Ukraine & Russia v Putin

First it was the Wagner Group, now it's a less concentrated, but more widespread threat to mutiny.

The First Casualty Of War

What we've spent on the operations being conducted against Iran is separate from the damage Iran has rained down on "the best, most unbeatable gosh darned military ever."

And that cost is estimated to be anywhere between $200B to well over a trillion if we factor in the broader economic damage.

Oh yeah - almost forgot - Trump has told us again that it's over and we've won - which makes it somewhere between 12 and 40 times now.

And also too: US Casualties are minimum 16 dead and 543 wounded.

How Iran Devastated an American Naval Base—and Caused a U.S. Recalculation

Satellite imagery reveals for the first time the extent of what Iran destroyed at Naval Support Activity Bahrain

When the Iranian missiles and drones came for the nerve center of America’s naval operations in the Middle East, some of them hit their mark.

The U.S. Navy base in Bahrain was repeatedly targeted between late February and June. Strikes that got through caused extensive damage, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of satellite imagery, social-media footage and interviews with current and former servicemembers—damage that the Pentagon hasn’t publicly acknowledged. Hit hard were the command headquarters and at least a dozen other buildings, along with two satellite communications terminals.

The military said no one was killed at the base, known as Naval Support Activity Bahrain, and that the strikes didn’t significantly impact operations. The U.S. evacuated most personnel but has kept a small staff on the ground.

Over the course of the war, “Centcom rightfully prioritized the protection of people over buildings, and our strategy of protecting people worked. Iran shot more than 8,000 missiles and drones and only two hits resulted in U.S. fatalities,” said Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East. Hawkins also said the U.S. military inflicted far more damage to Iran than it received, with the U.S. striking more than 13,500 targets.

The extensive damage done to America’s sole naval base in the Middle East—along with hits to at least 20 U.S. sites across the region, including military installations and diplomatic facilities—has the U.S. re-evaluating its entire footprint in the region, according to U.S. officials familiar with the deliberations.

Damaged sites include warehouses, a water tank, two satellite communications terminals and a communications management facility, and the headquarters building for the U.S. Navy in the Middle East.

The military is now considering revamping the base in Bahrain, reducing the U.S. presence in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and moving some bases or base functions west, farther from the reach of Iranian missiles and drones, according to the officials familiar with the deliberations.

Structures that were attacked may not be rebuilt. Command and control nodes could be moved underground. And military capabilities could become more spread out across the region, the officials said, though they cautioned that no decisions had been made.

Israel is one of the locations being considered for basing, according to two of the officials. The country hosted dozens of U.S. aircraft, including jet fighters and refueling planes, during the war.

The U.S. government pressed commercial satellite imagery providers in April to restrict access to images showing destruction at American bases as well as the broader conflict zone, making it difficult to see the full scope of the damage. Officials said the move would help protect U.S. forces.

Pentagon officials have frustrated lawmakers by declining to discuss the cost of the U.S. damage with Congress. In response to a request for comment, the Pentagon pointed to remarks made by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Capitol Hill.

Pressed for an estimate at a May congressional hearing, Hegseth replied: “What is the cost of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon?”

Pentagon comptroller Jay Hurst told Congress last month that the department’s estimated cost of the war, then at $29 billion, didn’t include damage to U.S. bases.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated in a report published Tuesday that the total cost of the war was about $40 billion. That estimate included their calculus of $2.2 billion to $5.1 billion in damage to U.S. bases, based on structures that CSIS identified as damaged.

The Journal used satellite images and social-media footage to identify which buildings on the Bahrain base were damaged. To estimate what it would cost to construct buildings of the same types today, the Journal reviewed a publicly available Defense Department cost model as well as procurement reports. The estimates only cover construction, and don’t include other costs that ​could factor into the total if the buildings were to be rebuilt, such as debris removal and reinforcement. ​

The estimated construction costs at NSA Bahrain totaled about $400 million.

