you get
| more attempts, and then after some time (t) the first
| shootdown is "properly" successful. And note how this was
| preceded by that half-successful shootdown where the plane
| made an emergency landing. And they shot down drones.
|
| You sound like they roll an antiaircraft cannon out of the
| hangar and immediately successfully down a plane. That's not
| how that works. The AA was _probably_ there from the
| beginning, just not successful.
| standardUser wrote:
| We don't know what downed it yet, so it's hard to say. Iran
| is hiding and rationing their offensive munitions, we know
| that, so it's not surprising when the number of drone and
| missile attacks spikes after weeks of bombing. That's part of
| the plan. But the ability to take down a US fighter jet is
| not something they are rationing- it's likely at the edge of
| their capabilities and they got lucky. If they could be
| knocking down more, they would be.
| ranger207 wrote:
| Air defense is not static. Even fixed launchers can be moved,
| and reacting to how your enemy is operating is an important
| part of air defense tactics. The famous F-117 shootdown
| happened because the air defense operators carefully planned
| around how the US was using its aircraft. If most Iranian air
| defenses were destroyed in the first few days, it'd make more
| sense for them to hold whatever was still available for the
| sort of situation where they had much higher chances of
| scoring a kill than just throwing it out there to get
| destroyed immediately and accomplish nothing.
| solid_fuel wrote:
| If you want a real explanation, this is how defensive wars
| against an overwhelming opponent are fought. Iran knows that
| they can't build an iron-clad air defense perimeter, there
| still isn't a reliable answer against stealth aircraft and
| cruise missiles. They never had a chance of shooting down
| every plane that enters their airspace, and _that isn 't
| their goal_.
|
| Instead, they will fight this war by absorbing blow after
| blow, hiding their capabilities and striking back when it is
| advantageous.
|
| All Iran needs to do to win is:
|
| 1) Outlast the US air campaign - note this _only_ requires
| protecting enough of their defensive capabilities to remain
| difficult. It does _not_ require shooting down every US
| aircraft that enters their borders. It does _not_ require
| shooting down most aircraft that enter their borders.
|
| 2) Prevent free shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
|
| That's it. They just need to apply economic pain as domestic
| and international opposition to the unprovoked attack grows.
| maxglute wrote:
| Speculation.
|
| 1. Iran was retarded and didn't preemptively strike US staging
| who had local overmatch and first mover advantage. Nothing to
| do but weather hits, chip away at regional basing and wait
| until US+Israel operation tempo goes down. Can't sustain surge
| sorties forever, especially with regional logistics wrecked. US
| pilots tired now, on stims, making mistakes.
|
| 2. Iran not remain retarded, was hide and bide, waited for US
| to get complement, gathering data / building tactics to squeeze
| out surface-air without getting glassed. Regardless, Iranian
| capability seems much less degraded than claimed. Who knows how
| many of the 20k+ targets hit was basically just drawing down
| highend munition inventory, which now forces flying closer on
| lower end munitions.
|
| At the end of the day, Iranian mosaic forces are chilling in
| underground bunkers waiting for US+co to make mistakes.
| Consider Iraq, a much smaller country by every metric ate 5x
| more sorties from more carriers and sustained regional air
| campaign and fell because they hedged on centralized IADs.
| Granted most Iranian hits are precision munitions (more
| efficient per sortie), but we simply should not expect Iran
| doctrine built on distributed survivability to be remotely
| defeated relative to effort expended.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Also the US has been mostly using cruise missiles, which
| don't require to get close to the targets. Now that those
| ammunitions are gone, they have to take more risks and use
| gliding bombs with GPS kits, which have a much shorter range.
| asdff wrote:
| Iran doesn't have to shoot down a single jet to win this war.
| Just move military hardware into caves. Sacrifice civilian
| infrastructure as the only viable bombing target. Wait it out
| until American domestic pressure from perceived war crimes ends
| the war. They can't afford to fight a land war or garrison over
| the entire country.
|
| The fact that Israel has leveled much of the 140 square miles
| of gaza over the past 3 years and still fails to remove Hamas
| from power. No chance against 636,372 square miles and 93
| million people. Worse odds than Vietnam. There isn't even a
| defined victory condition.
| subw00f wrote:
| Wow, "perceived war crimes", what an interesting way of
| saying war crimes.
| asdff wrote:
| Real and perceived. The lay public aren't generally
| students of international law.
| praptak wrote:
| > There isn't even a defined victory condition.
|
| It's even worse if you consider what rational options the
| mullahs have. Yes, they are a murderous dictatorship and
| enemies of US - no question about that. But they did nothing
| to provoke this particular attack and they still got bombed.
|
| Backing off without first inflicting severe pain is just not
| an option in this situation. It would be an invitation to get
| bombed at will.
| ineedaj0b wrote:
| they were making a nuke, plenty of details there - and no
| one wants another NK situation in the world.
|
| Btw, Iran with conventional missiles struck its Arab
| neighbors.
|
| After Trump leaves office the next President will still
| hate Iran irregardless of political party.
| 59nadir wrote:
| > Sacrifice civilian infrastructure as the only viable
| bombing target.
|
| I'm imagining the air crew going _" Huh, there are no clear
| actual targets to bomb. Hey, Cleetus, command won't be happy
| about us not bombing anything at all, retarget on that school
| over there, let's get this over with and go home."_
| thinkcontext wrote:
| They are thinking on a longer timeline than a month. They kept
| some anti-air missiles in reserve for this phase of the war,
| where they aren't trying to defend Iran's airspace. They just
| need to hide and wait for opportunities to occasionally hurt
| the US, Israel and the other Gulf states.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Probably because their air defenses were too busy getting shot
| to shit.
|
| There was a lot of Iranian AA losses in the opening phase of
| this war. US went town on anything that looked remotely like AA
| to secure the sky for themselves, and operated with ever-
| increasing impunity since.
|
| Between advanced ISR, stealth, ECM and stand-off munitions, US
| has a lot of tools to make the lives of AA crews into a living
| hell.
|
| It's unclear what happened here exactly. It might be a
| "straggler" SAM that wasn't destroyed in the strikes, might be
| US going too aggressively and putting reduced survivability
| airframes within an area that wasn't sufficiently cleared,
| might be an Iranian adaptation not unlike the "SAMbushes" seen
| in Ukraine.
|
| I don't see it as a sign that Iran is somehow reconstituting
| its AA capabilities though.
| bigyabai wrote:
| > It's unclear what happened here exactly.
|
| It really isn't. A huge portion of Iran's air defenses are
| designed for road-mobility and pop-up attacks instead of
| long-term point defense, encompassing hundreds of launchers
| total: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the
| _Islam...
|
| Military strategists _long_ warned that air campaigns flying
| over South Iran would have to contend with passively-guided
| SAMs and MANPADS on their way to Tehran. There are hundreds
| of road-accessible caves in the Zagros range that cannot be
| inspected via satellite. They inherently present a risk to
| overflights unless they are occupied on the ground first; it
| 's common knowledge _why_ Kohgiluyeh and Fars are so
| dangerous.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Considered that this is the first jet shot down in the
| entire war? "High mobility SAMs" alone completely fails to
| explain it.
|
| They had high mobility SAMs for the entire war, with
| nothing to show for it. Something else must have happened
| there.
| vkr2020 wrote:
| apparently, Iran is claiming that the search and rescue
| helicopter has also been hit by a projectile.
| pwarner wrote:
| I hope the aviators are OK, and also hope whoever they were
| bombing are also OK.
|
| I do wonder if Iran finds them first, will they treat them better
| than the US treated survivors of the ship sunk by a US torpedo in
| the Indiana Ocean?
| jacquesm wrote:
| You left out 'unarmed'.
| isubkhankulov wrote:
| The crew of the IRIS Dena were warned twice by the US to
| abandon ship according to a report from one of the sailor's
| father. They refused.
|
| Not sure if it's possible to treat enemies better than that.
| And I doubt the Iranians will treat a US pilot well. Look at
| how they treat their own citizens.
| srean wrote:
| Can you cite something to support this. Quite keen to read.
| asdff wrote:
| If the source below is correct, the commander of the Dena
| ordered his troops to stay on the ship despite the warnings,
| there was a bit of a mutiny and the survivors are those who
| rejected those orders and jumped off.
|
| https://www.iranintl.com/en/202603071125
| RobotToaster wrote:
| That doesn't seem like the most trustworthy source.
|
| >Established in May 2017 and funded by Saudi
| Arabia,[1][2][3][4][5][6] it actively promotes former Crown
| Prince Reza Pahlavi as the next ruler of Iran.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_International
| ok_dad wrote:
| OK if I come to your car, declare you're my enemy, and tell
| you to get out before I toss a Molotov at you, does that
| mean I can't be tried for murder later if you refuse?
|
| This was a sneak attack outside of an established war zone,
| for an illegal war, so don't try to conflate this as an
| attack on America's enemies. The USA made them their
| enemies themselves.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| A sneak attack where they warned them twice first? Come
| on.
| computerex wrote:
| They were in international waters. This was literally a
| war crime according to international law. Even the
| killing of the Supreme leader was against international
| law.
| osiris970 wrote:
| Not that I am supporting the war, against what statue is
| killing khamenei? You are targeting a military leader in
| an arm conflict. Seems clear cut
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| The ship was an unarmed vessel on its way to a goodwill visit
| to Sri Lanka and coming from an international maritime
| exercise hosted by India, which the United States also
| attended and participated in. The US torpedoed it, and when
| it sank, the US did not apparently attempt to rescue any of
| the Dena's crew. Fortunately, Sri Lanka showed up and saved
| 30 people.
|
| Mind you, the details of war are not always clear. The US
| says that the ship was armed, and it also says that they did
| make an effort to rescue the crew. The US does not explain
| why it failed to actually rescue anybody, of course.
| voganmother42 wrote:
| The US is busy shooting "drug boats" with no evidence, that
| is who they are now
| pphysch wrote:
| Not sure how anyone can believe this while, as another
| commenter points out, the US is proudly and unilaterally
| murdering speedboat users in the Caribbean without any due
| process.
| computerex wrote:
| America helped Israel kill THOUSANDS of children, and America
| just killed 150 school girls in Iran. America is a war
| criminal, plain and simple.
| rhcom2 wrote:
| One crew member rescued, other is still MIA and being actively
| searched for https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/iran-us-fighter-
| shot-down
| ceejayoz wrote:
| And CENTCOM's lying about it.
|
| https://x.com/CENTCOM/status/2039805134704660622
| vorpalhex wrote:
| That tweet is from yesterday.
|
| Iran tweets about taking down an American jet basically
| daily. By their count we are down 40 f-35s, 4 aircraft
| carriers and thousands of MQ-9s.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > That tweet is from yesterday.
|
| That's when the shootdown happened, yes.
|
| > Iran tweets about taking down an American jet basically
| daily.
|
| Sure. We have two sets of demonstrable liars here. See, for
| example, the E-3 Sentry that got blown up; it took leaked
| photos for that to be admitted.
|
| And don't get me started on the several times in the last
| few months we've "obliterated" Iran's nuclear capacity and
| missiles and whatnot only to be told it's time to do it
| again.
| e-khadem wrote:
| The claim being addressed is a shootdown over Qeshm
| island, which is the biggest island just west of the
| strait of Hormuz. The current CSAR operations are
| happening somewhere in the Khuzestan province. Probably
| somewhere within the 150 km radius of [1] based on online
| footage of the C-130 flying over.
|
| [1] 31.941606, 50.311765
| buildsjets wrote:
| And they have not edited it or taken it down... why?
| e-khadem wrote:
| Because almost all of the people inside Iran have been
| disconnected for the past 35 days [1]. And believe it or
| not, they are texting these news live to all mobile
| phones on a daily basis as well. Some regime supporters
| believe it, because the want to believe it, they need to
| believe it. Just in the past 24 hours I have received 5
| different messages from different organizations claiming
| victory and damage to US / Israel assets.
|
| Just for a quick laugh, look at the official (Iranian)
| president's letter to the American people published
| yesterday [2]. The font changes between the paragraphs!
|
| [1] https://mastodon.social/@netblocks/116339631989805542
|
| [2] https://x.com/drpezeshkian/status/2039418009052119190
| ?s=20
| cpursley wrote:
| _" We"_
|
| Very cool that you have a side hustle as a US fighter jet
| pilot!
| budman1 wrote:
| It's known as the Air National Guard. Work for United
| during the week, and fly F16's one weekend a month.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Hate to say it and sound so "conspiracy-like", but I no
| longer can trust what the current US administration is
| saying. Ever since the path of a hurricane was redrawn with a
| sharpie, it's been... unusual.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Your comment is a perfect setup for the cynicism olympics
| where people rush to say you could never trust the govt.
| lazide wrote:
| Has there been a time where (after later facts came out)
| they were wrong?
| j_maffe wrote:
| Nukes in Iraq?
| lazide wrote:
| That was what the gov't was saying was true - which was a
| lie, and was later proven to be a lie.
|
| Which reinforces my point?
| calculatte wrote:
| Or the bootlicker olympics for those who want everyone
| else to ignore the constant lies because they think
| bigger, more powerful government is utopian.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| Do you have some reasons for hope for the cynics in the
| crowd?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Not really. Just that trust ain't binary and the govt is
| made of people. I don't like this admin but this too
| shall pass. Cultivate your garden. Electing bad people
| has consequences.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| None of what's happening today could have happened
| without everything that came before it.
|
| The blue team carries plenty of blame for not fielding
| better candidates. If nobody is buying your bullshit,
| it's a little weak to blame the customer.
|
| And all of the us electorate carries plenty of blame for
| letting our government get so massive and out of control
| over time. We've let this beast metastasize and grow, and
| now were stuck with it.
| jjtwixman wrote:
| The American people are ultimately to blame for it,
| they've got the government they deserve, which is
| actively dismantling the US empire day by day. The
| American people voted for Trump instead of Kamala, and
| that is rather damning of the state of the American
| people, far more so than however damning it may also be
| for the Democratic party.
| watwut wrote:
| Red team could have sane candidate, but they did not.
| They spent a lot of money amd effort into making this
| happen.
|
| They are 100% at fault.
| intended wrote:
| Yes. Absolutely.
|
| As we all know, in this day and age, you need to REALLY
| sell your story, and have the media behind you.
| Competence is tertiary.
|
| > Approval of Trump among Republicans has slipped to a
| second-term low of 84%, down from 92% last March. At the
| same time, an all-time high 16% of Republicans
| disapprove. This shift can be attributed, at least in
| part, to declining support among non-MAGA Republicans, as
| approval dropped 11 points in the last year among this
| group (70% in March 2025 to 59% today). Virtually all
| MAGA Republicans continue to approve of Trump, with 98%
| approving a year ago and 97% now.
|
| > https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-voters-
| oppose...
|
| March 20th poll
| user_7832 wrote:
| Regardless of whether it's a "perfect setup" or not, the
| facts speak for themselves.
|
| Most competent governments don't say things that are
| outright wrong. They may use double speak, or not comment
| on a topic. But this government (and unfortunately it's
| this specific adminstration/president) has acted time and
| again in a way that both of us know very well.
| cestith wrote:
| You should never trust this administration. The US
| government in general has a spotty history, but this
| administration does nothing trustworthy.
