Tag: war

A satellite imagery company called Planet Labs has announced that it is further restricting the release of satellite images from over the war zone and delaying them for two weeks:

Due to the increasingly complex regional security environment, we are sharing an update to our data access restrictions in the Middle East. There are genuine concerns of use of Planet data over Iran, as well as an extended window of risk for recent imagery. After consulting with experts inside and outside of government, and as we continue to balance operational security needs and our transparency mission, Planet has decided to take additional, proactive measures to ensure our imagery is not tactically leveraged by adversarial actors to target allied and NATO-partner personnel and civilians.

As of today, we are making the following changes:

• Expansion of AOI: The designated Area of Interest (AOI) has been expanded to include all of Iran and nearby allied bases, in addition to the Gulf States and existing conflict zones.

• 14-Day Delay: We are extending the delay for all new imagery (PlanetScope, SkySat, Pelican, and Tanager) from 4 to 14 days before it becomes available in our commercial archive.

The idea that this imagery is being “tactically leveraged by adversarial actors” is absurd because a) it was already being restricted for 96 hours and b) Iran doesn’t rely upon Western civilian satellite imagery, it utilizes the information it is being provided by the Chinese and Russian militaries. The only purpose this serves is to prevent the public from being able to discern when one of the belligerent parties is lying.

One analyst immediately flagged the reason for what appears to be US government censorship being imposed upon Planet Labs:

This is a significant development and the timing alone makes it analytically important. Planet Labs already imposed a 96-hour satellite imagery blackout on Gulf states on Day 7. The original 96-hour blackout on Day 7 applied to Gulf states but notably excluded Iran, which drew immediate criticism from open source analysts including Patricia who flagged it as asymmetric censorship… This expanded notice now includes Iran, which addresses that asymmetry on paper. What it also does is remove the primary independent verification mechanism for damage assessment claims from both sides simultaneously.

Here is what I assess with confidence. The coalition’s strike tempo is down 76% from peak. $5.6 billion in munitions burned in two days. The Pentagon is preparing an emergency supplemental funding request. Two high-value US drones shot down on Day 8. American cruise missiles intercepted last night. A 14-day imagery blackout now covers every base, every facility, every impact site across the entire theatre.

Independent verification of what is actually happening on the ground just became significantly harder for everyone. Draw your own conclusions about whose interests that serves most at this specific moment in the conflict.

In other words, either the US-Israeli narrative is becoming increasingly false, or the Epstein Alliance is about to do something to Iran that it is desperate to hide from the world. And, of course, the answer could quite possibly be both.

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If you weren’t convinced that the Epstein Alliance is losing the war, and losing it badly, then ask yourself a) why Short Fake Trump was claiming that Iran had surrendered, b) why Israeli censorship is silencing the world media while the Iranians permit coverage, c) the USA offered a ceasefire, and d) Iran openly, publicly, and firmly rejected it on US television.

Oman has already shown signs of demanding the US withdraw from the region. Both Russia and China have made it clear that they do not regard Iran as the problem, especially given that it is doing nothing more than defending itself against the two militaries that started the war by attacked it. It will not be long before the economic crisis creates massive pressure for the USA to abandon its destroyed bases, retreat from the Middle East, and leave Israel to survive on its own, especially considering that 90 percent of the US population is already against this war.

On Saturday night, the IDF had sought to reassure Israelis that although there was a spike in Iranian ballistic missile threat sirens, sending millions of Israelis into their safe rooms and bomb shelters throughout the day, the military was making progress and had destroyed 75% of Iran’s missile launchers. Despite a 75% reduction in ballistic missile launchers, the IDF expects Iran to keep up its fire on the Jewish state for an extended period, the military said.

If you know anything at all about military history, then you know that military forces, especially air forces, always wildly overestimate their damage estimates. If they actually managed to destroy 15 percent, then they’re doing very well.