What Iran hit at NSA Bahrain

Less than 150 miles from Iran’s southern coast, NSA Bahrain has been the anchor of American naval power in the Middle East for more than three decades. The base can host every type of ship in the U.S. fleet, and has played a critical role in countering Iranian weapon smuggling, minelaying and tanker attacks.

The base is divided into three sections: a waterfront area focused on ship operations; next to it, the main base, home to administrative and command buildings; and a Navy-leased warehouse and annex complex. Iran hit all three.

Iran damaged part of the headquarters for the Navy's Fifth Fleet, which covers the Middle East. The building is no longer usable, according to a U.S. official.

About 300 feet northwest, the Naval Security Forces training building was destroyed. The NSF provides security for the base and routinely conducts emergency preparedness drills.

Less than a quarter-mile east, the base’s emergency management warehouse, which houses ambulances, sustained damage.

In the waterfront area, a potable water tank and adjacent warehouse were damaged.

Less than 300 feet southeast, the main dining hall and a barracks that can house roughly 450 personnel sustained damage.

On the far side of the base lies an annex the Navy leases from a Bahraini company called the Banz Group. Three sections of a warehouse group in that area took some of the heaviest damage.

Task Force 59, the Navy’s first drone and artificial intelligence unit, historically housed drones in one bay of the complex. Established in 2021, Task Force 59 has been charged with using unmanned drones and AI systems to monitor key Middle East waterways.

In the full accounting of damages, building construction may be the smaller part of the cost, depending on what was inside, said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at CSIS who co-wrote the think tank’s costs report.

Two AN/GSC-52B satellite communications terminals were destroyed in the opening hours of Iran’s retaliatory strikes, along with a communications management facility. The terminals, which enable near real-time military communication, cost about $20 million each, according to CSIS.

Throughout the base, the damages “exposed weakness and vulnerabilities across the board,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, co-chair of the National Commission on the Future of the Navy, a bipartisan panel created by Congress, and co-author of an April analysis by the American Enterprise Institute on damage to U.S. bases.

NSA Bahrain was built long before Iran possessed the arsenal of precision missiles and drones it has today, and the war revealed its vulnerabilities.

“We’ve been there for more than 50 years, and the base grew up the way the base grew up,” said retired Vice Adm. John “Fozzie” Miller, who commanded U.S. naval forces in the Middle East. “I think there are some things we would do differently.”

As the only U.S. posting in the Middle East where families could live, the base functioned like a small American city, with a softball field, restaurants, a naval exchange and a school. Sailors who spent weeks at sea would pull into Bahrain and head to the base to decompress.

“When I was there last time, they were having a dance party,” said Cancian, who was based at NSA Bahrain twice.

Now, retired Navy Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan, who commanded U.S. naval forces in the Middle East, said he expects the U.S. to keep a presence in Bahrain, which is considered a strong ally. “We keep a Fifth Fleet headquarters there, and the question is probably not does that go away, but what does it look like when this is over?” he said.

This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with the King of Bahrain and other leaders in the Middle East to reaffirm the U.S.’s commitment to their security.

“We stand united on regional stability, a free and open Strait of Hormuz, and preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” Rubio said on social media. “Iran’s attacks on Bahrain were unacceptable, and the United States stands with the people and government of Bahrain.”

Rubio also stopped in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait but skipped Saudi Arabia, which restricted U.S. base and airspace access during the war, deepening a rift that has accelerated Washington’s reassessment of its posture there. Gulf partners have welcomed the ceasefire but remain anxious about Iran’s long-term threat and the durability of American commitments.

Before the war, some military officials warned that bases in the Gulf were exposed. A proposal to move installations farther west was floated in Trump’s first term but never acted on.

“We defended our installations admirably, but the munitions that got through hit infrastructure required for us to conduct operations,” said Dr. Ravi Chaudhary, a former assistant secretary of the Air Force. “This is the byproduct of 10 years of Iran adapting its strike technologies for greater range and accuracy.”