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| I think the problem is that in previous administrations
| at least they had some skill in lying in ways that were
| not so constantly contradicting one another.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| That has been (rightly) said every year there has been a
| current US administration.
|
| It is not a conspiracy theory if it's true.
|
| And no, it's not "cynicism Olympics", it's observation.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Right on cue!
| serf wrote:
| I wouldn't be so pleased with myself over such "You will
| get wet in a rainstorm." style predictions.
|
| truths from different angles that are at odds with one
| another produce mistrust and thoughts of conspiracy. We
| have more of that now than we have ever had, ever. It
| doesn't take Nostradamus to point to the trend.
|
| tl;dr : Gee, where did this mistrust in the current
| government come from? I'd point but I don't have that
| many hands.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The US military is in the middle of a top-level political
| purge; both honesty and competence as an institution will be
| below normal levels for the forseeable future, and honesty
| about sensitive operations during wartime is never much even
| as a baseline.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| All true. So we should expect it, but we still shouldn't
| _normalize_ it.
| guzfip wrote:
| What's the buzz like amongst military right now? Is moral
| low? High?
|
| It's been fascinating to see my Father (Marine and Army
| veteran) and my brother (soon be a commissioned Air Force
| officer) who usually are very aligned politically start
| develop the first rift I've ever seen regarding this war.
| tristanj wrote:
| No, that tweet is from 20 hours ago, and is about a separate
| incident which happened two days ago over Qeshm Island in the
| Strait of Hormuz.
|
| The current F-15 crash incident happened today near the city
| of Lali, in Iran's Khuzestan Province.
| golfer wrote:
| Non-walled article reporting the rescue:
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-fighter-jet-f15e-downe...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47626347
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47627182
| gus_massa wrote:
| dang moved the comment from those threads to here, so the
| discussion is empty. I'm not sure if the press coverage has
| more info. (My guess is that they are quite similar.)
| roadbuster wrote:
| During the entire gulf war (Iraq, 1990-91), only two F-15s were
| shot down via surface-to-air engagement. At the time, Baghdad was
| known to have the highest density of SAM protection out of any
| city in the world.
|
| An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic bombing
| of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.
| flowerthoughts wrote:
| Surely SAMs have improved since 1991? Have the F-15s improved
| significantly? (I know nothing about military stuff.)
| roadbuster wrote:
| They certainly have, but the general idea is to first use
| stealth jets to bomb defensive systems (including radar
| observability) to conquer the skies, and then you can fly
| around somewhat freely. While SAM technology has improved, so
| have America's observability and stealth bombing
| capabilities. It will be interesting to learn the context and
| sequence of events which led to an F-15 being shot down by
| enemy fire.
|
| (In 1991, the United States relied on the F-117 Nighthawk to
| penetrate Baghdad and launch salvos against radar and SAM
| sites. Simultaneously, Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired
| against similar communication and defense sites. In this war
| with Iran, the F-35 and B-2 have been used for stealth
| missions).
| asdff wrote:
| Turns out Iran is good at hiding stuff in caves and driving
| it out on a truck platform. Who would have known?
| gherkinnn wrote:
| Next you're going to tell me that operating out of your
| own mountainous terrain has an advantage.
| asdff wrote:
| Would be news to the US military it seems. Mountains,
| jungles, who would have thought?
| nutjob2 wrote:
| Possibly true, but at least they don't have the ability
| to control some critical waterway or something to hold
| everyone at ransom.
| praptak wrote:
| The Serbs successfully used a similar tactic to down an
| F-117A, so yeah.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| > F-117 Nighthawk
|
| Recall that the Serbs shot down a Nighthawk when they were
| in a similar situation to Iran. They kept some good AA
| missiles in reserve and used a system of spotters and just
| waited for an opportunity. Its likely that similar tactics
| were used by Iran.
|
| Also recall that the Houthis, armed and trained by Iran,
| gave F35s some close calls over Yemen.
|
| https://www.twz.com/air/how-the-houthis-rickety-air-
| defenses...
| ninja3925 wrote:
| The story is actually quite interesting. The Serbs
| observed that a nighthawk would routinely fly the same
| route but their radar couldn't lock on it unless the
| missile hatch were open, which they managed to elicit.
|
| In short, it took 2 rare events to occur for it to
| happen.
| christkv wrote:
| A lot of the planes are doing attack runs at altitudes where
| they are susceptible to man pads I imagine.
| mr_toad wrote:
| Most of the F15 upgrades have been against other aircraft.
| The F15 is primarily an air superiority fighter, it isn't
| designed for attacks or defence against ground forces. The
| F15E is modified to attack ground targets, but ideally they
| would be targets without any air defences.
| ranger207 wrote:
| The F-15E Strike Eagle variant is definitely designed for
| attacks and defense against ground forces, but overall air
| defense is a probability game so it's not too surprising
| that it eventually happened
| mr_toad wrote:
| Yes, although it's designed for interdiction, rather than
| primarily a ground attack aircraft, the difference being
| that it's intended to be used against defenceless ground
| targets (like supply lines), not on the front lines.
| asdff wrote:
| Iran has systems they can pull out of a cave and deploy in a
| couple hours or less. We will never get all their anti air out.
| verdverm wrote:
| With the altitudes they've been flying at, shoulder mounted
| MANPADs are a viable option.
| dmix wrote:
| US also has A-10s doing gun runs in Iraq too. It makes
| sense the US is more willing to take risks 1-month into the
| war given how effective they've been and for Iran to also
| adapt their manpad teams after they probably failed a ton
| of times previously.
|
| You saw the same pattern where Ukraine and Russia both
| constantly adapted on the battlefield and the war changed
| rapidly over the first year.
| verdverm wrote:
| Waiting to see the Shaheds with AA missiles like Russia
| was using (until their starlink was finally shut off late
| last year)
| markus_zhang wrote:
| If you go over 3000m then manpads are not useful I think.
| verdverm wrote:
| Sure, but there are videos of US war planes strafing,
| like that near hit clip.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Yeah I have seen the clip with Iran polices firing at the
| UH-60s, which is very concerning. Sure SIGINT makes sure
| there is no serious AD but there is no way to guarantee
| that there is no MANPADs somewhere close.
| verdverm wrote:
| Which is why any "adventures" that involve boots on the
| ground will come with a significant rise in US
| casualties. Few Americans have likely seen the videos
| from the Russian Invasion, of what modern war with $1000
| quadcopters dropping grenades on terrified soldiers looks
| like.
| hajile wrote:
| MANPADS have a range of around 4 miles. Most soldiers
| aren't carrying around armed MANPADS. They have to fetch
| the MANPADS, arm it, aim, and fire all before the jet dumps
| its load and flares before bailing out. Because of this,
| MANPADS are a much greater threat to helicopters or CAS
| like the Warthog than they are to jets dumping ordinance.
| This has been proven pretty decisively in Ukraine.
|
| Radar is line-of-sight. A non-stealth fighter flying just
| above the treetops can only be detected if it gets within a
| few miles of a SAM radar. This is true to the point that
| the radar lock range for something like an F-35 is about
| the same as a non-stealth jet flying super-low (though the
| hit probability is lower for the F-35 if it's flying at
| high altitude as it has more room to detect the launch and
| maneuver).
|
| The problem is that CENTCOM is actively lying to us. After
| this shootdown, they denied it happened while launching
| search and rescue operations only admitting to the facts
| after Iran released the evidence. The same thing happened
| with the F-35. CENTCOM said it landed safely, but were
| simultaneously sending an Chinook to run search patterns in
| the area. This could also mean that the alleged Kuwaiti
| pilot that supposedly took out 3 of our F-15 was also a
| lie.
|
| Finally, with so many non-stealth planes getting shot down
| and stealth allegedly working great, why are we using so
| many stand-off munitions still and why aren't we using F-35
| more?
|
| All the shootdowns have been shown with a custom software
| showing an IR view and the successful missiles seem to be
| using electro-optical tracking. The IRST is passive and
| doesn't trigger sensors plus isn't stopped by our radar
| stealth. At the same time, a human operator means stuff
| like flares don't work anywhere near as well. Even more
| scary, these human-guided runs are premium training
| material for China to train AI-guided missiles.
|
| My conclusion is that stealth is no longer the game-changer
| it was once though to be (if it ever was).
| carefree-bob wrote:
| In the first Iraq war, the KARI system in Iraq, which was built
| by Thompson-CSF, had its specifications leaked and the US
| obtained access to back doors and codes that allowed it to
| bypass and/or disable much of that system. You need to remember
| that the US and much of the West had friendly relations with
| Iraq and provided some infrastructure assistance and military
| support because Iraq invaded Iran.
|
| No such analogous advantage exists in Iran, which is a much
| larger country, with better air defenses, and no western
| contractors ready to provide back doors into systems.
| ericmay wrote:
| By that same logic that fact that we only lost 1 F-15 in,
| what, almost 3 weeks of bombing is actually a pretty good
| sign. Especially when you factor in that the Russians
| (proven) and Chinese (yet to be proven) are assisting Iran
| and Iran has been buying and building all of this military
| infrastructure at the expense of living conditions for its
| people just for this very attack, only to have almost
| everything obliterated.
|
| And 3 weeks in to the war and the US is flying refueling
| tankers to refuel Blackhawks _in the very area the F-15 was
| shot down_ to recover the pilots (1 so far has been received)
| should be much more informative than it seems to be.
|
| But sure... the KARI system in Iraq.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I'm reading one of those Blackhawks was shot down. An A-10,
| F-16, and a refueling plane, in addition to the F-15 so far
| today. Which, if true, is not a good sign.
| ericmay wrote:
| We'll have to wait and see what comes out but I don't
| think this is a bad sign. In war you lose equipment and
| aircraft. It's silly to think the US wouldn't lose some
| during the course of the war. After all, the OP to this
| thread highlighted all of the advantages Iran has. Yet
| we've wiped out quite a bit of their military
| infrastructure and have complete control over the skies.
| Russia can't say the same though for their little
| adventure ;)
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| We must be using different definitions for 'complete'. I
| think Iran is using loitering anti-air missiles with IR
| seeking which seems to be effective. Maybe this sudden
| spike is reflective of receiving new equipment from
| China.
| ericmay wrote:
| Could be. I guess my definition is "US can do whatever it
| wants without contest" and that seems to be the case
| here. What fighter jets does Iran have that are not
| destroyed? Do they have significant anti air defenses
| that we can't attack and that limit our operations? Not
| to my knowledge but maybe there are parts of the country
| where that's true, for now.
|
| Of course in any war someone can fire back at and
| sometimes hit your aircraft even if you have complete
| airspace control.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I would term it; the US has air dominance but the
| airspace is still contested as evident by the recent
| losses.
|
| Also, I think the US is still predominantly using
| standoff munitions instead of switching to dumb munitions
| because the airspace is still contested.
| ericmay wrote:
| I don't view it as contested because there aren't to my
| knowledge limitations on US operations. There's no
| aircraft for the US to worry about, nor are the SAM
| capabilities unknown. Guys get rockets and shoot them at
| aircraft, that makes it dangerous but not necessarily
| contested.
|
| Yes the US probably is still using precision weapons
| because, well, unlike the Iranian government we don't
| want to use so-called dumb munitions and indiscriminately
| bomb civilians or civilian targets. And of course in
| general, why even fly into the airspace if you don't have
| to - malfunctions happen too.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| The us has air dominance but not air supremacy, which is
| why missiles are mostly used rather than bombs with gps
| kits, requiring to get much closer.
|
| And the US has been very keen to bomb civilians and
| civilian infrastructure, along with Israelis, since the
| start of the war [0]. The US-Israelis are guilty of war
| crimes.
|
| The recent bombing of an unfinished bridge is another
| example of the US-Israeli actions, especially since they
| did a double-tap to kill rescuers. [1]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Qeshm_Island_desal
| ination...
|
| [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/firestorm-for-
| hegseth-a...
| ElProlactin wrote:
| > Yes the US probably is still using precision weapons
| because, well, unlike the Iranian government we don't
| want to use so-called dumb munitions and indiscriminately
| bomb civilians or civilian targets.
|
| Are you referring to the "precision" weapons that hit the
| girls' school?
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _I guess my definition is "US can do whatever it wants
| without contest" and that seems to be the case here._
|
| Whatever it wants, as long as that doesn't include flying
| aircraft or going through the strait.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Not sure why you're getting downvoted. It is completely
| expected to lose aircraft in an operation of this scale,
| against an opponent with this level of sophistication.
| People put way too much stock in all of these modern
| stealth systems and whatnot. Stealth, for example, is a
| buzzword. It will give a slight edge, but it's not going
| to make your aircraft completely invisible and
| unshootable.
| voganmother42 wrote:
| Oh yeah, its going great, so much achieved for only 30B
| and untold human lives, the winning!
| ElProlactin wrote:
| > Yet we've wiped out quite a bit of their military
| infrastructure and have complete control over the skies.
|
| How can you believe that the US has "complete control
| over the skies" given today's events?
