US/Iran flirting with quagmire thred.

[LoooSeR]

   Yuri Lyamin linked to that - a map showing routes of 12 tracked Iranian tankers 

 

and

[Jägerlein]

MARAD claims that Iran was fucking around with GPS and false radio contacts:

 

Spoiler

Since May 2019, the following maritime incidents have occurred in this region:

- Six attacks against commercial vessels (see U.S. Maritime Alerts 2019-002A and 2019-003A);

- Shoot-down of U.S. Navy remotely piloted aircraft over international waters;

- Attempted at-sea interdiction of Isle of Man-flagged M/V BRITISH HERITAGE;

- Seizure of ex-Panama-flagged M/V RIAH;

- Seizure of U.K.-flagged M/V STENA IMPERO (see U.S. Maritime Alert 2019-004A); and

- Detention and subsequent release of Liberian-flagged M/V MESDAR (see U.S. Maritime Alert 2019-004A).

In at least two of these incidents, vessels reported GPS interference. One vessel reportedly shut off its Automatic Identification System (AIS) before it was seized, complicating response efforts. Vessels have also reported spoofed bridge-to-bridge communications from unknown entities falsely claiming to be U.S. or coalition warships.

The United States is committed to safeguarding freedom of navigation, the free flow of commerce, and the protection of U.S. vessels and personnel in this region.

source: https://www.maritime.dot.gov/content/2019-012-persian-gulf-strait-hormuz-gulf-oman-arabian-sea-red-sea-threats-commercial-vessels

[LoooSeR]

   Ukrainian expert Oleg Ponomar about recent events.

 

Quote

   Trump, Iran and Putin's shadow

   Trump has no right to start a war with Iran without the approval of Congress. But when Trump needs to divert America's attention from impeachment and raise a little rating, then he did not care about the Law.

 

   Now to the point.
Of course, the United States destroyed the top Iranian terrorist (but another will take its place).
Of course, with current intelligence and military technology, the United States can destroy almost anyone and choose the time for this.
And, of course, this is a PR action.

But ordinary people^tm are ecstatic and trampists all over the world are ecstatic (and Ukrainian too).
But no one thinks about the whole picture.

 

   Obama had a desire, a goal and a plan - to punish Russia for an aggressive foreign policy and deprive her of funds for an aggressive foreign policy and attempts to restore (informally) the USSR. What is the main source of money for Russia and Putin? That's right - oil. Obama agreed with the Saudis to increase production and not to complete the OPEC deal. Obama made a nuclear deal with Iran and lifted sanctions - Iranian oil flowed to the market and the price fell to $ 30 per barrel from 115. Russia lost money and was forced to eat the Reserve Fund (completely) and wait (and work on it) for Trump.
/.../
   The deal worked perfectly.

   Then Trump came, broke the deal, removed Iranian oil from the market. The price of oil has doubled; the "fat years" have begun again for Russia. Those. Trump for Russia has given hundreds of billions of dollars that Russia spends on hybrid wars. With this money, Russia destroys Ukraine and Ukrainians.

 

   But trampists don’t think so hard, right? They are ecstatic - Trump destroyed the terrorist, how cool he is! Not that Obama (in which Russia sat quietly and clattered her teeth).
   Trumpists want spectacles - a war with Iran.

Full REEEEE mode, lol.

 

Anyway, Russian position could be "let them fight" and if Saudis will get schwacked in the process - collect even more profit from increased oil prices. And destroy Ukraine later.

[Beer]

Yesterday Iraqi parlament voted on a bill to remove all foreign troops from Iraq and close the airspace. Trump already started to treaten Iraq with sanctions over that. Will US try to hold the small and thinly spread forces in Iraq and Syria? I don't think it's actually feasible if Shiites start attacking them en masse unless US brings let's say 100 thousand more troops in Iraq, i.e. occupy it again. On the other hand if US pulls the troops out of Iraq Soleimani ultimately achieved his main goal in his death, so... 

 

Meanwhile Qatari foreign minister was in Tehran. 

 

Also meanwhile Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi said that Soleimani came to Baghdad carrying a letter from Iran to Saudi Arabia which was an answer to Saudi letter delivered previously through Iraq working as a mediator in the process of Saudi-Iranian deescalation. 

 

What seems to be sure (at least I think so) is that no ballistic missiles will start falling on Al Udeid, King Fahd, Muwaffaq or Ahmad al Jaber airbases. Soleimani would never act like that hence why I expect IRGC will continue his strategy to outmaneuvre US and Saudi with proxies. 

 

Now we have to wait for the actual funeral of Soleimani to be over. For sure Iran won't do anything before it. 

 

 

 

 

[Donward]

Yeah. The vote in the Iraqi Parliament was boycotted by the Kurds and Sunnis and is entirely symbolic.

Meanwhile the Trump Administration has informed them they are on the hook financially for all of our military infrastructure improvements should there ever be a day we are “expelled” which is unlikely.

It needs emphasizing. Again. This is not the Obama (or Dubya) Administration.

[Beer]

US just informed Iraq that it's going to leave the country. 

 

Quote

In order to conduct this task, Coalition Forces are required to take certain measures to ensure that the movement out of Iraq is conducted in a safe and efficient manner. 

[LoooSeR]

   From Yuri Lyamin's LJ post.

Quote

   In my opinion, nothing like this happened in Iran since the burial of Imam Khomeini in 1989, although it is possible that the mass mourning of Suleymani has already surpassed that level. Judging by the frames and videos that come from Iran, in my memory, not a single mourning ceremony for other senior military and religious persons, other demonstrations, etc. in Iran can’t compare with what is happening these days. The streets of different cities of Iran are simply crowded with millions of people who say goodbye to the national hero and demand retaliation.