The decisions the U.S. makes now—what to reconstruct, what to abandon, how far to pull back—will define its presence in the Middle East for a generation.

The War Comes Home To Moscow

What If

... we had leadership like this again?

Eisenhower jotted this down some time shortly after the first waves had either started across the English Channel, or disembarked into the landing craft, a mile or so off the coast of Normandy.

The fact that he put the wrong date at the end of the thing is believed to be a hint at how worried he was - anxious about possibly sending 150,000 troops into a death trap.

Can you imagine Donald Trump even thinking such thoughts? Taking full responsibility for something as enormous as the invasion of Europe? And writing it down?

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold, and I have withdrawn the troops.

My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available.

The troops, the air, and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.

More War & Higher Prices

As per usual, Trump struts around calling himself a hero for "stopping the war in the Congo", while he's busily ramping up the US military to fight it.

- and in the meantime, our anti-war POTUS is making everybody's lives worse with his stupid fucking "ideas" on trade, economics, and foreign policy -

Today's Belle

You fight a war in order to change the landscape - to make things more conducive to furthering your policy objectives.

Trump has handed Iran the perfect means to raise their stature on the world stage, prove their potential to exert influence, and show us all that as long as we're dependent on the largesse of the Dirty Fuels Cartel, we will never be free from the grip of whoever chooses to be the biggest asshole.

We've been watching Iran beat Trump like a rug at spring cleaning, and his biggest failure may be that he's got a fair bunch of people in the world thinking that Iran has somehow become the good guys.

NO MATTER WHAT,

NOTHING'S GOING TO

MAKE ME FORGET

ABOUT THE EPSTEIN FILES.

Our #EpsteinPOTUS

The prick in the White House is teasing this shit like it's the next episode of some totally fucked up reality TV show. And he knows his ratings are in the dumper, so all he can think of is to pimp the drama.

So fucking sick of that fucking fuck.

Burn down the #EpsteinPOTUS

#A25

A TweeXt

We're losing.

LMAO who made this no lies detected 😭😂🤣 pic.twitter.com/5OiW8Hm6IM

— Furkan Gözükara (@FurkanGozukara) April 6, 2026

Rich Man's War

... poor man's fight.

Let the Epstein Class fight the Epstein War.

Robert Arnold

We pay for the war in lots of different ways.

Today's Belle

China sees an opportunity to fill the void being created by Trump's latest grandiose fuck up.

Stepping On Our Dicks

Sure glad our greatly awesome and amazingly tremendous president had the foresight to kill all the incentives and subsidies for wind and solar so our precious Dirty Fuels Cartel can stay profitable while the rest of us nobly fight to the death over for the last package of low carb tortillas.

I don't remember oil selling at $3 a barrel when I was in my 20s.

Consider my gast thoroughly flabbered.

On 3 Porcupines

• The invader has to overwhelm and dominate. The defender need only survive.
• The invader loses by not winning completely. The defender wins by not losing.

Asymmetric warfare (or asymmetric engagement) is a type of war between belligerents whose relative military power, strategy or tactics differ significantly. This type of warfare often involves insurgents, terrorist groups, or resistance militias operating within territory mostly controlled by the superior force.

Trump's War

When you start a fight by kicking a hornet's nest, the deciding vote on when the fight is over belongs to the hornets.

(search: us military bases hit in middle east)

As of late March 2026, Iranian missile and drone strikes have severely damaged multiple U.S. military bases across the Middle East, rendering 13 locations "all but uninhabitable". Major, confirmed strikes occurred in Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, forcing personnel to relocate to temporary sites. 

Key Details of Strikes (March 2026):

• Destruction Level: Reports indicate nearly 13 bases have been heavily impacted, with satellite imagery showing massive craters and destroyed buildings at several locations.

Impacted Bases:

• Kuwait: Port Shuaiba (destroyed tactical center), Ali Al Salem Air Base, and Camp Buehring suffered significant damage, with India Today reporting six U.S. service members killed at Port Shuaiba.