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _have complete control over the skies._
|
| If we had complete control over the skies, we wouldn't be
| losing aircraft, would we?
| oa335 wrote:
| > Iran has been buying and building all of this military
| infrastructure at the expense of living conditions for its
| people
|
| Iran spends about 2.5% of its GDP on defense, compared to
| USA at around 3.5%. How much should they be spending?
|
| https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?loca
| t...
| logicchains wrote:
| Almost half of the economy is controlled by the IRGC:
| https://fortune.com/2026/03/02/iran-islamic-
| revolutionary-gu...
| g8oz wrote:
| Extensive domestic economic control by security forces is
| also a feature of Egypt and Pakistan. America does not
| complain about those examples of course, because those
| countries bend the knee.
| logicchains wrote:
| Those countries, like Iran, are also quite poor because
| the army siphons off so much of their resources.
| platevoltage wrote:
| I HOPE this comment isn't coming from someone who lives
| in the USA.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If by "bend the knee" you mean that they don't regularly
| chant "death to America", sure.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Half the world chants that. Currently, probably more.
| Americans have managed even to alienate the ass-kissing
| politicians from europe. Even in US, the people are
| protesting against the current president, and no
| wonder... trump wants 200 billion more while people can't
| afford healthcare and education and some cities look like
| cities from apocalypse movies, with homeless camps
| everywhere.
|
| US is in 53. place in child mortality ( https://en.wikipe
| dia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_an... )... but
| hey, those bombs need to be used up, so the taxpayers can
| pay for new ones, right?
| bdangubic wrote:
| A lot more than 1/2 the world, a lot more...
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Which is a logical result of decades of sanctions,
| allowing only the insiders to profit from the country's
| ressources while the common man is bared from providing
| an alternative. Sanctions do not work and only entrench
| regimes, as we see in Russia, Cuba, North Korea and now
| Iran.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I've just been at a conference where some high-up guy
| from germany was talking about the effect of sanctions...
| russia used to sell wood pulp to germany, german
| factories would produce paper products and then sell a
| lot of them back to russia.
|
| Then sanctions came, no more very cheap wood pulp for the
| german industry, and after a year of sanctions, the
| russians built (i think) 4 large paper factories, so even
| after the sanctions end, that business is not coming back
| to germany.
| ericmay wrote:
| They should probably be closer to 0 or more in line with
| European countries but these numbers aren't accurate and
| don't tell the full story. They don't, for example,
| include money paid to and missiles transferred to Houthis
| to launch from Yemen. Nevermind Hamas and Hezbollah,
| rebels in Iraq and so forth.
| oa335 wrote:
| > They should probably be closer to 0 or more in line
| with European countries
|
| Expand on this logic please.
|
| European countries are protected by NATO and a nuclear
| umbrella.
|
| Why would you expect a nation state to not invest in its
| military?
| ericmay wrote:
| > European countries are protected by NATO and a nuclear
| umbrella.
|
| Well, protected by the United States primarily. They've
| mostly divested from military spending and capabilities
| over time, which is the ideal thing, but it seems like
| maybe we can't live in that ideal world, anyway...
|
| I'm not suggesting that Iran shouldn't have a military,
| but instead questioning the purposes for which it would
| have one. Today its military is used for sending missiles
| at Gulf States, funding Hezbollah, and oppressing its
| people. So for it to have little to no military
| practically speaking would be a good thing.
|
| Second at 2.5% GDP (again these figures are highly
| questionable) that's plenty to have defensive
| capabilities versus neighbors. There's nobody there to
| really worry about because who outside of the United
| States is going to invade Iran? And even then the US is
| only doing it because they won't stop doing crazy shit
| and launching missiles at everyone.
| Peritract wrote:
| > I'm not suggesting that Iran shouldn't have a military,
| but instead questioning the purposes for which it would
| have one.
|
| Well, they're currently being attacked. "Defending
| against attackers" is a pretty important purpose for a
| military.
| ericmay wrote:
| They wouldn't be under attack if they weren't being run
| by the regime that is running their country. Notice how
| it's just Iran that's being attacked? And even so, what
| good did that military to them? They still got attacked,
| and their military assets were still significantly/mostly
| destroyed. What's the point of a military if the military
| you're buying just gets obliterated by the only country
| that is going to attack you for things you did in the
| first place and didn't have to do?
| lovich wrote:
| There is no civilization on the planet that would accept
| full disarmament under the logic that they should just
| trust that you won't attack them if they weren't armed.
| craftkiller wrote:
| > Notice how it's just Iran that's being attacked
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Lebanon_war
| ericmay wrote:
| Yes, Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy who has, in violation
| of UN actions and against Lebanese government wishes
| seized and held territory in Lebanon from which to launch
| rockets into Israel lol.
|
| If you're going to use that as such a loose category than
| the list of countries that have been attacked expands
| quite a bit. Israel has attacked Iran, while Iran has
| attacked Israel, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Oman, Kuwait,
| Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA, and maybe one or two others that
| I'm not thinking of.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Let's be fair, if someone bombed trump right now, most of
| the world would be happy, including a lot of americans.
|
| Does that mean that someone should bomb US because of
| your regime? I mean... you have more homeless people
| living in tents than most cities post some natural
| disaster, your people can't afford education, healthcare
| nor (as above) homes, and you guys are spending money to
| bomb a place half a planet away that is in no way
| endangering you... and that after you've bombed it once
| before and "completely destroyed the nuclear program"...
| and before that and before that.
|
| I mean... i understand americans are well... americans,
| but you guys can't even imprison pedos running your
| country, why should you decide who to bomb?
|
| I mean.. what's next? Iranian special forces will
| eventually start destroying stuff in US, and you guys
| will claim "terrorism" or something again... well, it's
| not terrorism if you're in a war.
| mittensc wrote:
| > Well, protected by the United States primarily. They've
| mostly divested from military spending and capabilities
| over time,
|
| UK and France have nukes, european nato part isn't going
| to be invaded without nuclear exchanges.
|
| Apart from that, each country is specialized on various
| things and combined military is quite capable.
|
| Sure, it's not US level of spending... which is probably
| a good thing given the US basically cut education and
| healthcare for a few generations for that.
| ericmay wrote:
| > UK and France have nukes, european nato part isn't
| going to be invaded without nuclear exchanges.
|
| I like to think this is true, but how many French
| soldiers coming home in body bags defending Lithuania
| will it take before they say enough? Are they going to
| just resort to nuclear weapons against Russia
| immediately? I don't think the nuclear umbrella is the
| trump card that it you might be portraying it to be. It's
| really difficult to say who would use those and when.
| There are some obvious cases, but there are also some not
| so obvious ones.
|
| But nukes aren't enough. You're not winning the Ukraine
| war with your nuclear umbrella for example - that's being
| won on the ground with Ukrainian blood.
|
| > Apart from that, each country is specialized on various
| things and combined military is quite capable.
|
| Combined command of a military like this is incredibly
| difficult, and while I'd certainly agree that some
| specific militaries are quite capable of [1], I think the
| political and organizational system in Europe really
| poses a challenge. But even so those militaries lack
| power projection capabilities and lack in some other key
| areas.
|
| [1] In order probably Ukraine -> UK -> France -> Poland
| and then nobody else registers. Ignoring Russia because
| they're not really European IMO.
|
| > Sure, it's not US level of spending... which is
| probably a good thing given the US basically cut
| education and healthcare for a few generations for that.
|
| Nah, we actually have money to easily afford both we just
| have a bunch of morons in charge (Democrats and
| Republicans) who, particular to healthcare, have gotten
| us the worst of both worlds. Education we're #1 there's
| no question about that.
| azernik wrote:
| EU countries spend about 2% of GDP on their militaries.
| It's not at the high US levels, but it's closer to Iran's
| number than it is to zero.
| craftkiller wrote:
| Europe is just under 2% of their GDP spent on military.
| Where are you getting this "0" figure?
| https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS
| rvba wrote:
| Russia today probably.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Is that reliable? The IRGC basically runs the economy and
| takes a significant cut. The IGRC is also separate from
| the military. The nuclear program, quite obviously for
| military use, may also not be included. What about
| support for proxy groups? Hezbollah alone gets support
| above $1B per year.
| brohee wrote:
| $1B per year for Hezbollah is like $1 a month per
| Iranian.I doubt it changes the Iranians living conditions
| much...
| anigbrowl wrote:
| The US has lost mutiple KC-125 tankers and an E3 as well,
| although those were destroyed ont he ground rather than
| shot down.
|
| _building all of this military infrastructure at the
| expense of living conditions for its people_
|
| Just yesterday, Trump was talking about another $1.5
| trillion for defense in the coming fiscal year, and saying
| the US can't afford things like daycare, medicare etc.
|
| Iran's military budget as a % of GDP has historically been
| inthe low single digits:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_Iran
| ericmay wrote:
| > The US has lost mutiple KC-125 tankers and an E3 as
| well, although those were destroyed ont he ground rather
| than shot down.
|
| Which makes them irrelevant here in this discussion but
| sure yea. Russia (those sneaky guys who invaded Ukraine
| and are being supplied by Iran) provide targeting
| information to Iran, Iran has missiles, we can't shoot
| them all down, and here we are. It's unfortunate but
| that's what happens in a war. Frankly, these are very
| good lessons learned by the United States and they're
| going to come in handy if we end up in another war.
|
| > Just yesterday, Trump was talking about another $1.5
| trillion for defense in the coming fiscal year, and
| saying the US can't afford things like daycare, medicare
| etc.
|
| We can easily afford both, but we choose not to because
| our political system is full of morons and corruption,
| but instead of Iran being more like the US and being
| dysfunctional in this regard, it should be more like
| Norway (excluding population differences) and pump and
| sell the oil and do so for the benefit of their citizens
| instead of this authoritarian rah rah death to America
| and death to Israel nonsense.
|
| > Iran's military budget as a % of GDP has historically
| been inthe low single digits:
|
| Figures provided here are inaccurate and don't account
| for spending on proxy groups, for example.
| ElProlactin wrote:
| > Frankly, these are very good lessons learned by the
| United States and they're going to come in handy if we
| end up in another war.
|
| This is an interesting take given that the US seems to
| have ignored many of the most important lessons from
| Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
|
| As for "end up in another war", the language you chose is
| very revealing. You don't just "end up in...war". Wars
| don't start themselves. Someone starts them and in the
| case of the US, it's almost always the US.
| ericmay wrote:
| > This is an interesting take given that the US seems to
| have ignored many of the most important lessons from
| Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
|
| This is a fun trope that's parroted but none of these
| wars were the same or even really close to each other in
| goals.
|
| Vietnam - actually has great relations with the US and we
| won the peace.
|
| Iraq - well they had Saddam and now they have a
| functioning parliament and things seem to be going a lot
| better for them. Was it worth $1.5 trillion of US spend
| to achieve that? That's a better question.
|
| Afghanistan - We wanted to provide schooling for little
| girls and stuff like that and, well, the population
| didn't want it. So at some point you cut your losses.
|
| Iran - We're not going to like invade and occupy Iran,
| though we could. We're just going to have to keep blowing
| up their military capabilities until they have a more
| reasonable government.
|
| > As for "end up in another war", the language you chose
| is very revealing. You don't just "end up in...war". Wars
| don't start themselves. Someone starts them and in the
| case of the US, it's almost always the US.
|
| It was just a figure of speech - Ukraine wound up in a
| war.
|
| The US usually starts the war because the US is the only
| country in the world actually trying to do anything about
| nefarious actors. Easy to criticize from the sidelines,
| which is why American foreign policy has shifted to - we
| don't care what militarily irrelevant countries think
| about our activities because, well, we don't and they
| don't matter and we don't really care what they think. It
| sounds bad, but if we just retreat to isolationism as the
| MAGA and far-left crowds want, well maybe Iran goes and
| builds 5x the missile capabilities we have now, _then_
| they close the straight, force the gulf states to
| capitulate, and now you 've got a nuclear armed Iranian
| regime in control of 20% of the world's oil supply. Oh
| and now you have nobody there to save you because China
| isn't going to go sail boats over there and bomb Iran,
| and Europe certainly isn't. Now what do you do?
| greedo wrote:
| You're delusional on multiple levels.
|
| Vietnam. We "won the peace." Sure, after 50k casualties,
| in a war that never mattered. Primarily "won the peace"
| because Vietnam was neighbors with China (even fought a
| war) and wanted to reach out to the west. BTW, Vietnam is
| still communist, and goodness, the dominoes didn't fall
| after Saigon.
|
| Iraq. A functioning parliament. Sure. This is a country
| barely held together. And thousands upon thousand died in
| our invasion and its aftermath. And $1.5 trillion sure
| would go far today (adjusted for inflation).
|
| Afghan. "So you cut your losses." Afghanistan is a
| complete wreck, a graveyard of empires. Trillions spent
| there, so many lives lost for almost nothing.
|
| Iran. "We're not going to like invade...though we could."
| Iran is physically huge and has 90 million people. The
| idea that the US could invade and occupy without a
| tremendous cost is just a fantasy of neocons. And they'll
| naturally assemble a more "reasonable government" just
| because we blow their shit up. When has this ever worked?
|
| The US hasn't really been the world's policeman since
| WW2. Almost all of its interventions have been mildly
| corrupt if not outright. Even Desert Storm wasn't a
| necessary fight. Who really cared about the Kuwaitis?
| Only the threat that Saddam would continue into Saudi
| Arabia motivated the West.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Also, let's not forget that most of the people
| responsible for murdering ten thousand protesters a few
| weeks ago are now dead. No matter what else happens in
| this war, that is an _excellent_ precedent.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| US is providing targeting information, weapons and money
| for ukraine... it seems totally fair that russia is
| providing the same info for iranians, hopefully they (and
| china) will send them some weapons too.
|
| > instead of this authoritarian rah rah death to America
| and death to Israel nonsense.
