this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Brett Wilkins Jun 16, 2025

Flight-tracking websites showed dozens of Air Force aerial refueling planes departing from military bases in the United States and heading to Europe on Sunday, fueling speculation of direct U.S. involvement in the widening Israeli-Iranian war.

Military-focused news sites reported that around 30 U.S. Air Force KC-135R and KC-46A tankers were identified by flight-tracking software in what The Times of Israelcalled an "unprecedented mass deployment" to Europe.

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[–] peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 90 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (8 children)

I didn't call it, but there's nothing quite like a war to distract the population from rampant decline at home.

This one is weird though, Iran is allied with Russia. Israel is allied with the US. Historically, this made sense.

But Trump and Putin playing war together would benefit both of them. It allows Putin to pull out of Ukraine because "Iran provided us much help and they need us now." And it allows Russia to maintain the war economy. It benefits Trump because he wants to play war.

Neither leader would have any actual skin in the game, it's just people's lives that would never contribute in another meaningful way to their power.

I don't like this. This is feeling more 1984 than 1984.

Edit: I like this even worse after I read the specifics of the KC-135R and KC-46A. Each can carry about 200,000 lbs of additional fuel. A single F-15E can hold 13,000 lbs internally. 30 KC-135Rs can refuel an entire F-15E 460 times. Israel has 7 KC-130H (60,000lbs) and 7 Boeing 707s (which is what the KC-135 was based on). This isn't just escalation, this is staging for invasion.

[–] Jack_Burton@lemmy.ca 7 points 22 hours ago

Ukraine could throw a wrench in their plans by simply not accepting whatever Putin offers. He's then left with "stay out of it and stay in Ukraine" or "join Trump and risk Ukraine flanking into Russian territory"

[–] 13igTyme@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Before COVID, 2020 started off with Trump drone striking a foreign diplomat and nearly starting WW3.

[–] Attacker94@lemmy.world 4 points 20 hours ago

Not to mention that this gives him a legitimate reason to invoke the alien enemies act, not that he needed them in the first place, but it will tie up the courts even further.

[–] Tillman@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The nice thing about Americans going to war is that it reduces the amount of dodge owners drag racing late at night. Silver linings.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

yea its a distraction from all the protests, its really making him look bad, but he has the msms focusing on this instead, plus he was using the parade and the shootings as another distraction as well. right now the news practically ignoring the protests. using the. BANNER strategy, flood the MSM with so much crap its hard to focus on one thing. its also known as the firehose of falsehood which is a Russian strategy for propaganda.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Sounds like personal beef.

[–] l_isqof@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago

Both Putin and Trump are approaching dead-ends in their current campaigns. This ICE stuff can't end well for him with so many people out last weekend, and Putin is well stuck in Ukraine, as you say. Whilst they may not be personally interested in the future of Iran and them having nukes by itself, they may need this to save their skin, actually.

[–] Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 23 hours ago

Neither leader would have any actual skin in the game, it’s just people’s lives that would never contribute in another meaningful way to their power.

Cold War 2: now with more stupid!

[–] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 1 points 18 hours ago

Come on now, you don't need to invoke some BlueAnon conspiracy to explain why the US would attack Iran; it's been champing at the bit to do so for decades.

[–] lolonaut@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

They hope Iran does something, that warrants NATOs article 5 to be triggered. Either the other Nato countries follow along, weakening Europe, or they don't, which basically desolves NATO and thus, weakening Europe.

[–] Donjamos@lemmy.world 2 points 20 hours ago

No one in Europe still counts on the US in case of an article 5 situation