Posted on 07/05/2023 11:43:15 AM PDT by texas booster
The U.S. Navy deterred Iranian forces from seizing two commercial tankers on Wednesday in separate incidents.
First, at about 1 a.m. local time, an Iranian navy vessel approached the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker TRF Moss in international waters in the Gulf of Oman. It departed when the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul arrived at the scene, the U.S. 5th Fleet announced on Wednesday.
Approximately three hours later, another Iranian vessel began harassing the Bahamian-flagged oil tanker Richmond Voyager in international waters roughly 20 miles off the coast of Muscat, Oman. It opened fire with both small arms and crew-served weapons, though the Richmond Voyager sustained no casualties, and the Iranian vessel left once McFaul arrived in the area.
“I couldn’t be prouder of the entire [U.S. Naval Forces Central Command] team, especially the exceptional effort by the McFaul crew, for immediately responding and preventing another seizure,” said Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces. “We remain vigilant and ready to protect navigational rights in these critical waters.”
The Pentagon announced in May it would be increasing its maritime presence in the Middle East due to repeated Iranian seizures of commercial vessels.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Since 2021, Iran has harassed, attacked, or seized nearly 20 internationally flagged merchant vessels, according to the Fifth Fleet.
Sounds like another raghead rubber raft attack
Well, I guess that the Iranian military is not very concerned about the US military - at least, until we get close enough to shoot.
But our big, strong boys in DC will keep the mullahs from hurting anyone by using a safe word, or something.
Why does the DC establishment treat Iran and Russia so very differently?
Why would we merely approach the harassing and attacking Iranian vessels in these circumstances and not sink them instead? Would we not be justified in doing so if the Iranians were firing upon cargo ships in international waters?
Photo By NAVCENT Public Affairs | 230705-N-NO146-1006 GULF OF OMAN (July 5, 2023) Screenshot of video captured of an Iranian naval vessel firing multiple long bursts of rounds from small arms and crew-served weapons during an attempt to unlawfully seize the commercial tanker in the Gulf of Oman, July 5, 2023.
I think they are still holding on to some ships they seized a while back. Not that our media would bother to do followup reports.
Iran has been busy seizing ships...
A mysterious fleet is helping Russia ship oil around the world. And it’s growing
edition.cnn.com ^ | March 1, 2023 | Julia Horowitz
Posted on 3/1/2023, 11:03:58 PM by elpadre
London CNN —
Russian oil is still finding its way to buyers around the world. But even those who spend their days tracking its movement across oceans struggle to work out exactly who is ferrying it.
As Western sanctions against Russia have escalated over its invasion of Ukraine, more ships have joined an existing fleet of mysterious tankers, ready to facilitate Russia’s oil exports....
An ACT OF WAR, anyone?
“Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!”
The entire Middle East understands the concept of a “strong horse”.
A strong horse and a great rider will make most bullies back down as they count the cost to act.
But with the current DC establishment, the horse may be more worried about the riders and groomers that are supposed to outfit the animal for war.
The Posting headline references US Intervention in the 2 incidents.
Was our “intervention” steaming toward the Iranian attacking vessels then watching them flee to return again a different time?
Why would we not sink them? or disable them?
Yeah, must not have been able to get their makeup on for the photo op in time.
Agree on the strong horse cultural concept. Pardon the thought but the only strong “horse” has been a UN operation, which allow a lot of the real “horse” (black tar) to pass through the cordons, such as they were back 8 years ago, obamaumao the first being a huge supporter of his Muslim Brotherhood exporters of opium/heroin (they of course say they don’t themselves use their product- course their hookahs long ago switched over to far more than ghat). Stray thoughts.
Thanks very much for outstanding posts/vid shots. Biden is getting a kick in some way for allowing this against treaty protected flagged vessels.
Reagan bombed a couple of Iran’s oil platforms when they pulled crap like this in the 80s.
Put a stop to that real quick.
Good catch on the MB and UN operation in Lebanon.
For some reason, a lot of European drugs flow through the ME, and the couriers just do not seem too concerned about the mullahs intervening.
That is usually a good sign that state security is getting their cut faithfully.
Iran just trying to help ally Russia by opening a second front. We should expect more of this from North Korea too.
>>>As Western sanctions against Russia have escalated over its invasion of Ukraine, more ships have joined an existing fleet of mysterious tankers, ready to facilitate Russia’s oil exports....<<<
And we should all be glad Russia can keep the oil flowing. First in the short term it keeps prices down. Second, is avoiding a worse case scenario. After the fall of the USSR, oil wells in the permafrost of Russia stopped pumping oil and the result was catastrophic failure of the wells. I forget the explanation why, but the short version is, you can’t stop production without destroying the well. And it took Russia 20 years and western tech help to recover how much oil it used to extract under the old USSR banner.
Surely we have ships with surveillance capable of seeing these attacks, why do we let them happen?
What are their orders?
Sounds like it is time for an international coalition to destroy the Iranian navy again.
Perhaps a repeat of the 1988 Operation Praying Mantis except including new allies all dependent on Middle East oil, like Japan, India, and hopefully China to sink the entire Iranian Navy and its command and control centers.
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