|
| After US and israel bombing them.... again... what do you
| think, will there be more or less "death to US" chants?
| Also, considering the number of dead people in iran,
| lebanon, palestine and other countries, the next step is
| probably special force work in US... the ones you guys
| call "terrorists".
| greedo wrote:
| Good lessons. Like ignoring previous military plans that
| showed how tough a nut Iran would be to crack.
|
| Lessons like the value of AWACs. Now we're down to 15 and
| the availability rate is like 50%. So 8 or so WORLDWIDE.
| Yeah, that's a good lesson. And we've cancelled its
| replacement after someone (probably Elon) whispered BS
| into Trump's ear about space based sensors.
|
| I'm sure China is watching with a notepad out about all
| these lessons. Thucydides is rolling in his grave.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| US welfare system seems to contain a lot of fraud, waste,
| abuse and grift across the board, so this will be a good
| chance to cleanse the system of fraud.
|
| or at least US citizens should protect legitimate
| entitlements and inspect everything to cut down on
| corruption
|
| At least something positive
| riffraff wrote:
| Did you completely miss the disaster of DOGE in the first
| year of this administration?
| Goronmon wrote:
| _US welfare system seems to contain a lot of fraud,
| waste, abuse and grift across the board, so this will be
| a good chance to cleanse the system of fraud._
|
| Taking money from social programs and piling into the
| military which contains "a lot of fraud, waste, abuse and
| grift across the board", certainly is a choice. Sort of
| the opposite of a smart choice, but definitely a choice
| for sure.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| How about taking money from fraud waste and abuse and
| piling into military, while preserving social programs ??
|
| Americans do have a real chance to make it happen, if
| they show a political will
| FpUser wrote:
| >" taking money from fraud waste and abuse"
|
| Congrats. Finally somebody who wants to dismantle US
| government.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Uh huh. Do you have any confidence that this
| administration will do a competent job of that
| inspection? I don't. I mean, they could surprise me...
| ajross wrote:
| > By that same logic that fact that we only lost 1 F-15 in,
| what, almost 3 weeks of bombing is actually a pretty good
| sign.
|
| "Good sign" of what, though? Air superiority? I guess,
| sure. But we've constructed a strategic situation for
| ourselves where mere air superiority _is losing_.
|
| The straight remains closed. Because let's be blunt: if we
| can't reliably fly a F-15E or A-10 in the region, there's
| no way an oil company is going to bet its crew and cargo.
|
| Honestly the best situation here is that Iran merely
| decides to toll the straight. That's "losing" too, but at
| least one with a merely "large financial overhead" on
| international energy traffic instead of a disastrous 15%
| off the top cut in capacity.
|
| Iran is winning. This is the difference between tactics and
| strategy.
| culi wrote:
| Well there were also the 3 F-15's that were shot down in
| one day in Kuwait. CENTCOM said it was a "friendly fire"
| incident
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Correct. Kuwaiti Hornet pilot who likely thought he was
| shooting down weapons or aircraft from Iran.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| I have a friend who flew in Desert Storm, and he talked about
| how incompetent the Iraqis were. Like
|
| - De facto language of aviation (i.e. manuals) is English,
| and the regime had just purged most of the English speakers
| before the thing started
|
| - They had these advanced ground defense systems and...didn't
| use the targeting, they were just spraying in the air
|
| I don't know how well the Iranians can use their tools but I
| bet they're better than that.
| fooey wrote:
| The latest reporting is that only 50% of Iran's missile
| capacity has been destroyed
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/02/politics/iran-missiles-us-mil...
|
| Doesn't break out anti-air, but Iran absolutely has a lot of
| teeth left.
| estearum wrote:
| Seems to me their strategy is to shut down the Strait as
| cheaply as possible, force ground operations on known
| strategic points of interest, then just missile and drone
| strike Americans in Iranian territory where they have ~no air
| defense.
| jmyeet wrote:
| There are 4 players in this war and they all have very
| different goals and "victory" conditions.
|
| 1. Israel wants to ruin Iran permanently, to turn it into
| Somalia 2.0, meaning a quasi-state with no organized,
| central government. Were they to succeed in this it would
| be a humantarian disaster the likes of which we haven't
| seen since probably WW2. Tens of millions of refugees that
| will probably collapse surrounding countries;
|
| 2. The US (IMHO) wanted to placate Israel with a cheap
| decapitation strike that would force regime change and
| bring in a US-friendly regime, similar to Venezuela. This
| was completely unrealistic and they completely
| underestimated Iran's ability to maintain an offensive
| capability. We don't even know how much Iran's missile and
| drone capability has been degraded (to the GP's point). I
| don't even believe it's been degraded 50% (as GP claimed)
| abut we have no way of knowing. The entire Iranian military
| is built to resist a strategic bombing campaign;
|
| 3. Iran no longer trusts the US as a good faith actor and
| negotiator after multiple incidents of acting in bad faith,
| killing their negotiators and bombing an embassy so their
| goal is to make the price of this war so high economically
| that the US never thinks about doing this ever again. And
| that's a cheap thing to do, as you note. Drones can close
| the Strait and ne devastating to the economies of the Gulf
| states; and
|
| 4. The Gulf States just want to maintain the pre-war status
| quo. Saudi Arabia in particular just wanted to contain
| Iran. They're less vulnerable to the Strait being closed
| but it's still a problem politically as the US and Israel
| are bombing other Muslims. The Gulf states are learning the
| the US security guarantee ain't worth shit but they can't
| break away from being US client states with their own
| unpopular regimes probably collapsing without US arms. But
| in a prolonged conflict some of them may collapse anyway,
| particularly Bahrain and even Iraq.
|
| So Iran just fires a dozen ballistic missiles a day to
| remind Israel of the war Israel started. An estimated ~50%
| of missiles get through missile defences now. Otherwise
| threats and the occasional drone are sufficient to close
| the Strait and massively disrupt the ME3 airlines.
| Militarily, Iran can probably keep that up forever. Mobile
| missile launchers are cheap and drones can be launched from
| basically any truck. They're also produced and stored in
| underground basis that are essentially impervious to
| bombing short of nuclear weapons.
|
| Many believed prior to Trump's speech this week that he
| would either escalate or pull out. Instead he found a
| secret third, worse option, which is to tell Europe and
| Asia "you're on your own" (with the Strait closure) after
| the US launched a war nobody but Israel wanted or
| supported. That's an interesting strategy because it's
| going to cause some serious soul-searching in all of these
| countries about the wisdom of US allegiance.
| estearum wrote:
| Yep, all sounds right to me
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Not sure how the US comes back from this.
|
| Who will trust US treaties going forward?
| Terr_ wrote:
| It'll partly depend on what internal housecleaning--or
| perhaps _fumigation_ --and reform happens in the US.
|
| While it is unlikely to occur, imagine the international
| effect if the US resoundingly impeached and removed of a
| lawless president, and Congress formalized a lot of
| international agreements into statute rather than
| delegating too much to the executive branch.
| temp8830 wrote:
| Nah, this problem is systemic, and much older than the
| current administration. Or has everyone forgotten the
| "anthrax" in a test tube? The invisible WMDs? The fake
| news about soldiers tossing babies out of incubators?
| Setting up a web of lies and attacking is a foundational
| value of the United States.
| jmyeet wrote:
| I don't think we do. I think this is our Teutoburg Forest
| moment [1].
|
| Part of the issue is there's no real opposition in the US
| to what's going on. The Democrats being the controlled
| opposition party aren't in opposition to the war (eg
| [2][3][4]). They just oppose the way it was initiated. In
| other words, they have a _process_ objection not a
| _policy_ objection.
|
| I've seen lamenting over Harris losing the elction (as
| well as more than a few doing "stolen election") about
| how the world could be different. But US foreign policy
| is uniparty
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Teutobur
| g_Forest
|
| [2]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/8/kamala-
| harris-says-...
|
| [3]: https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/press-
| releases/lea...
|
| [4]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/hakeem-
| jeffries-wo...
| GolfPopper wrote:
| > _Not sure how the US comes back from this._
|
| It shouldn't. The responsible course going forward is a
| constitutional convention and the dissolution of the
| United States.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| You forgot the 5th actor - Russia - which is benefiting
| hugely from the collapse of NATO, the loosening of oil
| sanctions, the huge hike in oil prices, and the way the
| US was persuaded to expend a ridiculous percentage of its
| conventional missile stockpiles on a pointless project.
|
| Ukraine is doing its best to minimise Russian oil
| exports, and that's certainly having an effect.
|
| But strategically, Russia is a huge beneficiary of this
| mess.
| estearum wrote:
| Oh, also China who benefits from US deterrence being
| relocated from APAC and buried into Iranian dirt
| GolfPopper wrote:
| Really, any rival state-level actor benefits from seeing
| America squander its currently limited supply of high-end
| munitions and put months of stress on its airframes,
| warships, and people.
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| ... & sells drone parts to any and all participants. You
| need drones? You know who to call!
| jmyeet wrote:
| It depends where you draw the line. The extended players
| include:
|
| 1. Russia (as you say): I think this war of choice
| virtually guarantees a settlement of the Ukraine war
| along the current borders. At some point Europe will need
| to ease their energy crisis with Russian oil and gas.
| Well done, everybody, the system works;
|
| 2. Europe: like the GCC they are finding US security
| guarantees and the NATO protection racket aren't what
| they were sold. Pax Americana was an illusion. I've
| elsewhere predicted this is going to lead to arms and
| tech nationalism within Europe. It's actually a race
| between fascism taking over Europe and Europe divorcing
| itself from the US and I suspect fascism is currently
| winning; and
|
| 3. China: the biggest wineer of all this. China is still
| receiving Iranian oil exports. In fact, the US "punished"
| Iran by lifting oil sanctions, allowing Iran to sell oil
| to China at market rates instead of below market (because
| of the sanctions). Again, well done, everybody; and
|
| 4. Asia: this has exposed their weakness of imported oil,
| particularly Thailand, Vietnam and the Phillipines. I
| would not be surprised if this war of choice is the
| turning point that leads to a China-cenetered Asian
| security compact.
|
| In one year, the US has essentially torn up the entire
| post-1945 rules-based international order, which it
| designed for its own benefit.
| speakfreely wrote:
| The post-1945 rules-based order was already a slow motion
| train crash that most of the West remained in denial
| about until Putin wiped his behind with it in the 2014
| invasion of Crimea. To pretend that Trump is somehow
| breaking an otherwise intact system at this point is
| fanciful.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"The post-1945 rules-based order" - it was always one
| rule for me another one for thee
| machomaster wrote:
| The post-1945 order was dead after the NATO's war in
| Yugoslavia in 1999, and the subsequent recognition of
| Kosovo. At the very latest.
|
| One coulld argue that it happened earlier, for example
| after the collapse of the Soviet Union, or the collapse
| of the Warsaw Pact, or after the annexation of East
| Germany.
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| In other words, all the ingredients for WW3. Lets hope we
| can somehow avoid that.
| riffraff wrote:
| > I suspect fascism is currently winning
|
| I think this war is actually pushing many away from
| fascism. Trump was the reference for a lot of the
| European right and this is showing people he was terrible
| and, by extension, embarrassing them all.
|
| Heck, Orban is _currently_ running an electoral campaign
| as "the candidate of peace".
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I agree with most of this, but: The collapse of NATO is
| not yet in evidence.
| logicchains wrote:
| > The Gulf States just want to maintain the pre-war
| status quo. Saudi Arabia in particular just wanted to
| contain Iran. They're less vulnerable to the Strait being
| closed but it's still a problem politically as the US and
| Israel are bombing other Muslims. The Gulf states are
| learning the the US security guarantee ain't worth shit
| but they can't break away from being US client states
| with their own unpopular regimes probably collapsing
| without US arms. But in a prolonged conflict some of them
| may collapse anyway, particularly Bahrain and even Iraq.
|
| Saudi and the UAE don't want the pre-war status quo, they
| want America to bomb Iran back to the stone age so it
| can't continue missile or launcher production.
| stickfigure wrote:
| > Iran no longer trusts the US as a good faith actor and
| negotiator
|
| Iran was never a good faith actor or negotiator. Their
| position was something like "we won't develop nuclear
| weapons as long as we have free reign to torture our own
| citizens and fund violent groups that destabilize
| regional governments". And still marched on enriching
| uranium anyway.
|
| There's nothing to trust on either side. This war was
| eventually going to happen, I'm just disappointed that it
| happened under such incompetent leadership in the US.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| >> Doesn't break out anti-air, but Iran absolutely has a lot
| of teeth left.
|
| With the price of oil having skyrocketed, and the new revenue
| that will be coming from the Hormuz tolls, they will also be
| rebuilding their previous capacity in no time.
| YZF wrote:
| What's the reliability of this reporting?
|
| What we can tell though is that Iran is still firing missiles
| (including cluster munitions) at Israel's civilians and at
| gulf states. So the ground facts are that it can still do
| that.
|
| We also have to remember that Iran has a large number of
| different missile systems for different ranges. It's mostly
| not the same missiles they are firing at the nearby gulf
| states as they are firing into Israel. Some of the longer
| range missile systems they have need to be fired from western
| Iran to make it to Israel. There's a lot of other nuance,
| solid fuel vs. liquid fuel, mobile vs. fixed launchers etc.
| rustyhancock wrote:
| I don't think we'll see anything close to reliable
| reporting any time soon.
|
| The story of whether Iran had a nuclear program has been
| reported every which way but loose for the past 6 months.
|
| By the time Trump started pushing that they were close to a
| nuke again, those that claimed he was wrong 6 months ago
| and the nuclear program was intact. Had started claiming it
| was in fact destroyed.
|
| Gosh that sentence is hard enough to write, but the story
| is so contolvuted I don't think I can improve it.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| "Iran will have a nuclear weapon _real soon_! " is a
| claim that has been pushed, particularly by Benjamin
| Netanyahu _for thirty years_.
|
| https://www.news18.com/world/weeks-away-by-next-spring-
| video...
