Disaster: Operation "Stone Age" Begins to Backfire
A mere day after Trump promised to send Iran back to the “stone ages”, the US had its most disastrous 24-hours of its airwar against Iran thus far.
The most prominent of the running tally are the F-15 and A-10 confirmed to have been shot down after being hit in the air by Iranian air defense. But apart from those, a number of other craft were reportedly hit on the ground:
One OSINT account’s breakdown:
There have been several incidents involving U.S. aircraft in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of operation (AO) within the last 24 hours:
1. A U.S. Air Force F-15E "Strike Eagle" was hit by Iranian fire and crashed in Iran. Both crew members survived, with 1 being rescued, and a large combat search and rescue operation is ongoing for the 2nd.
2. A U.S. Air Force HH-60W "Jolly Green II" conducting operations to rescue the downed F-15 crew took small-arms fire with at least 1 crew member injured, but it continued back to base.
3. The pilot of a U.S. Air Force A-10C "Thunderbolt II" ejected over the Persian Gulf, with Iran claiming responsibility for shooting it down. The pilot was recovered safely.
4. A U.S. Air Force F-16C "Fighting Falcon" briefly showed on flight tracking sites squawking 7700 (emergency) over Iraq.
5. A U.S. Air Force KC-135 "Stratotanker" was squawking 7700 (emergency) over Israel.
The F-16 was said to have squawked an emergency code but likely returned to base.
Many of the hits happened during rescue operations when US evac teams were trying to locate the ejected pilots over Khuzestan province in western Iran. One pilot was reportedly recovered, with the whereabouts of the second unknown.
During the ongoing disaster, Trump continued to aloofly spew threats against Iranian civilian infrastructure:
What made developments even more interesting is the fact that against the backdrop of a failing military campaign, Hegseth carried out a purge of the US military’s upper echelons. It led to the natural rumors and conclusions that some kind of behind-the-scenes mutiny was ongoing regarding Trump’s disastrous plans for ground operations in Iran—though some of those below were purged weeks ago:
Granted, this is only speculation, with the Pentagon releasing a more ‘ordinary’ list of justifications for the purge—but the timing is clearly too suspicious for this to be believable.
This came amidst rumors that Trump had been pushing for an almost comical-sounding ground operation into Iran, wherein excavator equipment would be airdropped and runways built inside Iranian territory in order to sustain a force capable of exfiltrating Iran’s uranium.
The U.S. military has given the president a plan to seize nearly 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium in Iran that would involve flying in excavation equipment and building a runway for cargo planes to take the radioactive material out, according to two people familiar with the matter.
It is beyond ludicrous, it is borderline madness—and thus quite plausible that major disagreements in the Pentagon were the cause of the ongoing purges.
On top of this, the Intercept has reported that a major casualty coverup is underway with the real number of US casualties being much higher than reported:
It has also been announced that US’s 5th Fleet HQ in Bahrain has been evacuated—or perhaps, abandoned:
𝗨.𝗦. 𝗡𝗮𝘃𝘆 𝗘𝘃𝗮𝗰𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝟱𝘁𝗵 𝗡𝗮𝘃𝘆 𝗛𝗤 𝗶𝗻 𝗕𝗮𝗵𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻
The Pentagon has confirmed 1,500 sailors, families, and pets have been relocated from Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain to Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia.
NSA Bahrain is (was) the headquarters of the U.S. 5th Fleet. It was struck multiple times on 28 February, the opening day of Operation Epic Fury, and several times afterwards.
Satellite imagery confirmed at least seven structures destroyed in the first week alone, including communications infrastructure and warehouses. Sailors are arriving in Norfolk with what fit in a backpack. Community groups were called in to provide basic toiletries.
The base housed ~8,000 personnel before the war, and 1,500 were evacuated now. But lost in the details is the fact that the base had already been reduced to “mission-critical staffing” after the first hits by Iranian drones. As such, they aren’t telling us if the base is completely empty, and has essentially been abandoned—but whatever the final accounting, it is still an unprecedented development that an adversary was able to nullify one of the Empire’s most critical headquarters to such a degree.
Recall my recent tracking of the US’s official figures for the claimed destruction of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities. First it was 100% as per Trump, then 90%, 80%, 70%—and now we’re down to only “roughly half” being destroyed, as per CNN:
Roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers are still intact and thousands of one-way attack drones remain in Iran’s arsenal despite the daily pounding by US and Israeli strikes against military targets over the past five weeks, according to recent US intelligence assessments, three sources familiar with the intel told CNN.
“They are still very much poised to wreak absolute havoc throughout the entire region,” one of the sources said of Iran.
Thousands of Iranian drones still exist — roughly 50% of the country’s drone capabilities — two of the sources said the intelligence indicated. The intelligence, compiled in recent days, also showed a large percentage of Iran’s coastal defense cruise missiles were intact, the sources said, consistent with the US not focusing its air campaign on coastal military assets though they have been hitting ships. Those missiles serve as a key capability allowing Iran to threaten shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
Again, we can see our analysis here being proven correct: Iran is not being attritioned even remotely as drastically as claimed. The real number of attrition to its missile systems is likely below 10% as the US is hitting very few real assets, and Iran has done well in salting them away to “weather the storm” of the US’s well-known brief ‘spurt of rage’ until munitions and magazines are depleted.
Some, by the way, predicted weeks ago that as US munition counts begin to drop, Iran would see increased success in shooting down American aerial assets:
This is a logical assumption based on the fact that, as “safer” long-range standoff weaponry depletes, US would have to take greater and greater risks in lobbing shorter-range munitions directly over Iranian territory. It appears this is what we may be seeing now.
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Two final items of note:
Lindsey Graham demonstrates the criminal intent and streak of utter sadism now present in the current administration:
“We’re going to blow your stuff up that allows you to function as a nation.”
Recall those idyllic early days of the war, when the US was still professing it was coming to “liberate” Iranians from their “brutal oppressive regime”? What ever happened to that?
“Sorry, guys. We couldn’t liberate you, so Plan B is we’re sending you back to the Stone Age.”
Dark, cynical, and warped at once.
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And to end on a laugh, here’s CNN telling their smooth-brained audience that the shot-down US pilot may have been hailed as a hero and liberator by “happy” local Iranians who, apparently, would be eager to thank the pilot for bombing them:
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Well you're not going to like how big Iran was during the stone age.
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