The United States shot down more drones and missiles than Israel did on Saturday night during Iran’s attack, The Intercept can report.
More than half of Iran’s weapons were destroyed by U.S. aircraft and missiles before they ever reached Israel. In fact, by commanding a multinational air defense operation and scrambling American fighter jets, this was a U.S. military triumph.
The extent of the U.S. military operation is unbeknownst to the American public, but the Pentagon coordinated a multination, regionwide defense extending from northern Iraq to the southern Persian Gulf on Saturday. During the operation, the U.S., U.K., France, and Jordan all shot down the majority of Iranian drones and missiles. In fact, where U.S. aircraft originated from has not been officially announced, an omission that has been repeated by the mainstream media. Additionally, the role of Saudi Arabia is unclear, both as a base for the United States and in terms of any actions by the Saudi military.
“U.S. intelligence estimates that half of the weapons fired by Iran failed upon launch or in flight due to technical issues,” a U.S. Air Force senior officer told The Intercept. Of the remaining 160 or so, the U.S. shot down the majority, the officer said. The officer was granted anonymity to speak about sensitive operational matters.
Biden won’t put US military members in the way to deter an actual fucking genocide…
But he’s scrambling jets to protect uninhabited areas in Israel?
This isn’t just him supporting a genocide anymore, he’s not making logical decisions. He’s said for literal decades that nothing will ever make him lower his complete support of Israel, and he keeps showing us that’s true
Someone with that kind of loyalty to any foreign government for any reason should disqualify them from holding at least the presidential office.
It was bad when Trump was like this with Russia, and the whole Dem party agreed.
Then Biden does the same shit and suddenly it’s ok?
Fuck that noise.
Iran hurting almost nobody is in everyone’s best interests.
We don’t need Israel vs Iran lobbing missiles at each other or marching to attack each other. Shooting down every single Iranian rocket was the fastest and simplest way to peace.
Shooting down every single Iranian rocket was the fastest and simplest way to peace.
Not really. This wasn’t America acting with a strategic strike. They simply shot down a few missiles to “support” Israel … because to do otherwise could have opened the door to other Arab nations lobbing bombs at Israel where over 1 million Palestinians are still living.
Peace wasn’t any part of this strategy.
I don’t like that Biden is supporting Israel, but I’m not going to put him and Trump on the same level. Trump moved our embassy to Jerusalem. Biden has allowed a lot of shit I hate and don’t want us to be a part of, but acting like they’re one and the same is not helpful. Especially when we would have had boots on the ground helping Israel if Trump was in office.
If someone kicked you in the balls, would it be ok for everyone you meet after that to punch you in the face?
Or do you keep the same social standards regardless of meeting one exceptionality shitty person?
Would you get mad at the guy who just punched you? It was as bad as the kick in the nuts, so you can’t complain right?
Logically speaking, you’re saying you’d accept the punch with a smile because it was worse before.
If someone kicked you in the balls, would it be ok for everyone you meet after that to punch you in the face?
But that isn’t the situation. The situation is that you can choose to let someone kick you in the balls, or you can choose to let a whole gang mug you. There isn’t a third choice, no matter how much you want there to be. Third party candidates are a great ideal, but until we have a different voting system, it will continue being an ideal instead of reality.
I’d rather take a hit to the face.
You’re trying to summarize a situation into something small and easy for people, but it’s complex and shitty.
I understand the plight of the people in Gaza and the absolutely abhorrent behavior my country has had towards them. I understand how the futuristic and advanced weapons made by my country have negatively impacted the world.
I also now live in a world that deals with the results of Donald Trump in office. My mom, sister, niece and wife don’t have access to the same healthcare they once did that was a right to them. I have a court system now that’s so skewed compared to American politics that it dictates policy to us rather than democratically enables the people. I live under a system of moved goal posts because Trump made the wall into a whole thing, and now everyone looks to shut the border down constantly rather than dealing with the reasons people flood across it. Every day people in my country die from gun violence and expanded police powers both of which rapidly increased under Trump and who changed the laws making it easier to purchase weapons and who made police more resistant to citizen committees.
And before you switch to the “why don’t you then change it” we’re working on. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first steps. Fascists don’t just go away when they lose. They fester. Trying to throw it all away means potentially creating one of the bloodiest conflicts the world has ever seen because we’re upset temporarily. I get that people are needlessly dying, but more will die no matter what we do. Staying the course, correcting the effects of Donald Trump, changing the tides of American politics and shifting the left actually left is the best course of action right now. We’re getting there. Not as fast as I or others like, but I see it every day.
