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jauntywundrkind • today at 1:12 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

This is barely telling it. It's a start.

It's extremely concerning that the US military basically lost most of it's Middle East presence, had most of it effectively destroyed. We lost massive incredibly complex installations like our AN/FPS-132 radar complexes, huge powerful gigantic phased array systems, and various state of the art AN/TPY-2 and other radar. That basically seem to have been undefended. The TPY-2 could easily have been moved or hidden! Invaluable defense systems that we have absolutely no plans to protect. This is just the tip of the very expensive iceberg. We've basically lost various bases, entire THAAD systems: all similarly targeted and virtually undefended, destroyed. https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/05/middleeast/radar-bases-us-mis...

And the "Department of War" (scoff, but I guess accurate if they are so utterly rankly incompetently unable at all to defend) lied and lied about the extent of the damage and the cost of human lives and casualties. There didn't seem to be any plan at all to protect these people. They were unequipped and not on alert, not warned at all, even as drones and missiles came and destroyed a dozen sites. Even the most milquetoast commentariat, Iraq war defender David French is still somewhat pissed about the endless bullshit and lies from the deny-it-all useless DoW. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/opinion/hegseth-iran-war-...

Department of War indeed. These incompetent losers seem to have not the smallest iota of understanding, not the least cares for what was coming at us. They had no defenses, no preparation. We faced incredible ruin. There's no plans, no idea what we do about any of this. We are in full retreat. It's unclear that we will have any presence left within thousands of miles. We can't even keep our planes in the UK, it's still not safe for us: the US military has essentially nowhere left on the continent it feels like it can leave it's equipment. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2026/0929/iran-war-mi... https://carnegieendowment.org/emissary/2026/10/iran-b1-bombe... https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/suspected-plot-at-u-s-run... https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-port-shuaiba-attack-sold...

This administration has been utterly unmoored from reality in every way. They've injured America at home and abroad, again and again, and lied and lied and lied all the time. The rank incompetence really is just the tip of it. The malicious disdain for basic rules of civilization and decency (SecDef No-Tab ordering war crime bombings of civilian vessels, perfidy, on and on). I hope there's a half-competent civilization left to mourn unhinged stupidity and malice these perpetrators against the world have done to us all so dirty. It's all such ultra-compressed stupidity. Absolutely psychotic delusional detached madness.


Replies

throwaway9876g • today at 1:32 AM

> US military has essentially nowhere left on the continent it feels like it can leave it's equipment.

You should look into how many air craft carriers the US has, how carrier groups work, and then also look at the air force and the operating range of some of our air craft.

Some of the aircraft literally take off from the Continental us when they run missions in the middle east.

Also there are somewhere between 20 and 28 US military bases in the middle east alone plus 30-40 in europe. All of those could easily host offensive strike craft just fine.

it looks like you don't have a good understanding of the capabilities of the US military or how we operate, so perhaps you should do more research.

Also, just FYI, every single one of the sources you cited has some pretty heavy bias. It might help you to seek out some alternative sources. I think you're in some kind of algorithm bubble and it's distorting your world view.

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