The Pentagon has confirmed it is sending a THAAD missile defence system and US troops to Israel, publicly acknowledging that US troops will be on the ground assisting in Israel’s defence.

108 points

Yuck… That’s fucking disgusting. I feel physically sick reading this.

They’re telling Israel to slow down with the attacks and sending weapons and soldiers at the same time.

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24 points

They’re telling Israel to slow down with the attacks

Purely to help placate the public. There’s no influence/true intent behind these words. It’s the actions, not the words, that tell the true story.

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14 points
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They’re air defense operators, just like gets deployed around Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.

If you want to feel bad about anything, it’s that this will significantly reduce the likelihood that Iran can threaten Israel with ballistic missiles.

THAAD is really good at what it does, and something tells me that the Iranians aren’t going to want to waste their entire stock pile on fruitless saturation attempts. To say nothing of their concerns of killing American troops.

As in, this provides Israel even greater latitude on their quest to start a hot war with Iran, without dramatically increasing any threat to their military bases and government buildings. Well, at least not from ballistic missiles.

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19 points

As in, this provides Israel even greater latitude on their quest to start a hot war with Iran, without dramatically increasing any threat to their military bases and government buildings. Well, at least not from ballistic missiles.

That’s also a very good point. It’s like shielding a bully while they continue to bully other people. While I wouldn’t mind seeing that bully getting smacked by the other people they oppress, I also don’t want to see more people dying either. However, I know Iran has been targeting military targets and not civilian ones. So…

Anyway, this is all just fucked up and I want to see an end to this senseless violence and death, and I want to see Israel getting what they fucking deserve. That is the whole country should cease to exist in terms of land and borders and the land be returned to Palestinians after what they fucking did.

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10 points
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THAAD can be overwhelmed similar to Israel’s own missile systems. There has been a THAAD system in Israel since 2019 so it already failed during Iran’s retaliation.

The US is sending around 100 US troops with the new system so there will be additional interception capabilities. But it remains unlikely this will affect a saturation missile attack.

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1 point
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I’m not saying it can’t be. I’m saying I don’t believe Iran has the capabilities or stockpiles available to do so, given the other American assets in theatre, or a desire to risk killing American troops.

I suspect they’re deploying THAAD because of the failures of David’s Sling during the last missile attack.

Air defense systems protect specific targets, not countries. Given the THAAD’s long track record under US operators, I would wager that the bases and targets that Iranian missiles hit, either lacked sufficient coverage, had poorly trained Israeli personnel, and/or were covered by David’s Sling.

Of course, I could be wrong, but we won’t know for many many years given how secretive Israel is on these matters.

Edit: I’m not seeing any reports of active THAAD deployments in Israel prior to this announcement, just previous deployments to Israel, including for training. But no mention if they rotated out prior to the Iranian missile strike, or that they were present for it.

I’m not saying they weren’t there, but do you have a source confirms they were present during this most recent attack?

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1 point

Election.

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-6 points

This is like, technically a weapon. It’s a tool for destroying enemy missiles in the air before they impact their target. It’s about as purely defensive of a weapon as you can get.

The US soldiers are operating the missile defense system, so there’s not room for Israel to “creatively” repurpose them. They aren’t assisting in any missions in Palestine, they’re purely defending against Iranian missiles.

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35 points

The US providing this defense however allows Israel to be even more belligerent without fear of retaliation, possibly the only thing stopping them from expanding their genocide faster.

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22 points

There is no such thing as a defensive weapon. Its entire purpose is shielding them from the consequences of their own actions. Its just the armor of the tank that is Israels military. Its an integral part of the weapon.

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8 points
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And now they will claim the US soldiers were attacked after placing them in the line of fire and use it as another excuse to go to war with Iran and continue exterminating Palestinians. It truly is sickening that they are fully participating in genocide.

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8 points

Is this the human shields situation I keep hearing about?

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3 points

Ah ok. That makes sense then. I wasn’t informed about that system. Thank you for telling me.

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19 points

Now if Iran sends a ballistic missile in and kills one American what will the US do compared with what the did a few weeks ago when the IDF purposely shot an American protester in the Westbank?

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4 points
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I don’t think Iran will need to wait that long. This looks like the US/Israel are planning a joint operation counterattack on Iranian facilities. Which will trigger a retaliation in turn as Iran escalates in kind. Etc, etc.

The big difference now is that the US military will officially be getting its hands dirty in the region, much like we did in Desert Shield / Storm and in Libya. Very possible that the ghost of John McCain finally gets its long-sought-after bomb bomb Iran.

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3 points

There’s a good chance it will be used for the declaration of a special military operation. And the Americans will finally get to invade Iran.

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47 points

When will this horror ever end? It’s just escalation after escalation from Israel & the U.S.

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7 points

Need new gulags, thats how it ends.

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32 points

Sending US troops in any capacity seems to me that US hawks are wanting to increase the chances of US troops being killed. Which then means that the US can then justify sending everyone in that they want.

Use the excuse of “they attacked 'Merica” and do the same shit that happened in Afghanistan and Iraq (just with Israel “inviting” them in and as a “supporting” army). Which will of course ignore all of the US citizens that have been murdered by Israel.

They want so badly to bring back the “hero” trappings that WW2 had, but they will be siding with the fascists this time around. And would have “perfect” excuses to attack China and Iran via false flag shit (again using Nazi tactics). Hell, they might even pull-off something with Russia that can be used for the death spiral that NATO Article 5 promises. Be like all the shit that made sure WW1 would happen if literally anything popped off.

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1 point

At the very least it would balance out the stream of reports of Israel bombing / shooting yet another journalist / American / medic / humanitarian.

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23 points

And let THAT be a Lesson to Israel next time they try to KILL AMERICANS or BOMB SCHOOLCHILDREN!

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