• Qatar: Al Udeid Air Base (largest in the region) had critical early-warning radar systems damaged.

• Bahrain: BBC reports the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet headquarters saw a drone strike damage communication radomes.

• Saudi Arabia: Prince Sultan Air Base sustained damage to aircraft-related facilities and equipment.

• Jordan: A critical BBC reports the AN/TPY-2 radar system was targeted.

Operational Impact:

The strikes, estimated at $800 million in damage, have forced a shift to "remote" operations, with personnel relocating to hotels and non-traditional facilities. 

These attacks are part of a direct, intense retaliation from Iran following U.S.-Israeli strikes in late February 2026

Iranian strikes on bases used by US caused $800m in damage, new analysis shows
7 days ago

Iranian strikes on military bases used by the US in the Middle East caused about $800m (£600m) in damage in the first two weeks of the war, a new analysis shows.

Much of the damage was caused in initial retaliatory strikes by Iran in the week after the US and Israel launched the war, according to a report by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) and an analysis by the BBC.

The full extent of the damage caused by Iranian strikes on US assets in the region is not clear.

But the $800m in estimated damage to US military infrastructure - a figure that's higher than has been previously reported - offers a picture of the steep costs to the US as the conflict drags on.

"The damage to US bases in the region has been underreported," said Mark Cancian, a CSIS senior adviser and co-author of the think tank study. "Although that appears to be extensive, the full amount won't be known until more information is available."

In response to a request for comment, the US Department of Defense referred the BBC to US Central Command, which is leading the war. Officials there declined to comment.

Iran's retaliatory strikes targeted US air-defence and satellite-communication systems, among other assets, in Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and other countries across the Middle East.

A significant portion of damage was caused by a strike on a US radar for a Thaad missile defence system at an air base in Jordan.

The AN/TPY-2 radar system costs approximately $485m according to a CSIS review of defence department budget documents. The air-defence systems are used for the long-range interception of ballistic missiles.

Strikes by Iran caused an additional $310m in estimated damage to buildings, facilities and other infrastructure on US bases and military bases used by American forces in the region.

Iran also has struck at least three air bases more than once, according to an analysis of satellite imagery by BBC Verify. The repeat strikes underscore Iran's efforts to target specific US assets. Russia has reportedly shared intelligence with Tehran on American military forces in the region.

Satellite imagery shows the three air bases - Ali Al-Salim base in Kuwait, Al-Udeid in Qatar and Prince Sultan in Saudi Arabia - with fresh damage appearing during different phases of the conflict.

The US has also lost 13 military service members since President Donald Trump joined Israel in launching the attacks on Iran on 28 February.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hrana) estimates the overall death toll has reached nearly 3,200, including 1,400 civilians.

Trump has said the US is on track to achieve his goals of destroying Iran's nuclear program, degrading its conventional military power, and ending the regime's support for proxy groups in the region.

"We're doing extremely well in Iran," Trump said at a White House event on Friday.

But the war has rattled the global economy with the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and uncertainty over the duration of the conflict and whether Trump will deploy ground troops.

Analysis of satellite imagery has been hampered by restrictions imposed by major US-based providers on the release of the imagery.

But it is possible to discern certain patterns in Iran's retaliatory action against US military interests in the region.

Radar and satellite systems have been a focus from the start, when Iranian strikes hit a US naval base in Bahrain. They function as the eyes and ears of modern military operations.

Satellite imagery most notably showed the destruction of two radomes - protective enclosures for such sensitive equipment. It is highly probable the systems themselves were damaged, although it is not possible to gauge the extent.

Radar sites were hit at Camp Arifjan, a US military facility in Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia's Prince Sultan Air Base, where US aircraft are located. Imagery of the latter shows smoke rising from a radar component for a Thaad air-defence system.

More extensive damage to Thaad systems is evident at US bases in the UAE and Jordan. It's unclear what the cost of that damage was. The degradation of these systems reportedly led the US to redeploy Thaad components from South Korea to the Middle East.