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Beer]

It's circus... 

 

[Donward]

Welp. I was wrong.

 

Trump is calling the Shiite’s bluff.

 

What a world!

 

Edit: Bamboozled!

[Donward]

Another lesson not to automatically believe “scoops” from corporate media.

Don... you should know better.

[Beer]

It's no mistake of the media. The US actually delivered this "draft" letter to Iraqi government. The leak came from Iraq and US representatives confirmed the story. They are either bunch of clowns or somebody did it in purpose. 

 

https://mobile.twitter.com/LizSly/status/1214297805659017222

[Sturgeon]

TLDR Russia and Iran mad lol.

[GMerlon]

5 hours ago, Beer said:

It's no mistake of the media. The US actually delivered this "draft" letter to Iraqi government. The leak came from Iraq and US representatives confirmed the story. They are either bunch of clowns or somebody did it in purpose. 

 

https://mobile.twitter.com/LizSly/status/1214297805659017222

 

And the official response to why it is exists.

 

While perhaps not the finest moment of American military history, in some respects, it's not that surprising that something like this happened. There's a lot of moving parts in organizations like this, and especially with an unsigned draft, that means almost nothing. When I was a lower enlisted man in the army, I made drafts for several majors and a full-bird colonel. Mind you, I wasn't in communications or a secretorial position at all. It was just something that happened out of displaying competence within my unit. A lot of times it was for contingency situations or rather dry items ("Permission to extend sick leave, the new SHARP trainer is", etc). Later on, if they liked or approved it for distribution, then it would get signed, become official, and finally circulated outside. 

 

My educated guess is that someone probably swapped it up accidentally with a different memo regarding air transport for something actually going on right now. Or alternatively, someone was trying to give someone else an unofficial heads-up of what might be in the works or how something might look.

Edited January 7, 2020 by GMerlon
clarified language ambiguity

[Beer]

 

Meanwhile Putin and Shoygu were in Damascus for a quick visit to Assad and Ayyoub (in fact they met in Russian military HQ) and now are landing in Istanbul. 

[LoooSeR]

   Amount of people arrived to Kerman is really huge.

https://imp-navigator.livejournal.com/890118.html

Quote

/.../

   The body of the commander of the IRGC, Qassem Suleymani, was brought to his native Kerman for burial. However, the local authorities did not seem to calculate how massive the influx of people who came to say goodbye to the general from other regions of the country would be. From all over Iran, according to some estimates, about 1-2 million people came to the city with a population of about 700 thousand.

   Judging by the footage, the city streets are really crowded there, many thousands of people even occupied unfinished buildings and the slopes of the surrounding mountains. Unfortunately, there was a big stampede, 40 people died according to the latest official data and 213 were injured. The burial itself has so far been temporarily delayed in order to prevent new similar incidents.

 

 

[GMerlon]

5 hours ago, Beer said:

 

 

I wasn't able to find anything that directly said that the US government acknowledged sending a signed copy of the letter. Do you have a source for that? The Iraqi prime minister states that he did receive one though, but I haven't seen any images of it online anywhere. This isn't too necessarily say that it didn't necessarily happen, but the original revealers of the letter and the Iraqi PM both have political motive for wanting such a thing exposed.

 

Perhaps more pressing now, Iran has apparently launched missiles at US troops.

[Ramlaen]

 

 

[Ramlaen]

 

[Beer]

It looks like it was more or less a demonstration strike (i was wrong saying no missiles will fly) but the satelite images of some impacts show it was actually a precise one.

 

Iraq says they were notified beforehand and it's likely Iraq warned US, i.e. it could have happened the same way as Trump's strike on Syria months a go, i.e. a demonstration of capability and determination with minimal actual damage. Let's see if it ends with that. 

 

What is interesting is US saying they have no AA assets in Iraq. 

 

[Beer]

17 hours ago, GMerlon said:

 

I wasn't able to find anything that directly said that the US government acknowledged sending a signed copy of the letter. Do you have a source for that? The Iraqi prime minister states that he did receive one though, but I haven't seen any images of it online anywhere. This isn't too necessarily say that it didn't necessarily happen, but the original revealers of the letter and the Iraqi PM both have political motive for wanting such a thing exposed.

 

The source was the twitter post. The guy saying that works for Washington Post. 

[Donward]

29 minutes ago, Beer said:

It looks like it was more or less a demonstration strike (i was wrong saying no missiles will fly) but the satelite images of some impacts show it was actually a precise one.

 

Iraq says they were notified beforehand and it's likely Iraq warned US, i.e. it could have happened the same way as Trump's strike on Syria months a go, i.e. a demonstration of capability and determination with minimal actual damage. Let's see if it ends with that. 

 

What is interesting is US saying they have no AA assets in Iraq. 

 

qUiTe pRecIsE!!!

[Beer]

This should be Qiam-1 booster stage.

 

.Very interesting video of the BM descent and hit.

 

[heretic88]

Syrian girl's video about the iranian retaliation. She is completely right. Plus some footage about the missile impacts.

 

 

[Donward]

World War 3 has been called off kiddies.

 

The Corporate media has already moved on to Prince Harry and his baby mama getting booted to Canada.

[Beer]

Full flight track with ADB-S obviously being switched off for some time. 

https://www.radarbox24.com/data/flights/BNDGE53