This is a dumb take - I definitely want us to cut off military aide to Isreal that’s used for offensive purposes… but there’s no reason to let Iran bomb Isreal just because we’re pissed off about Palestine. Isreal being forced into a defensive war is only likely to accelerate deaths in Gaza.
but there’s no reason to let Iran bomb Isreal just because we’re pissed off about Palestine
So why aren’t we shooting down Israel’s attacks on Gaza?
You can’t claim we shot these down just to avoid casualties out of respect for life when we’re actively helping commit a genocide.
At least not if you want to convince anyone of anything logically.
Well, for one, we don’t have bases positioned in the vast expanse between……checks….Israel and Gaza.
I believe most of these shootdowns came from the Red Sea, Iraq, and Syria’s.
Damn half failed? That’s crazy.
That is what I was thinking, but also wonder if it was part of their show of power. They telegraphed their intentions fairly clearly. If they intentionally disabled half of the drones after take off, then it might simply be an additional warning. If this attack was shot down, could double the drones also be shot down? Just speculation, but I do have a feeling that there is more to it than just half malfunctioned.
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Take an estimate of how many you think they can stop, let’s say 100.
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Set up 500 in incrementally increasing waves, give them a weeks notice it’s coming, then a short warning before you launch.
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When some start to make it thru, flip a switch to drop some out of the next wave
You now have an accurate number for how many drones/missiles can be shot out of the sky by Israel and the US over a range of time.
This wasn’t an “attack” it was pushing up and finding out exactly how much Israel can handle.
The implied threat being if Iran wanted to, they could overwhelm Israel’s defense, and they now know exactly how much that would take. Along with what out of a huge range of options gets thru best.
Say they launch an actual attack, they could include a bunch of dummy ordnances delivered by the payloads most likely to be shot down, and prioritize the heaviest payloads in what’s less likely to be shot down.
This was also a great leaning experience for the US and the other participants. With Ukraine’s experience against the Russian invasion, we’re seeing how drones are completely changing military strategy. Strategists all over the world are probably reviewing this “battle” to learn as much as they can to later apply it to both offensive and defensive weapons.
That’s a lot of money we’re spending because of Netanyahu’s crazed bloodlust.
Iran’s government with its tail between its legs. I hope the people of Iran one day get better leadership.
Good job on the USA and its partners in making sure there isn’t any more victims.
To those of you doing that Whataboutisms, fuck off.
How could the leadership have handled this better? Actually hitting Israel hard and escalating the war? Do nothing and set a precedent that Iranian embassies can be bombed with impunity?
Iranian leadership sucks in a lot of other ways but they played this about as well as they could. They had to ride a fine line between a response tough enough to match the aggression of Israel and save face, but not enough that the u.s. would give Israel a blank check in escalation.
I don’t know if this ventures into conspiracy theory territory or not but in real time, I thought the Iranians had essentially told the U.S. what was coming and to prepare for it because Iran wanted a show and to test Israel’s air defense systems without provoking a war.
When it happened, one of my friends was like, “Great. World War III.” And I said I didn’t think so because Iran announced that they had launched it all as they launched it all. You don’t announce, “Here come some bombs!” to the media when your goal is having them actually land.
That’s not conspiratorial thinking at all, that’s just geopolitical literacy. Your assessment is correct: Iran planned this carefully to avoid causing any major damage. This was pro wrestling.
Which honestly makes it sad to consider that Iran has become the more restrained, rational actor here. The US needs to put Netanyahu on a short leash. He is not worth this.
This was millions and millions of tax payer dollars spent for “pro wrestling”. Damn that’s sad. 😆
I suspect Netanyahu wants a Trump presidency. I don’t expect him to do Biden any favors - quite the opposite, really.
This. The “Genocide Joe” cohort doesn’t realize they are falling right into Netanyahu and Trump’s plan. I mean, at least the small number of them who aren’t propagandists in the first place.
Yet they’re funding the democrats more than the republicans.
They get everything they want with Biden and the Dems, no one has stopped them.
With Trump they get a man who cohorts with neonazis, and they may get literal WW3 or a flakey ally.
The main point to announce it was so they would get shot down. If they had reached their targets that would be a war they would lose very quickly. This way no harm was done. But now the people in charge in Iran can tell everyone in the country look how we attacked the bad people. Kind of like when north Korea talks a bunch of shit to everyone then launches a missile to no where. They can brag about it in country how they almost fucked up Japan and no one is the wiser because the only news coming in is things they ban see internally. Iranians saw the missles and drones leave their airspace then get told lies about what happened.
They did the same thing back when you guys turned Qassem “Kotlett” Soleimani into a fine paste. Announcing an air strike, notifying the target in advance and declare victory. Noone was killed in their retaliatory attack.
While the Mullahs have fucked up Iran beyond recognition, their handling of crises like this is pretty good.