The damage from Iran's retaliatory strikes account for a fraction of the overall costs to the US for the war.

Defense department officials reportedly briefed members of Congress that the first six days of the war had cost $11.3bn. The first 12 days cost 16.5bn, according to CSIS.

The Pentagon is asking for another $200bn in funding for the war. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday that the figure "could move."

"It takes money to kill bad guys," Hegseth said.

The Diss Track

RogueGeneral1293

Heather Delaney Reese

Distraction

Half of Americans believe Trump bombed Iran because of Epstein files

Speculation US president started conflict as a distraction spreads across political spectrum

Another sign shows a picture of an American serviceman killed in the conflict, standing in front of the Stars and Stripes. “Cody Khork did not have to die fighting Iran for the Epstein class”, it reads.

Four days before the bombing of Iran on Feb 28, a report revealed that the Department of Justice (DoJ) removed more than 50 pages of interviews about Mr Trump from the files, including one victim who claimed the now president abused her when she was a child decades ago.

Was it a coincidence that Mr Trump decided to bomb Iran when the Epstein files threatened to expose him?

It sounds like pure conspiracy theory, but the idea that Mr Trump began the war — hitting Tehran from the skies — to distract from Epstein has also circulated among respected pillars of American society: from Republicans to Democrats, and influential podcasters.

“PSA: bombing a country on the other side of the globe won’t make the Epstein files go away, any more than the Dow going above 50,000 will,” wrote Thomas Massie, a Republican who has clashed repeatedly with Mr Trump over his demands to release the documents.

He is not alone.

“For years we demanded to release the Epstein files... not a single person has been arrested and likely won’t be: no accountability, no justice,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump ally and House representative, said on the day the bombing started. She added: “Instead, we get a war with Iran on behalf of Israel that will succeed in regime change in Iran”.

Graham Platner, a Maine Democrat, felt much the same, telling a crowd in Brewer the day after the strikes that “this war is also being pushed because Donald Trump is in the Epstein files, and other people in the White House, and other people connected with the Epstein class,” he said, “they are terrified that we have noticed what they are doing”.

In June 2025, Joe Rogan, the American podcaster with 11 million monthly listeners, voiced similar thoughts after Mr Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. “Just bomb Iran and everybody forgets. Everybody forgets about it,” he said.

It is not just politicians who think there may be a link.

A recent poll for Zeteo, a Left-wing website, and other outlets found that 52 per cent of people in the US believe the president attacked Iran because of the headlines about Epstein.

It found that 81 per cent of Democrats thought the war was a deliberate distraction, compared with 52 per cent of independent voters and 26 per cent of Republicans.

Chris Edelson, a lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said it was “certainly possible” that the war could have been to distract from Epstein. “What we have seen in the files is shocking stuff related to Trump,” he said.

“They passed a law to make the Epstein files public and they didn’t and kept back some of the most damning stuff,” he added. “If that was the calculation then it’s trademark Trump but it’s been a disaster... what’s followed isn’t better, it’s just a different kind of terrible situation.”

On March 6, six days after the war began, the US justice department released more files pertaining to the president’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, including interviews with the alleged child victim.

The anonymous accuser said that she met Mr Trump through Epstein around 1983, when she was between 13 and 15 years old.

The Trump administration dismissed the woman’s claims as “baseless allegations”, and they have failed to have significantly affected public consciousness, or newspaper headlines, since the beginning of the war.

In a statement, the White House said the idea that Mr Trump began the war to stop the Epstein headlines was “such a ridiculous take that it could only be concocted by true morons, such as Thomas Massie and the Democrats”.

But the “Operation Epstein Fury” posters remain, as does the public speculation.

“When confronted with a faltering economy and the persistent political radiation of the Epstein matter, a war with Iran looked like a perfect narrative reset,” said Rick Wilson, a veteran Republican strategist.

“For Trump, war is the ultimate political reset, no matter its cost.”

