by liberal japonicus
I’m interested in the whole possible terrorism attack against the RAF base at Fairford, and the US bug-out (it seems to be something of a specialty for the US). Here’s the Guardian and the details, as I understand them, there were 5 men in three vans who were stopped near the base, who were taken into custody in an apparent planned event targeting the US presence at the base. It later emerged that one of the people in the group was the person who called the police, and all 5 men were released. Another man, a dual Iranian-British national, was arrested on terrorism charges and then released on bail. The article reports a 7th man was arrested, but like the 6th man, they were arrested on standard charges rather than section 41, which would deny them bail. But despite this, the US took their assets out, and the Time article links to this on the haste. The NYTimes reported that the planes took off before they had refueling planes scrambled. (Behind a paywall, use https://www.removepaywall.com with option 2 or 3)
The need to move the bombers out of the base, R.A.F. Fairford, was deemed so urgent that some of the planes and their flight crews left while aerial refueling aircraft were still being scrambled to support their flights to the United States.
At least they didn’t have to push them off the side of a carrier…
Anyway, I feel a possible explanation that hasn’t been mentioned is that armed forces in general and the air force in particular is panicking. I was, for some reason, reading about the aftermath of battle at Remagen, specifically this.
Is it just me, or does the timing of Hegseth’s ‘weirdos and beardos’ speech tell us something?
Well, the US military in general has to be on pins and needles, what with President Hamlet undecided on how/when/if to rain down hell like no one has ever seen before on Iran while waiting for the asymmetric warfare shoe to drop on them. Trump is likely pissed at the UK anyway for failing to have his back on his stupid war, pulling the planes as a diss.
No doubt Hegseth’s rant was planned well ahead of time. He must be proud of that weirdos and beardos sick burn.
Yeah, that is probably true, but I wonder how much of Hegseth’s speeches are written out. Can you imagine if a staff officer had to write that shit? He’d be walking down the halls of the pentagon trying to find words that rhyme with ‘trannie’.
I’m inclined to think that Kegbreath’s
handleragentwife is the one writing all of that for him.I think it comes down to this: Trump is an enormous coward, as well as a bully. As, I think, is Hegseth (although perhaps not as utterly).
They only start fights which they think they can win effortlessly. See Venezuela and Iran. And if it turns out that they were wrong, cf Iran, all they can do is double down — because, like most bullies, they are terrified of appearing weak. Which is how they see cutting their losses.
On the other hand, if someone else got the US into a conflict (see Afghanistan), or even a position of risk like at the RAF base, they have no problem cutting and running. Just as long as they can blame someone else for getting us into the position of risk. And they will cut and run, lest they find themselves involved in a conflict that they didn’t start, and which might be high risk.
Given that it’s an air force, I’m less inclined to characterize it as a “bug-out” and more a temporary redeployment of resources. That’s probably reflective of the fact that I interpret bug-out as a permanent thing — we’re not coming back. From an RAF base, shifting to the East Coast is pretty easy, since it doesn’t require getting, say, Germany to go along. Six-eight hours to deploy from the East Coast back to RAF bases?
The US has shifted air resources out of air bases close to the Persian Gulf because of the damage Iran could (and did) inflict on them. Was that a bug-out?
OTOH, it could be an excuse for Trump/Hegseth/Rubio to take another step in plan to get the US out of everywhere but the Western Hemisphere.
The departure of the bombers is being portrayed in the right-wing media here as some sort of a problem for the UK, which is absurd. If Trump prefers not to use UK bases to bomb Iran, that’s AOK with me.
What the real story is about the men in vans, I have no idea.
Thanks for the comments. I like term bug-out cause it certainly wasn’t a considered decision, imagine telling the crew they will work out their refueling when they get to the East Coast.
I’m just a tired lefty but I see nothing but the signs of panic and confusion.
Slightly related, the NYTimes Opinion podcast has David French with another former military person.
https://youtu.be/SZpKu0rPWis?si=syxeWTryMEGwFIbP
The penny dropped for me when French said that he was a JAG who served in the Middle East. The way he and his guest kind of shrug and say ‘well, they ordered us to do X, so I guess that’s it’ helps me understand French’s opinions a lot more.
I have no idea what the guys in the van were up to. The vibe I get from our response – pulling the bombers out – is more or less “holy sh*t, you telling me the Iranians are gonna fight back?!?!”.
Who’d a thunk it? Apparently not our man at the Dept of War, or his boss. It’s of a piece with the whole “Holy sh*t, they closed the strait?!?!”
Just total dumb-asses.
The Church of Spraytan are, as the kids these days are saying, LARPing their way through this shit.
Calling Trump, Hegseth, et al. “dumb-asses” is an unconscionable slur of those who are simply dumb-asses, without being malevolent scum.