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Pentagon confirms missile defence system and troops deploying to Israel
(www.middleeasteye.net)
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this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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Yuck... That's fucking disgusting. I feel physically sick reading this.
They're telling Israel to slow down with the attacks and sending weapons and soldiers at the same time.
Purely to help placate the public. There's no influence/true intent behind these words. It's the actions, not the words, that tell the true story.
They're air defense operators, just like gets deployed around Saudi Arabia's oil infrastructure.
If you want to feel bad about anything, it's that this will significantly reduce the likelihood that Iran can threaten Israel with ballistic missiles.
THAAD is really good at what it does, and something tells me that the Iranians aren't going to want to waste their entire stock pile on fruitless saturation attempts. To say nothing of their concerns of killing American troops.
As in, this provides Israel even greater latitude on their quest to start a hot war with Iran, without dramatically increasing any threat to their military bases and government buildings. Well, at least not from ballistic missiles.
That's also a very good point. It's like shielding a bully while they continue to bully other people. While I wouldn't mind seeing that bully getting smacked by the other people they oppress, I also don't want to see more people dying either. However, I know Iran has been targeting military targets and not civilian ones. So...
Anyway, this is all just fucked up and I want to see an end to this senseless violence and death, and I want to see Israel getting what they fucking deserve. That is the whole country should cease to exist in terms of land and borders and the land be returned to Palestinians after what they fucking did.
THAAD can be overwhelmed similar to Israel's own missile systems. There has been a THAAD system in Israel since 2019 so it already failed during Iran's retaliation.
The US is sending around 100 US troops with the new system so there will be additional interception capabilities. But it remains unlikely this will affect a saturation missile attack.
I'm not saying it can't be. I'm saying I don't believe Iran has the capabilities or stockpiles available to do so, given the other American assets in theatre, or a desire to risk killing American troops.
I suspect they're deploying THAAD because of the failures of David's Sling during the last missile attack.
Air defense systems protect specific targets, not countries. Given the THAAD's long track record under US operators, I would wager that the bases and targets that Iranian missiles hit, either lacked sufficient coverage, had poorly trained Israeli personnel, and/or were covered by David's Sling.
Of course, I could be wrong, but we won't know for many many years given how secretive Israel is on these matters.
Edit: I'm not seeing any reports of active THAAD deployments in Israel prior to this announcement, just previous deployments to Israel, including for training. But no mention if they rotated out prior to the Iranian missile strike, or that they were present for it.
I'm not saying they weren't there, but do you have a source confirms they were present during this most recent attack?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_High_Altitude_Area_Defense
In March 2019, Bravo Battery, 2nd Air Defense Artillery Regiment (B-2 THAAD), 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade[55] was deployed at Nevatim Airbase during a joint US-Israeli drill, after which it was to be moved to an undisclosed location in the Negev desert in southern Israel.[56] The X-Band radar system, which is part of the THAAD system, has been deployed at Nevatim since 2008.[57]
On October 13, 2024, the Pentagon announced it will send an air defense system along with about 100 U.S. troops to operate it. The deployment comes after two direct missile attacks from Iran against Israel on April 13 and Oct. 1.
I'm not opposed to this one honestly, it's defensive and Israelis are quite literally holding the world hostage in a way that every other nuclear power simply implies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option
Imagine the cops in Uvalde TX blocking parents from entering the school to stop the school shooter.
They are not directly attacking the children, but they are protecting the shooter from being stopped. Defending Israel is that times a thousand.
The THAAD systems are not defending civilian areas but Israeli military bases. To make matters worse almost all the weapons used by Israel are made in the USA.
This defense enables and emboldens Israeli aggression.
It removes, or significantly reduces, the threat posed by Iranian ballistic missiles.
That means, it removes, or reduces, any deterrent effect they have, on moderating Israel.
This is not good, but less because of the risk of American KIA, and more because of how it changes the Israeli calculus.
Indeed. Israel will only come to a diplomatic solution when they cannot win militarily. This has always been the case in the past.
Preventing a military Israeli defeat prolongs the Israeli aggression.
It doesn't, Israel is going to do whatever they want just as they always have. We're they not aggressive yet, did I miss calm level headed Israeli sometime in the last 50 years? No?
Iran never intended to strike with authority, they struck back because they are intended to, they didn't want involved and now they have every reason not to be.
Iran isn't now not has it ever truly been a moderating influence in Israel.
There's no change to the math, even without the us Israel is more than equipped to lay siege to Gaza for the foreseeable future and Iran had no intention of getting involved.
Not really. Iran wants an excuse to sit it out and they just got it.
What it will do is give the us more intelligence agents in the ground figuring out what the actual duck is going on.
We don't care about isrealis killing ours. Neither attacking a ship nor running a civilian over with a bulldozer raised too much issue.
I'm quite aware of THAAD's capabilities, including its tracking radars, at least as far as publicly disclosed information goes.
That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about this reducing, or removing, one of Iran's primary means of deterrence against Israeli attacks.
If Israel doesn't have to worry about the threat of Iranian ballistic missiles, it frees them up for an even more aggressive course of action.
Unless you're suggesting that this means Israel can, and should, continue to directly attack Iran...?
No I mean they can intercept Israeli missiles and they aren't Israeli controlled.
These will not be used to shoot down Israeli missiles...
Yes, that first but confirms the news article.
And then it talks about a deployment 5 years ago for a training exercise.
~~These aren't brick and mortar buildings, they're mobile platforms, and mobile air defense batteries redeploy all the time.~~
~~Again, I am not closed to the idea that there was US military operated THAAD system in Israel during that attack, I just can't find any reports confirming that, or even eluding to it.~~
Never mind, I misread that last bit. I will take a look at it later when I have a few moments, thank you.
This is like, technically a weapon. It's a tool for destroying enemy missiles in the air before they impact their target. It's about as purely defensive of a weapon as you can get.
The US soldiers are operating the missile defense system, so there's not room for Israel to "creatively" repurpose them. They aren't assisting in any missions in Palestine, they're purely defending against Iranian missiles.
There is no such thing as a defensive weapon. Its entire purpose is shielding them from the consequences of their own actions. Its just the armor of the tank that is Israels military. Its an integral part of the weapon.
The US providing this defense however allows Israel to be even more belligerent without fear of retaliation, possibly the only thing stopping them from expanding their genocide faster.
And now they will claim the US soldiers were attacked after placing them in the line of fire and use it as another excuse to go to war with Iran and continue exterminating Palestinians. It truly is sickening that they are fully participating in genocide.
Is this the human shields situation I keep hearing about?
Ah ok. That makes sense then. I wasn't informed about that system. Thank you for telling me.