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| That Iran had a nuclear _program_ was not in dispute. It
| was regulated under international supervision based on
| the terms of Obama 's agreement with Iran, which Trump
| promptly tore up because he has the mental capacity of a
| fourth-grader.
|
| That Iran was on the verge of building bombs was far from
| clear. Khameini had previously issued a fatwa against
| doing so, on the grounds that it would be haram, or un-
| Islamic. All signs suggest that the IRGC was operating in
| full compliance with that fatwa.
|
| I'm sure the remnants of his administration regret that
| now.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| My concern is that other countries can aid Iran with weapons in
| a direct and indirect way. There is no guarantee to block the
| railroads from East and the shipments from North.
| standardUser wrote:
| That's not a concern it's a reality. Iran is not shut-off or
| blockaded to any meaningful degree. It has tons of unmolested
| border crossings and Caspian sea access, and maintains full
| control within it's own borders (minus the parts that have
| been blown up).
| simonh wrote:
| Also ships are still transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and
| from Iranian ports taking goods in from China, with who
| knows what on board. They are also exporting more oil now
| than they were before the war.
|
| I mean special military operation, not war. Only congress
| can declare war.
| standardUser wrote:
| Even the Philippines, a US ally, has struck a deal with
| Iran for safe passage. Meanwhile, Oman is working with
| Iran on a toll scheme. There's an emerging chance that no
| US-flagged vessel crosses the Straight of Hormuz again in
| our lifetimes (except maybe for a retreating 5th fleet).
| pjc50 wrote:
| The Philippines may be a US client state since MacArthur
| liberated them from Japan, but they _need_ to deal with
| Iran to keep the lights on. The rationing situation is
| quite bad in a lot of east Asian countries.
| sophacles wrote:
| > a US client state since MacArthur liberated them from
| Japan a US client state since MacArthur liberated them
| from Japan
|
| And a US colony/territory for the 43 years before Japan
| invaded. They were ruled by a US puppet state in a
| supposed "transition to independence" at the time Japan
| invaded, however it's unclear how much actual
| independence they would have had in practice.
|
| I mention this because:
|
| 1. The way you state it makes it sound like they were
| somehow independent before the war.
|
| 2. It explains why MacArthur was there with the US army
| to resist the Japanese invasion from the first day it
| happened (Dec 7, 1941)
|
| 3. Its history worth looking into to contextualize just
| how bad the US has always been at taking over places.
| Acting as if this is post WW2 (as the media does) is
| counter-productive to truly understanding the number of
| really botched invasions the US has done.
| epolanski wrote:
| I would be more concerned if more countries did _not_ help
| Iran, since in this conflict it 's the victim.
| fooey wrote:
| New reporting that an A-10 ~was also shot down~ has also gone
| down (unconfirmed if it was shot down)
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/04/03/world/iran-war-trump...
|
| > A second Air Force combat plane crashed in the Persian Gulf
| region on Friday, and the lone pilot was safely rescued,
| according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of
| anonymity to discuss operational matters. The A-10 Warthog
| attack plane went down near the Strait of Hormuz about the same
| time that an Air Force F-15E was shot down over Iran, the
| officials said. In that incident, one crew member was rescued
| and search-and-rescue operators are looking for the second
| airman. Officials provided scant details about the A-10 crash,
| including how and where it happened.
|
| there's some additional osint rumor mill that a blackhawk
| helicopter involved in rescue operations was also shot down but
| claims that crew been recovered
| gpderetta wrote:
| What are A-10s doing there? There isn't yet any ground
| operation, right?
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| Well, A-10s are well suited for strafing runs, etc.
| Presumably they'd be sent in if the area they're entering
| is presumed safe. That clearly didn't pan out.
|
| The reality is avoiding a ground operation was probably the
| wrong move at this point (ignoring the spicier broader
| debate of if the whole Iran campaign was the right call or
| not)
|
| It's really hard to truly guarantee surface to air
| capabilities are gone when you're relying purely on sat
| images + aerial surveillance (and obviously this carries
| risk). Iran has fairly portable SAM systems that are public
| knowledge.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| > ignoring the spicier broader debate of if the whole
| Iran campaign was the right call or not
|
| How spicy of a debate is that really? How many people
| outside of the admin and the dwindling hardcore trump
| base actually thought this was a good idea?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| As a person who believes in democracy, I'm pretty on
| board with it. My only complaint is they didn't do these
| strikes when the massive street protests were happening a
| few months ago.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| Bringing democracy and freedom to the world by bombing
| school children. God bless America!
| orthoxerox wrote:
| The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time
| with the blood of school children.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| In line with that logic, how is Ukraine protecting its
| freedom by bombing an ice rink in belgorod?
| wat10000 wrote:
| Attacking your attacker defends your freedom.
| Spontaneously attacking another country does not protect
| their freedom.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Those children who were at the ice skating rink were also
| attacking Ukraine? Quite precocious!
| inigoalonso wrote:
| As a person who believes in democracy, don't you think it
| should be the US Congress the one declaring war?
| deeg wrote:
| Supporting an illegal war would be a funny way to support
| democracy. Or maybe they believe in democracies that
| ignore their constitution.
| wat10000 wrote:
| What do you think the odds are that this war results in
| more democracy?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Like my math teacher was oft heard saying, "approaches
| zero".
| kergonath wrote:
| "Vanishingly small" is a polite way of saying it.
| rurp wrote:
| This is what bringing democracy looks like?! The regime
| is more entrenched than ever and our commander in chief
| keeps threatening to commit war crimes on a massive
| scale. If he follows through on what he says he will do
| and obliterates all the civilian infrastructure in the
| country it will kill mass numbers of innocent people and
| turn millions of survivors into impoverished refugees.
|
| As bad as the regime is, and it's very bad, what we're
| doing is even worse for most Iranians and the odds a
| democratic government arises from the ashes of our
| bombing campaign is incredibly unlikely.
| watwut wrote:
| Literally none of the fighting countries want Iran to be
| democratic. Neither USA nor Israel nor Iran. Israel dont
| want the country functional and would prevent democracy.
| USA idea of regime change is to keep regime, change head
| for someone who pays extortion money. And if Iranian
| leadership wanted democracy they would have one. Not sure
| if you noticed, but American admin loves dictators and
| insults democracies
|
| So ,WTF are you talking about here.
|
| Also, bombing city with that double tap tactic during
| protests ensures you kill protesters.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Having Iran be "non functional" would just be asking for
| even more hardliners take over, like what happened in
| syria. I don't take this to be actually indicative of
| their viewpoints.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| Would you say you fall into the hardcore trump base
| category?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| No, I disagree with trump on most things, including
| possibly why he started the war.
| bdbdbdb wrote:
| Why did he start the war?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Well, I have no idea. I'm just guessing it's not the
| reason I like the war.
|
| I generally only attempt to scrutinize government action,
| and not government reason for action. Random citizens are
| at such an information disadvantage that I think it would
| be impossible to have an informed opinion as an outsider
| on the reasoning.
|
| It could be as simple as "Iran kept trying to assassinate
| me so I'm going to assassinate them". Maybe he was
| pressured by Israel, I really have no idea.
| kergonath wrote:
| Denazify... oops, wrong country, sorry. "Changing the
| regime". But it cannot possibly be true because regime
| change, just like foreign wars are bad according to
| Trump. So, in reality, who knows?
|
| My guess is that some nutcases at the pentagon got an
| adrenaline rush during the little adventure in Venezuela
| and looked for another country to mess with. It's obvious
| that no real thought was put into what exactly is the
| point of all of this or how to actually get to that
| point. I mean, they were surprised that Turkey was upset
| and that Iran closed the Gulf. Or that none of the allies
| Trump has been shitting on for decades showed up. This
| does not point to any serious thought process.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Why do you think he actually started the war?
|
| As opposed to the myriad of reasons he and the
| administration have given, differing sometimes on an
| hourly basis, as to why he started it?
| platevoltage wrote:
| You just would have rather have been lied to that this
| war was to "spread democracy"?
| cheema33 wrote:
| > As a person who believes in democracy, I'm pretty on
| board with it.
|
| As others have stated. This war will not bring democracy.
| Bombing Iranians have united them with the regime.
|
| Also, US and Israel do not want a democracy in Iran.
| Israel would prefer a non-functioning place like
| Palestine or a mostly non-functional place like Lebanon
| that they can easily control.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Yes, bombing schools, universities and dessalination
| plants is a sure way to have more democracy in a country.
| Especially double taps where you kill the rescuers.
|
| The US have so many examples where they did so and
| worked!
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Oh, didn't you hear, we actually _triple tapped_ the
| school, so after the first wave of rescuers was also hit,
| anyone who came to help was also attacked.
|
| Totally not a war crime.
| kitsune1 wrote:
| Aren't those war crimes? Will anything be done about that
| I wonder. And if your goal is bringing democracy and
| liberating a people from a oppressive regime, then
| hurting the people by making their air unbreakable or
| bombing the water plants is NOT how you go about.
|
| I understand that war is not pretty and regime change is
| brutal to all parties involved, but this is done in the
| worst way possible.
| kergonath wrote:
| > Will anything be done about that I wonder
|
| Most probably nothing. If things get _really_ bad and
| there is a revolution or something of that magnitude in
| the US there may be a Nuremberg moment. Don't count on
| it. Whatever government will come next will do everything
| they can to shield American generals and officials
| because otherwise they would be afraid the same thing
| would happen to them once they leave office. The only
| thing that could keep these people accountable is the
| American people through Congress. So yeah, probably
| nothing. Which is bad, because these war crimes are up
| there with what supposedly evil regimes did in the past.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| If this is a troll it is masterful. If it's an honest
| opinion I would invite you to check your skull for
| unexpected holes where your brain may have fallen out.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"As a person who believes in democracy"
|
| Is this a new spelling of fuck whatever semblance of
| international laws we have and big dicks do as they
| please?
| jasomill wrote:
| You say this like a system of international law has ever
| existed that effectively restrains the most powerful
| nations in the world, democracies or otherwise.
| FpUser wrote:
| I said "semblance of international law"
| YZF wrote:
| Apparently 37.7% of Americans, so roughly 116 million
| people, support the war. I'm not sure "this was a good
| idea" was a the exact question though.
|
| https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54454-most-americans-
| oppos...
|
| https://www.natesilver.net/p/iran-war-polls-popularity-
| appro...
|
| Clearly this war isn't popular but that's a far cry from
| saying there's no debate. Like many other
| topics/questions we're seeing people following their
| tribe and bubbles rather than actual debating.
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| Your first link says 28% support it, so somewhere between
| 28 and 37%. I do wonder how many of those people could
| find Iran on a map, though I suppose you could ask the
| same about the people who are against it.
| YZF wrote:
| I lost trust in humanity when I saw how many people on HN
| fell for the CERN Mario Kart April fools article.
| Esophagus4 wrote:
| I also think there was an initial "euphoria" (I guess)
| during the initial days of the campaign.
|
| People I know (even Iranian expats) were excited to see
| the regime get hammered and there was hope for
| possibility of change (and also a little bloodlust)...
| but I think as the war drags on and the US is exposed to
| be in an un-winnable mess, sentiment will continue to
| sour.
|
| This has already started to happen in Nate Silver's post
| you linked.
| btilly wrote:
| I would question to what extent repeating propaganda,
| qualifies as debate.
|
| Even if you do say that it qualifies, it doesn't qualify
| as _productive_ debate.
|
| There is really no productive debate to be had here. Even
| if you think that Iran needed to be bombed, it took
| absurd incompetence to start doing so before planning how
| to handle asymmetric warfare against drones in an
| affordable way.
| asadotzler wrote:
| 75 million using the YouGov number and just under 100
| million using the Nate Silver average. (I think you must
| have used the more Trump-favorable number AND included
| children in your computation, which is not reasonable.)
|
| Also worth noting that Nate Silver's measure has been
| declining for almost 3 weeks, the majority of the
| duration of the invasion.
|
| Before the invasion, a University of Mariland poll says
| 55 million and a YouTov poll says 71 million support.
| These are useful numbers because we know there's a rally
| around the flag effect that distorts thinking during a
| conflict.
|
| https://criticalissues.umd.edu/feature/do-americans-
| favor-at... https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54158-few-
| americans-suppor...
| dylan604 wrote:
| >>How many people outside of the admin and the dwindling
| hardcore trump base actually thought this was a good
| idea?
|
| > Apparently 37.7% of Americans,
|
| These are the same thing. The MAGA base is fracturing and
| the polls are showing that with the very number you are
| using as a retort.
| markovs_gun wrote:
| 20-25% of Americans would support Trump pulling his pants
| down and taking a shit on the floor in the oval office on
| live TV. These people's opinions shouldn't be taken into
| account or respected in these discussions.