Long Term Pain

... and short term "gain". That's a cute way to put it, but I can't see any kind of gain for anybody. 

Maybe Trump gets a bit of a delay in The Epstein Files drama, but that's not going away. In fact, the war just amplifies the suspicion for most people.

A hundred years from now, we'll still be the bad guys in this one. And we won't have to wait anywhere near that long to see the shit back up on us. It's already started.

If It Looks Like A World War

A world at war: Iran conflict goes global

Ten days into President Trump's Iran campaign, the war has gone global.

At least 20 countries are now militarily involved — shooting, shielding or quietly supplying — while a widening energy shock punishes nations far from the front lines.
Why it matters: This isn't World War III. But it may be the closest we've come in decades — drawing in more countries, more great powers and more overlapping conflicts than any crisis since the Cold War.

Zoom in:

Iran has struck at least 10 countries since the war began, hitting U.S. and Israeli bases, Persian Gulf capitals, oil infrastructure and civilian areas in an attempt to impose maximum pain on Washington and its allies.

Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow chokepoint through which 20% of the world's oil flows — sending prices for oil, gas, plastics and fertilizers soaring across the globe.

Israel is fighting on two fronts — pounding Iran while battling Hezbollah on the ground in Lebanon, where more than 500,000 people have been displaced in a week.

Zoom out:

The war has spread far beyond the Middle East, pulling European militaries into the conflict and forcing NATO to shoot down Iranian missiles over allied territory for the first time.

France has dispatched its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to the Eastern Mediterranean, joining British warships after an Iranian-made drone struck a U.K. air base on Cyprus, a member of the European Union.

Greece and Turkey — bitter rivals within NATO — also have rushed forces to Cyprus, where their fighter jets now face each other across a partition line that has divided the island for 50 years.

Even Australia said Monday it's sending missiles and a radar plane to help the UAE and other Gulf countries defend themselves from Iran.

In the meantime, a U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship last week off the coast of Sri Lanka — the first American torpedo kill since the final days of World War II.

Between the lines:

As the shooting war rages, a shadow conflict is playing out among the world's great powers.

• Russia has been sharing satellite imagery of U.S. warships and aircraft with Iran, the Washington Post first reported, helping Tehran target American forces across the region.
• Ukraine — which has spent four years defending against the same Iranian-made drones now battering the Gulf — has deployed specialists and low-cost interceptors to help protect the U.S. and its allies.

China, which is set to welcome Trump for a state visit in a matter of weeks, is navigating the war from both sides.

Facing billions of dollars in economic exposure, China has been calling for a ceasefire and pressuring Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Beijing relies on for roughly 40% of its oil imports.

At the same time, U.S. intelligence shows China may be preparing to supply Iran with financial assistance, spare parts and missile components, according to CNN.

What to watch:

The Iran war is reshaping every other major conflict on Trump's agenda.

• Ukraine: U.S.-brokered peace talks planned for Abu Dhabi this week have been postponed indefinitely because of the war. India is back to buying Russian oil after the U.S. waived sanctions to help manage the energy crisis.
• Gaza: Trump's flagship peace plan has been on hold since the war began, as the Gulf states that pledged billions to rebuild Gaza now scramble to defend against Iranian missiles.
• Taiwan: The war is burning through missile stockpiles the U.S. has spent years building up to deter China in the Pacific — raising urgent questions about what happens if Beijing finally makes a move on Taiwan.

Sen Kaine

Tim Kaine has been largely stuck in my craw for a long time. He's the kind of Democrat that has never really delivered for me. I truly appreciate that he's a genuinely decent man, but he's taking forever to show me that he realizes the severity of the threat posed by Republicans and MAGA and Trump.

Under "normal" circumstances, I'm OK with him being Mr Congeniality, but these current circumstances are anything but normal.

It's a brick fight, Democrats

Throw some fuckin' bricks

He finally gets to it with this Colby guy - and I'm glad for that. I just wish now that he'd learn to stop smiling when does get to it.