We’re also not seeing any reports about the abandonment of the 5th Fleet’s command center in Bahrain or the unknown amount of damage done to Nevatim air base in the most recent missile strikes, which are the two most significant US and Israeli bases in the Middle East.

Short-term pain, long-term gain. The media’s rhetorical drumbeat isn’t going to convince any American that it’s worth it, because it absolutely isn’t.

UPDATE: Here’s an out-of-the-box idea. Is the US making nonsensical noises about putting US boots on the ground, not because it intends to invade Iran, but because Hezbollah is planning a ground offensive against Israel? Wouldn’t that make a lot more sense in the event that Israel is in worse shape than is presently being reported?

At some point, I also expect the Turks to move into Syria in an attempt to force the Israelis out. Or perhaps they’ll use the threat of that as leverage to convince the US to withdraw its military from the Middle East.

UPDATE: Good news, France is going to take care of the problem. French President Emmanuel Macron has announced an ambitious plan to deploy two warships to the Strait of Hormuz amid increasing fears over surging oil and gas prices.

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The USA destroyed one of Iran’s desalinisation plants:

Iran’s Foreign Minister confirmed it: the US struck a freshwater desalination plant on Qeshm Island using HIMARS launched from Bahrain’s Jufair base. Thirty villages lost their water supply. His response was measured but unambiguous – “the US set this precedent, not Iran”.

Iran gets 2% of its water from desalination. It has mountains, rivers, rainfall.

Israel gets 75%. From five coastal plants that sit within range of everything Iran has been firing for eight days.

Kuwait: 90%. Saudi Arabia: 70%. Bahrain: 60%. All desert states running industrial civilisations on machines that need electricity that needs fuel that sits inside infrastructure Iran has already proven it can reach.

It’s not exactly difficult to determine what the next infrastructure sites targeted by Iran will be. And no doubt the mainstream media will be horror-stricken by the barbaric nature of the attack on the civilian population…

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Those who defended Israel, like myself, have been proven wrong. Those who warned Israel would drag us into a broader war — @scotthortonshow @ggreenwald & @aaronjmate etc. — have been proven right. That’s the reality.

Indeed.

• Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said on March 4th that the United States is winning “decisively” against Iran and it will have “complete control” over the country’s airspace in the coming days.
• World’s militaries stunned by power of Israel Air Force.
• 300 Missile Launchers Destroyed; 50 Percent of Iran’s Active Arsenal Gone. Since the start of the current operation, named “Roaring Lion,” the Israeli Air Force has destroyed 300 Iranian missile launchers and conducted over 1,600 sorties, dropping more than 4,000 bombs on Iranian targets — surpassing the entire munitions payload of Operation Rising Lion in under four days. A military official confirmed that 50 percent of Iran’s active ballistic missile launchers have been destroyed or rendered inoperable.
• Iran, which is being beat to HELL, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore.

Sounds like everything is totally under control. So why is the Epstein Alliance trying to move more ships into the region and putting pressure into forcing unwilling allies to join them? And if 300 missile launchers were destroyed in the first four days, and it’s now been eight days, how is Iran still not only launching missiles, but launching better ones?

One doesn’t need to pay any attention to the Iranian press releases to recognize that something isn’t adding up.

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An angry Arab billionaire writes an open letter to Clown World’s Short Fake Trump.

Mr. President Donald Trump,

A direct question: Who gave you the authority to drag our region into a war with Iran?

And on what basis was this dangerous decision made? Did you calculate the collateral damage before pulling the trigger? Did you consider that the first to suffer from this escalation will be the countries of the region?

The people of this region also have the right to ask: Was this your decision alone, or did it come under pressure from Netanyahu and his government?

You have placed the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Arab nations at the heart of a danger they did not choose. Thankfully, we are strong and capable of defending ourselves, and we have armies and defense systems protecting our nations.