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| Surprisingly so, I would say. Without going into any
| identifying details, my buddy, who is otherwise fairly
| reasonable, thinks it was. I disagree. Reported country
| split ( US ) seems to fall some along common political
| lines though, so maybe we shouldn't be so surprised.
|
| Then again.. I can no longer can rely on those surveys in
| any meaningful way.
| markdown wrote:
| > seems to fall some along common political lines though
|
| While true, I think it's more correct to say that the
| determining factor is which television news media people
| most readily consume.
| stackghost wrote:
| The A-10 carries AGM 88 anti-radiation missiles, and while
| it's a slow aircraft it can still passably perform SEAD
| with the AGM 88.
| elictronic wrote:
| Manpads (man portable air defense) works just fine.
| stackghost wrote:
| I'm not sure that I understand what you are implying.
| beedeebeedee wrote:
| That A-10's can't suppress manpads
| stackghost wrote:
| Well, they absolutely can with a BRRRRT, but if you mean
| "AGM 88 HARMs are a poor weaponeering choice against a
| Misagh-3", then sure, no argument here. But a dude on a
| hilltop with a shoulder tube is not the only type of air
| defense.
|
| I'm not sure why any of this is relevant. The question I
| was responding to was about why A-10s are even in-
| theatre, given there's no boots on the ground yet.
|
| The answer to that question is "they're probably doing
| SEAD". They might also be there to hit Iranian naval
| drones, though I doubt it'd be effective in that role.
| pc86 wrote:
| "Just fine" for what? AGM88 is air-to-ground and manpads
| are surface-to-air. If you're implying that manpads work
| just fine instead of A-10s, you're wrong.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| Geran-2 (which is Russian licenced Shahed drone) also
| carries air-to-air missile, so sending slow archaic
| manned airframe is just suicide mission (aka shaheed)
|
| https://militarnyi.com/en/news/russia-used-shahed-drone-
| arme...
| chithanh wrote:
| That is not a Shahed drone, that is a Geran-2 drone.
| Which is similar from the outside but not the same. Also
| Iran doesn't have stock of R-60s I think.
| elictronic wrote:
| To my understanding blowing up drone boats designed to
| destroy shipping.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| They were largely being used for maritime patrol against
| fast boats. I saw a newsblurb a couple days ago that more
| were being sent to the region.
| jabwd wrote:
| The A-10 is a horrible friendly-fire as a service. Might as
| well use the thing as a bomb truck while you are still
| forced to keep it in service because certain brain cell
| lacking individuals think brr is good.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Cheaper to operate than any fighter, longer endurance, good
| for patrolling over the Strait. Filling the gap between
| helicopters and fighters with a big, but cheap cannon.
| kackerlacker wrote:
| This is exactly the situation I think of when I hear news of
| rescue missions. Running a rescue in a place with functional
| air defense is a recursive rescue problem that could quickly
| get out of control.
| zabzonk wrote:
| The US did it all the time in Vietnam.
| jwilber wrote:
| ...against the viet cong, where the biggest risk was the
| pilot getting pierced from small arms fire (in addition
| to the helo going down from pilot error). Quite different
| from the anti-air weapons modern day Iran possesses.
| Edman274 wrote:
| Are you aware that hundreds of American fixed wing
| aircraft were lost to surface to air missiles in North
| Vietnam? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._aircr
| aft_losses_t...
| jwilber wrote:
| Ah yeah, well I didn't know it was that high!
|
| But I'm responding to the rescue mission comment, which,
| since Vietnam, have overwhelmingly employed helicopters
| (Huey's then, Black Hawks today). But machinery aside,
| the larger point is that air operations will likely go
| worse here than they did in Vietnam, unfortunately for
| both sides.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Or a MiG-17 that could outrate your F-4/F-105 at every
| subsonic flight regime.
| greedo wrote:
| You're conflating the Viet Cong with North Vietnam.
| ranger207 wrote:
| And it did sometimes get way out of control:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Bat_21_Bravo
| onion2k wrote:
| That's an example of things getting out of control.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| Possibly the best example
| harambae wrote:
| Not sure if it was actually used, but a fun idea for
| pilot recovery..
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiller_ROE_Rotorcycle
| jasomill wrote:
| The Fulton recovery system[1] using a self-inflating
| balloon was used in production.
|
| Though if Iranian air defenses are capable of shooting
| down an F-15, mounting a rescue operation with a C-130
| may not be the brightest idea.
|
| Anyone know the minimum speed of a B-2?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-
| air_recovery...
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| Isn't that basically the plotline of the Blackhawk Down
| movie?
|
| And, more importantly, the real-life events on which it's
| based?
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Exactly what happens to me in Kerbel Space Program.
|
| Rescue team for the rescue team.
| wafflemaker wrote:
| Did you tactically forgot to put parachute on the landing
| pod? Or run out of fuel mid mission?
| downrightmike wrote:
| Slaps car, thsi baby can fit soo many rescue teams in it
| markovs_gun wrote:
| The first time I ever attempted a rescue mission in KSP,
| I ended up stranding 5 different kerbals in various
| orbita nearby trying to get the first one, and of course
| every one was a bigger and more complicated craft trying
| to save as many kerbals as possible. Eventually I just
| gave up and put a giant cross memorial in orbit, part as
| a reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion, and part as a
| memorial to the like 6 kerbals I left stranded in space.
| YZF wrote:
| Your link and your quote does not say the A-10 was shot down
| though.
| Qem wrote:
| It's on NYT site now.
| edaemon wrote:
| Their point is that the NYT says it crashed, the cause
| isn't clear.
| malfist wrote:
| Do A-10's normally crash? Or is there reason to believe
| that an A-10 flying in hostile territory was downed
| because it was shot?
| YZF wrote:
| My comment was re: stating it as fact which is
| misleading. Beliefs or guesses are not facts.
|
| Military airplanes do crash, there are lots of crashes
| every year:
| https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2025/11/military-
| aircraft...
|
| At war there's a lot more pressure on ground and air
| crews that can lead to more mistakes. Also the mission
| would be flown closer to the limits vs. training.
|
| So... We don't know? If your question is whether that's a
| good guess/greater than zero probability then sure. Is it
| a certainty? No. The Iranians will claim they shot it
| down. The Americans may or may not admit and if they deny
| then people will say they're lying.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's an airplane. It is as susceptible to doors not being
| bolted on as much as a civilian flight. Maybe actually a
| higher chance of some benign mechanical issue as it is
| well known that air crews are often overworked with
| little to no sleep with the high tempo of sorties in
| these types of missions. Lots of historical examples of
| US military aircraft crashing from mechanical issues and
| _not_ being shot down
| rurp wrote:
| On top of these cases there is all of the aircraft that has
| been destroyed while grounded. The high tech AWACS getting
| blown up was a big hit, among others. The losses are likely
| much worse than we know since the military has been trying to
| keep a lid on most of them.
| ttul wrote:
| Not to mention the multiple THAAD radars taken offline.
| Those are $500M assets - and only 8 exist in the world.
| 24,000 precise transceivers all liquid cooled... not
| available on Amazon for next day deliver either.
| FlyingBears wrote:
| we have likely moved on from this to satellite as a stop
| gap.
| nradov wrote:
| Moved on how? Satellites are useful for launch detection
| and cueing but as far as we know there isn't a satellite
| constellation capable of tracking airborne targets with
| enough precision for targeting. And the military couldn't
| really keep such satellites secret: the emissions would
| be impossible to hide.
| bijowo1676 wrote:
| a single AN/FPS-132 radar costs $1.1 bln, not $500m. And
| Iran stuck 17 of the CENCCOM sites hosting radars of all
| kinds across Qarar, Bahrain, Iraq, UAE, Saudi, Jordan,
| Israel, etc).
|
| Total cost is so much bigger, it is staggering. The whole
| CENTCOM is blind basically, as well as Iron Dome which
| relied on these radars - all blind now, in addition to
| long-range early nuke detection to protect CONUS is also
| blind.
|
| in addition to cost, they all require Rare Earth
| Minerals, and China has banned the export of these (they
| own like 99% of the market).
|
| So not only CENTCOM is blind and incurred damage in high
| single digit billions, but also will be unable to repair
| the damage any time soon (probably for decades) even if
| the funding were made to be available
|
| Government obviously pretty silent on all these failures
| and media doesn't want to dig and ask hard questions
|
| Sources:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/03/world/middleeast/iran-
| str...
|
| https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-radars-airstrikes/
| juliusceasar wrote:
| This is good news. Actually not for those whom chose to
| start the 2nd Epstein war.
|
| I really hope that Israeli and Iranian governments both
| go to hell. May both destroy each other.
| iwontberude wrote:
| For the United States, the government doesn't have the
| capability to extricate Israel from its political system,
| but the feds can create blowback for Israel which makes
| them less capable to influence the US in the future while
| achieving other strategic aims in the region. US war
| planners know plenty about blow back and I think this is
| being done on purpose. I am terrified for innocent
| Israelis, Iranians and Gulf state residents that have
| been led into this. Most of the states and peoples in the
| Middle East who have been destroyed used to be allies
| with the US. That isn't on accident.
| readitalready wrote:
| Government could sanction Israel like they did to Iran.
| ericd wrote:
| Fact check on this brand new account?
| nujabe wrote:
| Are you asking someone to fact check publicly available
| information for you ? Even NYT reported this
| ericd wrote:
| Traveling with kids on spring break, I don't have time to
| read all war related news, and it tends to set off my
| propaganda account alarm when someone registers a new
| account to drop a bunch of assertions on such a
| politically divisive topic. So I was asking whether
| someone could confirm things like "The whole CENTCOM is
| blind basically, as well as Iron Dome which relied on
| these radars - all blind now, in addition to long-range
| early nuke detection to protect CONUS is also blind."
|
| There's a good reason new accounts are colored green.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| New account that only has politics-adjacent posts; worth
| being skeptical.
| Ms-J wrote:
| If you spend a moment to verify the info that is the fact
| check.
|
| No one can do the thinking for you.
| ericd wrote:
| Did a quick search, didn't see confirmation that they're
| blind/that all radars had been knocked out. Was asking
| whether others who know more about this topic than me
| would confirm.
| Ms-J wrote:
| You did a reasonable check in my opinion. Perhaps if you
| had said that you already did search I wouldn't have
| written the last part.
|
| Also if I had an answer to your question I would say it.
| Hope you are able to find the answer.
| refulgentis wrote:
| This is the second time in 2 weeks I've seen a comment
| like this on HN. 37 years old. Been on here 16 years.
| Incredibly odd to me. Just announce "can someone else
| tell me if this is true?"
| ericd wrote:
| That's what I was doing, because I don't think assertions
| like "CENTCOM is blind" should just sit out there without
| evidence.
| refulgentis wrote:
| Then go get some! It adds nothing but spam when you to
| take time from your busy day to tell us what to do
| ericd wrote:
| Usually it's on the person posting assertions to justify
| them, and looks like they've edited in a NYT link since
| then.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| And it's worse than spam when someone is posting
| incorrect things and people are downvoting people
| questioning it. As another user has already posted, the
| Iron Dome does not use the same radar they are talking
| about and is not "blind"
| sethev wrote:
| IMHO, people making claims should provide the evidence
| for them. One link is behind a paywall and the other
| clearly states that it is making informed speculations.
|
| I could make all sorts of claims on the spot here. It
| doesn't create a duty for people reading this thread to
| go investigate them.
| refulgentis wrote:
| You're _so close_ , just _one more step_ , and it's easy,
| just have to step away from keeping it hypothetical.
|
| <SPOILER> Then it _certainly_ does not create a duty for
| people to go investigate, when the only difference is
| "someone replied telling someone to fact check"
| </SPOILER>
| sethev wrote:
| You're the one in this thread claiming people are
| responsible for "going and finding the evidence" of other
| people's unsourced claims. You could have just not
| replied since you didn't have something to contribute.
| ericd wrote:
| Relax, I was mostly asking whether someone else who
| already knew about this stuff could comment on its
| veracity. There's obviously no obligation.
| fsckboy wrote:
| I read the source he listed and it doesn't say any of
| that
| ericd wrote:
| Ah thanks, I think that was added after I commented.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _Government obviously pretty silent on all these
| failures and media doesn 't want to dig and ask hard
| questions_
|
| Some analysts are sure drumming up the severity [0]. In
| the fog of war, it is hard to tell what's exaggerated and
| what's not. The proposal by the current US Admin to
| increase defence spending by 40% to $1.5t is not a
| welcome sign for those opposed to heavy spending, for any
| number of reasons.
|
| [0] https://shanakaanslemperera.substack.com/p/the-last-
| molecule... / https://archive.vn/5H0L5
| grafmax wrote:
| > In the fog of war, it is hard to tell what's
| exaggerated and what's not.
|
| Honestly it's more than that. Propaganda and lies put out
| by ALL actors in this conflict. If you want to understand
| what's going on I think you have the expose yourself to
| as many competing sources as you can find. And still
| you're going to end up with a very shoddy picture. The
| term for this is epistemic collapse.
| awesome_dude wrote:
| This.
|
| One of the things I have disliked about the Iranian
| conflict is that their propaganda/messaging has been, by
| quite a margin, more reliable than what the US/Israel
| have been putting out.
|
| I like to think that I live in a free/liberal democratic
| portion of the world, but seeing the "other side" being
| more honest really puts a dent in things.
| schappim wrote:
| > Iron Dome relied on these radars -- all blind now.
|
| Iron Dome's primary fire-control radar is the Israeli
| EL/M-2084 Multi-Mission Radar, not the USA's AN/FPS-132
| awesome_dude wrote:
| I think that there is a problem here - you're talking
| about the firing of the defense system at targets,
| whereas knowing that that radar needs to be readied
| because missiles have been detected is what the other
| radar system provided.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _So not only CENTCOM is blind and incurred damage in
| high single digit billions, but also will be unable to
| repair the damage any time soon (probably for decades)
| even if the funding were made to be available_
|
| not just what i quoted, but your source does not say any
| of what you are saying.
|
| your source says: _Satellite images show damage near
| vital equipment on sites in at least five countries_
| https://archive.ph/QHNXW
| outside2344 wrote:
| And running out of Patriots
| reliabilityguy wrote:
| AFAIK, the one in Qatar was paid by Qatar and operated by
| US.
| motbus3 wrote:
| Cmon. At least it is all justified with good reasons!
| hokkos wrote:
| Is this story even true ? There has been fake AI photo
| about destructed THAAD radars :
| https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.A2B239E
| daemonologist wrote:
| If you scroll to the bottom of that page, they discuss
| possible evidence of damage to the radar from satellite
| imagery.
| picsao wrote:
| The problem is that the losses indicate something worse. A
| breakdown of doctrinal disciplin- mostly created by chronic
| underestimation of advesaries in the region. If Israel can
| pulp the proxxies that easy, iran would be easy. Thus it
| was not necessary to do what ukraine does- mostly keeping
| planes in the air so they are not bombed on the runway,
| rotating them among bases - etc.
|
| Which is specified as a strategy in the doctrine of the
| airforce.
| PearlRiver wrote:
| I always wondered why China doesn't flood foreign war zones
| with weapons to field test their fancy new gear against the
| USAF. Seems like a no-brainer.
| greedo wrote:
| They sell them. Military gear (at least aircraft and
| missiles) aren't cheap like an AK47. They have enjoyed
| watching India and Pakistan in their latest air battles.
