As President Donald Trump warns Iran against using mines to threaten oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy’s purpose-built minesweepers are sitting stateside thousands of miles away with no plans to put them to use while the war rages on. As gas prices in the U.S. continued to skyrocket, Trump on Tuesday took to Truth Social to demand that Tehran “immediately” remove any mines placed in the vital seaway and to do so “forthwith” lest the Iranian military suffer “consequences … at a level never seen before.” That warning came after multiple news outlets reported Iran had begun mining the strait, a narrow waterway that is the only passage from the Persian Gulf into open ocean. He also threatened to use drone strikes to “permanently eliminate any boat or ship attempting to mine the Hormuz Strait” and boasted of having done so against 10 Iranian “inactive mine-laying boats” in a separate post several minutes later.
This guy is always stepping on rakes. Every decision he makes is stupid, choosing the wrong course consistently. It’s remarkable
Apropos, Bob’s a Republican, too!
I can hear this.
SMACK eugheugheugheugh
The goal is to put the US in disarray so that he can declare it’s too dangerous to have elections this November.
Not going to happen.
We held elections during the War of 1812, the Civil War and WW2.
Operation Epstein Fury isn’t shit compared to those.
Yeah, and we’ve had peaceful transfers of power up until this one fucking guy…
Unless he’s working for our enemies.
You think it’s a mistake? This was done on purpose. Trump may be stupid, but the people pulling the strings aren’t.
They’re trying to prime WW3
Just to get Supply-Side Jayzuz to show up.
That’s what happens when you assume you’re always smarter than those so-called “experts”. You just take whatever they say is a good idea, and do the opposite. Works every time.
Some context from the end of the article:
But Matthew Buckley, a former U.S. Naval aviator who spent considerable time serving in the Middle East region in the 1990s, told The Independent that the U.S. air campaign against Iran is likely executing long-held plans that would negate the need for the minesweepers by eliminating Iran’s ability to lay mines.
“When I was flying combat sorties off to Abraham Lincoln in the mid 90s, you know, we were doing operation Southern Watch no fly zone missions over Iraq. And guess what we were doing during our downtime? We were strike planning Iran … and one of my big strikes that I had planned was against an Iranian mine facility deep in the middle of Iran,” he said.
He added that the Avenger-class ships would not necessarily be readily available to clear any mines that might be laid because they’re “not built for a dynamic environment.”
“Obviously the LCS does have its issues, but it does have a lot of weapons on board, and it is more designed for actual combat and littoral … mine sweeping,” he said.
The mine sweepers in question are four decommissioned wood and fiberglass vessels from the Desert Storm era whose capabilities are being replaced by littoral (giggity) combat ships.
It’s hard for me to believe that this operation wouldn’t include priority strikes on sea mine facilities. Just the specter of mines in the strait is enough to make shipping insurance infeasible. If Iran is successfully mining, what happened? Was this war so hastily planned that this was overlooked? If the strait is so vital to shipping, you’d think they would want every minesweeper available.
If the US military (who are acutely aware of Trump’s openly hostile disrespect towards service members by the way) are actually listening to Trump’s logistical advice, he’s going to run them into the ground faster than his Vegas casinos.
Yeah, this seems like kind of a nothingburger. I get the desire to hit Trump on everything and anything, but you generally don’t put minesweepers in the middle of active combat zones.
I’m also pretty confident that the rumours about Iran deploying mines aren’t even true, because if they are then their recent offer to allow safe passage doesn’t make any sense.
Also, gotta love the LCS catching strays here. Canada has plenty of issues with ship-building, mostly thanks to our sourcing all the work to a monopoly corp that couldn’t give two shits, and even we look competent compared to the US navy’s steadily growing graveyard of failed projects.
It’s another pump-and-dump.
My bad.
Trump-and-dump.
Due to AIDS
You guys don’t understand, he’s playing chess /s
He should have played Minesweeper.
And he has all the cards. The best cards.
deleted by creator
This wasn’t a mistake, this was done on purpose.
Just like disbanding the anti-terror counterintel group right before bombing a school for little girls.
Yeah after reading this I’m honestly wondering how much oil futures he has invested in. Like, what can the Federal Trade Commission do if the President buys oil commodities then starts a war to drive the price up in order to make a billion dollars?
Because of course they are
Haha, Philly might be the one place on Earth that is more hostile to Trump than Iran…
I guess this was done to drop the sanctions on the oil his buddy vlad owns. Krasnov is a good tool for vlad. Cha-ching!!
Ship shipping ship shipping ships.
Oh I’m sure he’s going to permanently eliminate any boat or ship attempting to mine the Hormuz Strait.
Of course, people who aren’t as old as the sun realize that drones can carry mines, so this threat is worth less than the paper it would take to print it out.
I think a sea mine is a bit big for a drone
Trump playing Quantum Multidimensional Parcheesi.