But the question remains: Who allowed you to turn our region into a battlefield? Before the ink dried on the Board of Peace initiative that you announced in the name of peace and stability, we now find ourselves facing military escalation that threatens the entire region. So where did those initiatives go? And what is the fate of the commitments made in the name of peace? Most of the funding proposed for those initiatives came from the region itself, and from Arab Gulf states that contributed billions of dollars on the basis of supporting stability and development.

These countries have the right to ask today: Where did this money go? Are we funding peace initiatives or financing a war that puts us at risk?

More dangerously, your decision does not only threaten the peoples of the region but also the American people, whom you promised peace and prosperity. Today, they find themselves in a war financed by their taxes, with costs — according to the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) — ranging between $40–65 billion for direct military operations, and potentially reaching $210 billion including economic impacts and indirect losses if the conflict lasts four to five weeks. Even Americans themselves are being sacrificed in a war they have no stake in.

You also violated your promises not to get involved in wars and to focus only on America and place it as your top priority, as you ordered foreign military interventions during your second term that included seven countries: Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Nigeria, Syria, Iran, and Venezuela, in addition to naval operations in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. You ordered more than 658 airstrikes abroad in your first year of rule, which is equivalent to the total number of strikes during Biden’s entire term, whom you previously criticized for dragging the United States into foreign wars.

These numbers have strongly reflected on your approval ratings among Americans, which declined since the start of your second term, dropping by 9% within 400 days. These figures clearly show something: Even within the United States, there is growing concern about being dragged into a new war and about putting American lives, the economy, and the future at risk unnecessarily.

True leadership is not measured by war decisions but by wisdom, respect for others, and pushing toward peace. If these initiatives were launched in the name of peace, then we have the right today to demand full transparency and clear accountability.

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• Tehran took the heaviest bombardment yet. Again. I know I wrote that sentence yesterday too. Strikes across residential neighbourhoods, police stations, a hospital in Bushehr where footage shows newborns being evacuated. The IDF claims 113 waves across western and central Iran. 5,000 airstrikes. 1,600 sorties. Iranian state media puts the death toll at 1,045.
• The IRGC announced wave 20 of ballistic launches today. Twenty. And for the first time, incoming ballistic missiles hit the centre of Tel Aviv without sirens going off. Read that again. No sirens.
• Siren warning to impact time in Israel has been reduced from 15 minutes to 2 minutes.

I understand the rhetoric coming out of Washington and Jerusalem is impressively fearsome. But the thing is, this is a country that lost 15,000 civilians during 80 days of missile attacks during the Iran-Iraq War out of a total of 450,000 fatalities during the eight years of the war.

They didn’t surrender then, so why would they even be thinking about surrendering now? Especially when the global economy that sustains the US and Israeli war machines is a matter of weeks, and possibly just days, away from breaking down.

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That’s how much longer oil can be stored in the various storage facilities before it will become necessary to start shutting down oil wells because there is nowhere for the oil to go. And even that assumes that no further damage to the oil production and storage facilities is done by future Iranian missile attacks.

Right now, the Straight of Hormuz is effectively closed to oil traffic. Ships aren’t moving. Tankers are anchored. The oil that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE pump out of the ground every
single day has nowhere to go. So, it gets stored, pumped into massive holding tanks on land while the world waits for the straight to reopen. Those storage tanks are almost full. Maximum capacity
10 to 14 days away. The moment those tanks hit capacity, the Gulf States have only one option. Stop pumping. You cannot produce oil you have nowhere to put. Production shuts down. And the second Gulf production shuts down. The global oil supply doesn’t tighten. It collapses.

Every $10 increase in oil prices adds roughly $400 to $500 per year to the average household’s cost of
living.

I give it about one week before the American public starts demanding that Fake Trump shut down his air war for Israel, withdraw the US Navy, and effectively surrender to Iran. He doesn’t have another 100 days. He may not have another two weeks, especially given the fact that the Iranians have already forced the USS Lincoln’s carrier group to retreat with a warning shot aimed at the carrier itself.

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