| Lots of operational intel gleaned from that.
| caribou1914 wrote:
| It seems like the Iraqis were relatively poor operators of
| their systems. A few days ago I was reading about the Nato
| bombing of yugoslavia on wikipedia and it had the following
| entry:
|
| "Yugoslav air defences were much fewer than what Iraq had
| deployed during the Gulf War - an estimated 16 SA-3 and 25 SA-6
| surface-to-air missile systems, plus numerous anti-aircraft
| artillery (AAA) and man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS)
| - but unlike the Iraqis they took steps to preserve their
| assets. Prior to the conflict's start Yugoslav SAMs were
| preemptively dispersed away from their garrisons and practiced
| emission control to decrease NATO's ability to locate them."
|
| So their SAMs likely just got stealth bombed / bombed from a
| distance.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| > An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic
| bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.
|
| Why? We don't know exactly what happened but its easy to
| imagine that Iran held some anti-air systems in reserve for
| this phase of the war. They aren't trying to defend a target,
| their goal was likely to stay hidden and wait for an
| opportunity. They could keep the radar off and use a passive
| sensor network to notify them when it was in range, then turn
| the radar on to get a lock for the shot. Or even just IR.
| Recall, the Houthis gave stealth F35s some near misses over
| Yemen, no doubt supplied and trained by the Iranians.
|
| https://www.twz.com/air/how-the-houthis-rickety-air-defenses...
| YZF wrote:
| It was pretty much a given that over time some of these
| airplanes would be shot down. There's no way to get every
| single MANPAD or even some of the larger anti-aircraft
| setups. A jet can even be brought down by a canon or a bullet
| given enough luck. We've had quite a few near misses, there's
| a video of an Israeli F-16 evading a surface to air missile,
| there have been the F-35 that was hit but managed to continue
| and land, there were countless drones shot down.
|
| This was inevitable and just a question of time. Out of >10k
| sorties something is going to get hit. I've no idea what
| range the military planners expected and how we're doing vs.
| that.
| iugtmkbdfil834 wrote:
| OP left a little to interpretation, but, I think, top of the
| list starts with 'mission accomplished 2.0' meme followed by
| increased US casualties ( though I suppose the exact order
| likely depends on your current disposition ).
| andriy_koval wrote:
| > During the entire gulf war (Iraq, 1990-91), only two F-15s
| were shot down via surface-to-air engagement.
|
| was it because F-15 was used as superiority fighter at that
| time and now they use it as heavy bomber? I assume plenty of
| bombers likely was shot down in Iraq.
| ranger207 wrote:
| Both F-15s lost in the 1st Gulf War were the air-to-ground
| focused F-15E Strike Eagles. https://rjlee.org/air/ds-aaloss/
| andriy_koval wrote:
| per wiki, f-15e was first produced in 1987, so there were
| very few in service at that time, and most of ground
| strikes were carried by other aircrafts.
| ranger207 wrote:
| Yes, most ground strikes were by other aircraft types,
| but the F-15E did have a lot of sorties, almost as many
| as the F-111 or F-4G (although the F-16 had many, many
| more sorties, but not all of them were air-to-ground)
|
| Source is the Gulf War Airpower Survey, page 184 (PDF
| page 205): https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA273996.pdf
| YZF wrote:
| This one is also an F-15E it seems.
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| Seriously. Makes me glad we attacked when we did. They could
| have bolstered their anti air defenses even more.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| Are these bots or do americans really live in this whole
| other world?
| machomaster wrote:
| Or maybe you didn't understand a clear sarcasm?
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| You're on HN in 2026 here, sarcasm must be clearly
| identified.
| timcobb wrote:
| You can't really take out "the whole" air defense system
| because there will always be folks out with MANPAD-type things,
| those will score hits on occasion. That's probably what we saw
| here. I doubt MANPADs were nearly as common in the early 90s as
| they are today.
| rustyhancock wrote:
| True but without radar they have a relatively difficult task
| of being out there setup and waiting for a fast moving jet to
| pass within range.
|
| Compare that to Ukraine defending it's skies with NATO (well
| mostly French IIRC) AWACS feeding early data which is what
| made MANPADS in Ukraine so effective against Russian attacks.
| timcobb wrote:
| Yeah my guess was they were coming in along predictable
| routes at this point and that's what got them? I saw that
| the search and rescue mission was in an area close to
| water. I believe many Stinger hits in Ukraine can be
| attributed to predictability.
|
| And maybe they do have some kind of radars?
| RealityVoid wrote:
| I don't think manpads themselves are connected to the AWACS
| infrastructure.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| It's more that high altitude planes get picked up by the
| AWACS while low flight is at risk of being shot at by a
| MANPAD.
| hajile wrote:
| The videos we've seen match up with what we've seen on the
| ground. They are all running a custom software we haven't
| seen elsewhere and don't seem to be traditional MANPADS in
| any way.
|
| We know Iran is driving around bongo trucks with small SAM
| systems on the back that use passive IRST rather than radar.
| The missiles themselves have the capability to cruise in the
| air for some period of time searching for a target before
| kicking in the engine for a last, fast sprint to the target.
| Because they are electro-optical (and piloted by a human),
| even early-warning and flare deployments won't do very much
| against a skilled operator.
| fifilura wrote:
| That was 35 years ago. That only shows that the plane is pretty
| old. I assume SAMs evolved since then.
| nwah1 wrote:
| Operation Desert Storm was only 43 days long. Epic Fury is most
| of the way there.
| jari_mustonen wrote:
| > An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic
| bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.
|
| Wrong. It's a great sign. We have had enough of the barrage of
| US aggression around the world.
| mrits wrote:
| Have you ever considered not to have your parliament chant
| death to America?
| mdni007 wrote:
| Have you ever considered not bombing other countries to
| steal their resources? The chanting is very civil compared
| to what America actually deserves
| drstewart wrote:
| How civil is murdering 30,000 protestors? Muh progressive
| Iranian government
| UncleMeat wrote:
| The Iranian government can suck and it can _still_ be a
| net negative for the Iranian people to bomb the shit out
| of their civilian infrastructure and kill and bunch of
| schoolgirls.
|
| The Iranian government sucks. There is _zero_ chance that
| Trump is capable of leaving this conflict with a stable
| liberal democracy that protects the rights of the Iranian
| people in place.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Have you considered not providing intel to Irak to allow
| them to use sarin gas against the Iranians? Or overthrowing
| their democratic regime that wanted an audit to understand
| how much of its oil was stolen by US companies? Or
| designating it as the "Axis of Evil" and sanctioning it
| after that it helped you invade Afghanistan? Or
| assassinating their religious leader during negociations?
|
| Iran didn't become skeptic about the US overnight. I would
| advise to do some reading on wikipedia on the topic to make
| up your mind.
| waffleiron wrote:
| What happened to freedom of speech?
| drstewart wrote:
| Don't know, ask Iran. But you can't since they've
| silenced everyone by turning off the Internet for all
| their citizens
| platevoltage wrote:
| Iran didn't do anything to limit YOUR freedom of speech.
| platevoltage wrote:
| Have you ever considered having thicker skin?
| pauldelany wrote:
| Khamenei explains what that is intended to mean:
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/irans-ayatollah-ali-
| khame...
| drstewart wrote:
| Who is we? You can't be Iranian since you have Internet,
| which the great defenders of liberty in Iran have disabled
| for their citizens
| swat535 wrote:
| Majority of the world prefers stability over United States
| bombing people's homes in Middle East and elsewhere. The
| entire NATO is against this. Pointless aggression and war
| that serves no purpose other than economical and human loss
| needs to stop.
|
| Additionally Iranians don't support this, nor do they want
| their children getting killed by United States. Regardless
| of their issues with the government, they rally around the
| flag to defend their land.
|
| So I would assume that "we" here represents majority of
| people in the world.
| stinkbeetle wrote:
| > An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic
| bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.
|
| Not to dispute that but what about the comparison makes it not
| a good sign? Iran has much more capable radar and missiles now
| than Iraq did 35 years ago, doesn't it?
| asadotzler wrote:
| The success of the war depends on the approval ratings of the
| US president which will almost certainly take hits when US
| military takes hits so the US citizens seeing the US military
| taking hits at a higher rate than relatively recent wars in
| the area is a bad sign for "winning" whatever "winning" means
| here.
| nielsbot wrote:
| I also saw some news saying an F-35 was possibly hit--but I
| can't find any reasonable-seeming sources to confirm that.
| Maybe someone here knows more?
| dnautics wrote:
| an F-35 was hit but made it back to base.
| culi wrote:
| Iran's semi-official news agency (Tasnim) made the claim.
| Then a bit later they posted photos of the wreckage. OSINT
| community pieced together that it was actually wreckage of
| the F-15E that is the topic of this post.
|
| A few minutes ago Tasnim posted photos of a separate wreckage
| that seems to be of an F-16 that was also downed today.
|
| These events should not be confused with the F-35 that CNN
| reported was hit a few days ago.
| cyberax wrote:
| Iraq is pretty flat on the routes between the US-allied
| countries and the major strongholds (Basra, Baghdad). You can't
| easily conceal rocket launchers there.
|
| Tehran is protected by mountain ranges that can provide plenty
| of cover. And Russia is probably feeding it the real-time radar
| data from its military bases in Armenia.
| mathgradthrow wrote:
| 1) The US has run 13,000 missions over Iran in the last month.
| Thats a lot of targets.
|
| 2) The initial US degradation of Iraqi capabilities was much
| much greater in gulf war 1.
|
| 3) F15s are not stealth fighters.
|
| 4) This is 35 years later.
|
| 5) "strategic bombing" of air defenses is mostly accomplished
| with our cruise missiles. We'll take out any air defenses we
| find, but you don't fly non-stealth planes over SAM batteries
| intentionally.
|
| We haven't even started a ground campaign. If one plane is
| downed per 13000 missions, I think we're doing ok.
| jjk166 wrote:
| You can't compare time, you need to compare sorties. There were
| only 5900 F15 sorties during the gulf war. It's not clear how
| many of the 8000 combat sorties sorties flown so far in the
| Iran war are with F15s, but it's almost certainly several
| thousand. Overall during the gulf war coalition forces suffered
| 52 fixed wing aircraft lost in combat over approximately
| 116,000 combat sorties.
|
| Given Iran ought to have far better SAM systems than Iraq 35
| years ago, this comparison doesn't seem in any way alarming.
|
| For a more direct comparison, in the first 5 weeks of the
| invasion of Ukraine, Russia flew approximately 7000 combat
| sorties and 22 fixed wing aircraft were shot down.
| nurumaik wrote:
| What if air defense technology improved a bit during the last
| 36 years?
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| If true I can't imagine it will play well even among Trumps base.
| When was the last time a US fighter jet was shot down? 1999
| during the intervention in the balkans?
| panarky wrote:
| You overestimate the base.
|
| The war machine is already rewriting this as Iranian hostility.
|
| The base is incapable of seeing this as a failure of their cult
| leader.
|
| Instead they'll see it as the very rationale and justification
| of the war.
|
| If they were ambivalent about it before, now they'll scream
| bloody murder for even more off-the-leash barbarism from the US
| and Israel.
| butlike wrote:
| Why are you helping them galvanize? Let them come up with
| their own raison d'etre.
| kelnos wrote:
| Honestly it seems like the only thing Trump's base cares
| about is the price of gasoline. They don't give a shit about
| what's actually happening in the war.
| dmoy wrote:
| Looks like yes. Last jet shot down was a warthog in Iraq 2003.
| Last fighter jets shot down were a nighthawk and falcon in
| 1999.
| derriz wrote:
| Trump leads a personality cult not a traditional political
| base. There are some who have stopped supporting him because
| they thought he aligned with their political views but 35% or
| so of the US population still support him despite his 180
| degree turn on two of his foundational election promises: to
| keep the US out of foreign wars and to bust open an
| international pedophile ring run for elites.
| intended wrote:
| Let's see. Most people underestimate how strong Trump's
| approval is with his base. Before you read further, ask
| yourself what Trump's approval rating is with his base.
|
| > Approval of Trump among Republicans has slipped to a second-
| term low of 84%, down from 92% last March. At the same time, an
| all-time high 16% of Republicans disapprove. This shift can be
| attributed, at least in part, to declining support among non-
| MAGA Republicans, as approval dropped 11 points in the last
| year among this group (70% in March 2025 to 59% today).
| Virtually all MAGA Republicans continue to approve of Trump,
| with 98% approving a year ago and 97% now.
|
| > https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-voters-
| oppose...
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| Let's hope Iran doesn't follow the "no quarter, no mercy" policy
| laid out by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. For the unfamiliar,
| it means executing survivors and surrendering combatants. Aka war
| crimes.
| partiallypro wrote:
| Iran just killed ~40,000 of their own people in January, the
| biggest single event massacre since the Holocaust. I don't
| think Pete Hegseth is going to move the needle in their
| ideology.
| derwiki wrote:
| I think the Great Leap Forward famine killed a lot more, but
| I guess it wasn't a massacre: just super weird and bad
| leadership from Mao.
| culi wrote:
| this is ridiculous misinformation propagated by an outlet
| that has no actual journalists on the payroll btw
| operatingthetan wrote:
| What is the source of your claim?
| culi wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/31/concern-
| over-u...
| sokitsip wrote:
| Why is the US there again? Open up a straight that was open?
|
| Not expecting a reply.
| butlike wrote:
| To distract from the Epstein files.
| 8b16380d wrote:
| Israel
| kiviuq wrote:
| Sweet AIPAC money
| TheDong wrote:
| The opinion in https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-
| war-in-iran/ is interesting here.
|
| Read the section titled 'The Gamble' if you want that opinion,
| but the tl;dr is that our 2025 strike against Iran ceded our
| ability to claim dis-involvement in Israeli strikes, and so
| Israel was able to draw us into this war whether we wanted to
| or not.
| sph wrote:
| [flagged]
| epolanski wrote:
| It's not the voter. It's the system.
|
| The constitution is old and not democratic.
|
| Russia, Turkey, Phillipines, Belarus, Nicaragua, etc, etc.
|
| Presidential republics are a disaster waiting the right
| people to break them.
| throwaway27448 wrote:
| And how, pray tell, does an american voter vote against using
| the most lethal military in the world?
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Vote against liars who promise peace. Or demand
| representatives impeach them.
| Rover222 wrote:
| There are fairly credible X posts now saying the 2nd pilot has
| also been rescued. Pretty impressive.
| jjice wrote:
| What makes them credible? Not doubting, just curious.
| standardUser wrote:
| Via the NYT: Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran's Parliament
| and a key government figure overseeing the war, took to social
| media to mock the Trump administration as U.S. forces searched
| for a missing American airman from a downed fighter plane. "This
| brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded
| from 'regime change' to 'Hey! Can anyone find our pilots?
| Please?'"he said in a post on X. "Wow. What incredible progress.
| Absolute geniuses."
| zaelochi wrote:
| Average comments sentiment when an American is caught having
| killed a clerk during a robbery: hope they fry him on the chair
|
| Average comments sentiment when an American is caught while
| bombing bridges and elementary schools: poor thing hope they
| treat him well
| thatmf wrote:
| Is this not just FAFO?
| soupfordummies wrote:
| At what point is congress gonna grow a spine and retake their
| power? Every day the goalposts just get moved a little farther.
| varispeed wrote:
| If everyone is somewhat implicated in Epstein files, then
| everyone is afraid of Putin / Netanyahu who might pull up the
| files. It's funny how they are so scared to face justice, but
| also interesting how American law enforcement became so
| corrupt.
|
| Protecting pedos on such a scale?
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| There's a very strange problem with this whole thing where,
| of course, whatever these powerful people have done behind
| closed doors that is illegal and exploitative and harmful is
| terrible and they should be put to justice.
|
| However, if the direction of the country is being seriously
| altered via blackmail, IMO that is many orders of magnitude
| worse than anything they could have done. Like we are
| currently bombing yet another middle eastern country for no
| clear reason.
|
| I would personally be open to some kind of Epstein jubilee
| where we absolve everyone involved in order to nullify the
| blackmail.
|
| Like it's not great, it's terrible for the victims and for
| justice, but at the moment we are getting terrible from both
| ends, could we at least reduce it to one end?
| pjc50 wrote:
| That creates a far worse problem down the line because they
| will just do it again, more publicly.
|
| Really the rot set in with the pardons of Nixon and Oliver
| North.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Can you justify that assertion? How would they do it
| again, more publicly?
|
| It's not like a blackmail ring is that easy to set up, it
| seems to have taken a lot of heavy lifting to get this
| one going.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| When people see what others have gotten away with, they
| become emboldened themselves.
| bdbdbdb wrote:
| We always talk about what these powerful people "have
| done", as if it's all over. Surely Epstein's death did not
| bring about the end of billionaire sex trafficking? Someone
| stepped in. These guys are still raping people on private
| planes and private islands
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| But why are we focusing on the raping, and not on what
| the American government is doing that has no clear
| rational motive without "Israel has captured the
| government" and a very clear rational motive with "Israel
| has captured the government"?
|
| If the American government continues to perform actions
| that are blatantly against the interests of America and
| Americans, the impact of that on Americans is going to be
| (and may be already) massively massively worse than the
| person to person level crimes we are focusing on.
|
| Does it just feel so bad thinking about it that a lot of
| people have a hard time even going there mentally? I
| really don't get it.
| watwut wrote:
| Republicans in congress support it. It is not about congress
| not having abstract spine.
|
| It is about republican congressmen actively supporting all of
| this.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Plot twist: The Dem leadership (Schumer, Jeffries, et al)
| also supports this.
|
| That's why their main complaints have been procedural: "Why
| didn't you come to us first with your plans?". And why they
| slow-walked the vote on a war powers act.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The dems have no power against a unified GOP front, and
| they already look pretty weak on issues like this. They are
| trying to figure out how they can mollify their base while
| attracting enough centrist voters to retake Congress later
| this year. I don't care for the dem leadership but I feel a
| little sympathy for them. Catering to their loudest
| supporters is a pretty big reason they are the minority
| party right now.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| Where trumps Republican Party have spent the last 10
| years not catering from their loudest supporters?
|
| Either the majority of Americans want this war, in which
| case the Dems have to be quiet, or they don't, in which
| case the dems should be making it the number one issue.
|
| Sadly I suspect the answer is not in the side of the
| Hollywood version of post ww2 America.
|
| Now is the time to insert the "are we the bad guys" meme.
| overfeed wrote:
| > Catering to their loudest supporters is a pretty big
| reason they are the minority party right now.
|
| By "loudest supporters" - are you referring to the donor
| class? Money is speech, after all.
|
| The Democratic party has an identity crisis: it's failing
| to balance special interests and their traditional
| constituents - post-Goldwater/ southern-strategy. Instead
| of activating their base, they seem to be courting the
| political center that has been hollowed out by Maga and
| polarization, incidentally matching the desires of their
| donors who abhor any kind of populist leftist politics,
| including anything in instituted by FDR.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > By "loudest supporters" - are you referring to the
| donor class?
|
| No, I don't believe so. I'm talking about the people who
| convinced them that culture wars were the right way to do
| battle with a conservative opponent despite that being
| automatically an uphill battle. The dem leadership
| focused on issues that polled well with a small group of
| loud people on a crusade, and largely ignored bread &
| butter issues that resonate with people less politically
| inclined. But centrist votes are counted just the same as
| partisan ones, and more plentiful.
| overfeed wrote:
| > The dem leadership focused on issues that polled well
| with a small group of loud people on a crusade
|
| Which dem leadership? The only crusade I remember was
| Kamala Harris going on a national tour with Liz Cheney
| and brightly signaling her rightward shift. Somehow,
| "Republicans for Kamala" failed to save her campaign in
| the swing-states.
| dontlikeyoueith wrote:
| > Catering to their loudest supporters
|
| Name one instance of this actually happening. I'll wait.
| Saline9515 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that before they made it a central topic,
| most Americans didn't care about transgenderism, which
| after all affects a very tiny population. Especially
| compared to other issues, such as paid maternal leave,
| for instance.
| russdill wrote:
| And bonus, they don't have to go on record voting for all the
| things they support but know are immensely unpopular.
| alecbz wrote:
| How can you tell the difference?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Approximately never. We are in a situation where Congress is
| unusually beholden to their constituents for once, because
| those people _care deeply_ about Donald Trump. So this is what
| they want; not just the war, but everything -- they _want_ all
| the power to rest with Trump.
| feb012025 wrote:
| I think you're mistaken about who congress is beholden to at
| this particular point in time...
|
| The war has record low approval ratings, even among Trump's
| base.
| dlev_pika wrote:
| I'm just hoping Schumer doesn't advocate for merging with
| IDF, if the GOP loses the majority
| overfeed wrote:
| Joe and Eileen Bailey[1] support the war, which is why
| Schumer is staying tight-lipped.
|
| 1.
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/19/imaginary-
| frie...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > The war has record low approval ratings, even among
| Trump's base.
|
| The war does, _Trump_ does not. He maintains very strong
| support among the base, and that is the part keeping the
| GOP politicians in line. It is why some of them just resign
| instead of enduring the threats from his supporters.
| feb012025 wrote:
| It's the special interest groups. Specifically Israel's
| lobbying efforts. No need to try to obfuscate it at this
| point.
| losvedir wrote:
| I think they have 60 days from when hostilities begin, right?
| krferriter wrote:
| No. This war has been illegal from day one. The 60 window
| without prior authorization only applies if the US is
| attacked. The US was not attacked.
| dlev_pika wrote:
| Best case scenario is when they lose the majority
| delecti wrote:
| On this subject, they won't, because they mostly want this war
| too. Most members of both parties have taken AIPAC money. Most
| of them are also glad somebody is finally attacking Iran,
| especially without them having to sign their name on a use of
| force authorization or declaration of war.
| aryonoco wrote:
| If you believe, like I do, that there are a lot of parallels
| between the US of today and the Rome of yesteryear, you might
| find the answer by reading Tacitus.
|
| It turns out, long after Rome had become an Empire and was only
| a Republic in name only, most Senators still thought of it as a
| Republic and that this extraordinary state of affairs with the
| Senate just being a glorified rubber stamp body would soon come
| to an end and that, they will very soon restore the Senate to
| its former rightful place, just as soon as this current very
| limited crises was over.
|
| As it turns out, they were never able to do that again.
|
| It's so interesting to me that nearly all of the Founding
| Fathers had read Tacitus and were keenly aware of this and
| explicitly tried to design a system to prevent that from
| happening. To their credit, their system lasted a good while.
| Ms-J wrote:
| Maybe they shouldn't be attacking Iran? Duhhhhhh.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I think an A-10 is also down (pilot ejected and safe). I'm
| surprised that they decided to fly an A-10 into Iran. I mean it's
| a solid plane that can sustain some AD fire, but at the same time
| it usually operates within the height that MANPADs can reach.
| torlok wrote:
| Considering the number of friendly fire incidents these moronic
| planes cause, Iran would probably be better off leaving them
| be.
| DASD wrote:
| List of aviation shootdowns and accidents during the 2026 Iran
| war:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_shootdowns_an...
|
| Iran: 40, Israel: 18, US: 36, Others: 7
| tasn wrote:
| It's a bit weird counting drones in the same list as expensive
| fighter jets (and other expensive planes).
| DASD wrote:
| MQ-9s are ~$30 million USD and are strike capable.
| alchemism wrote:
| _cough_ and an A10
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Oh well, it was bound to happen. We need to get the Hell out of
| there.
| epolanski wrote:
| The only way Trump can save face is by doubling down, which is
| what Iran is waiting for.
| epolanski wrote:
| > A particular concern, they said, was threats made by the US to
| Iran's energy infrastructure. "International law protects from
| attack objects indispensable to the survival of civilians, and
| the attacks threatened by Trump, if implemented, could entail war
| crimes."
|
| I am not going to lie, I am beyond disgusted at the United
| States.
|
| And the "it's Trump" card doesn't work, Americans defend this
| travesty of an old non functioning constitution.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It was a pretty solid setup when everyone wanted it to succeed.
| We will get a few more safeties put in place via statute after
| this experience, of course, but what really needs to happen is
| meaningful improvements to the Constitution. We know enough now
| to spot plenty of weak points which could be addressed. When
| I'm feeling particularly spicy I think a Constitutional
| Convention would be seriously awesome. But then I think of the
| possible outcomes and I'm not so sure. Were the majority of the
| population acting in good faith, I'd feel better about it.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| The bulk of our politicians are fully corrupt, and you
| believe there could be a positive outcome for rewriting the
| constitution?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I thought I made it clear that I don't generally think that
| would be a good idea. I think it would be _interesting_ ,
| which I _sometimes_ think might be worth the risk.
| Certainly discontent with the status quo is a broadly held
| sentiment not at all unique to the current right wing.
| solid_fuel wrote:
| I'm an American and a patriot and the way I want to see this end
| is with Pete Hegseth and others from this nightmare
| administration delivered to the Hague, in chains.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| That Kuwaiti F-18 pilot is a bit far from home.
| dlev_pika wrote:
| Second one in 24hrs...and that's with their "anti-air defenses
| destroyed", per our Commander in Chief
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Don't worry. It's ok. Just think ... Top Gun Maverick.
| hereme888 wrote:
| Iran, who armed itself to the teeth, shoots down a 30-yr-old
| fighter jet. Crew expected to have survived.
|
| Acceptable win ratio for the U.S. (whom many of you despise).
| tejohnso wrote:
| Impossible. Iran's army was already demolished weeks ago, and
| there's "nothing left". What did they take it down with, bb guns?
| eek2121 wrote:
| I see a ton of bickering, however, I simply have to ask the
| question: how can anyone justify the United States of America and
| Israel attacking ANY country? It isn't our job, nor is it
| Israel's, to try and be the world police. People are dying, and
| because of a certain corpse-to-be controlling MY country, the
| world is beginning to suffer and it is going to get so much
| worse. Some economists are saying gas rationing will begin
| happening within the next 9-15 months. Iran has NO incentive to
| be diplomatic. On top of that, invisible damage that nobody is
| reporting about is being done...damage that could last years or
| possibly decades to very small, yet super important parts of the
| world supply chain that powers everything from fertilizer to
| pharmaceuticals. There is not a single person in the world that
| should be supporting this war. I don't care what your beliefs
| are. The results WILL affect you, and you won't get a bailout.
| anonymou2 wrote:
| more than trying to be the world police, they are trying to be
| the world bully, or if you like, the corrupt police that abuses
| their power to screw the helpless.
| mhb wrote:
| It is justified based on the attacked country's avowal of Death
| to America and its demonstrated and long term efforts to obtain
| nuclear weapons capable of reaching the US and its European
| allies.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Saying "Death to America" doesn't give us the right to bomb
| them. They've been saying that for a long time now and yet
| haven't posed serious threat to the US mainland. Trump says a
| lot of crazy shit as well, would that give other countries
| the right to bomb the US?
| jiggawatts wrote:
| I don't know why you're being voted down for staying plan
| facts.
|
| If you know someone in town that regularly threatens you and
| your friends with death and you see them buying a gun, you do
| something about it before they also get the bullets.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > gas rationing will begin happening within the next 9-15
| months
|
| It really depends where in the world you are. There are places
| that will begin rationing in the next few weeks if not sooner.
| hereme888 wrote:
| Clueless? Iran has been attacking many countries, including US
| and Israel, for 47 years. It's not a secret.
| orf wrote:
| [delayed]
| miketery wrote:
| This is the flag of the Houthis [1], they are sponsored by
| Iran, as are the likes of Hezbollah, and Hamas. They have
| similar language in their charters.
|
| How is that not casus belli?
|
| 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarkha
| AnonyMD wrote:
| Although Iran is a tenacious nation, the United States is
| weakening. The United States of the past would not have made such
| a mistake.
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