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.

  • Jhex@lemmy.world
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    40 minutes ago

    worry not. remember this is TACO Don… he’ll chicken out again

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 hours ago

      Yeah, it seems fairly impossible he’ll get fully into the war, and even lending a few bunker busters would be surprising when that’s risking a blowback on American forces.

      I would guess that Trump is expecting Khamenei to cave, because that’s what he’d do. Most likely, he won’t, Trump will be confused, and this will drag on and on until a regional nuclear exchange is on the table.

  • MetalMachine@feddit.nl
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    4 hours ago

    We need to fix the voting system. ALL pacs should be banned and campaign spending should be limited.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      No.

      We had a lot of “I’m willing to make deals with anyone” rhetoric from the Trump campaign that low-info voters took to mean he was anti-war.

      But the underlying Pentagon leadership hasn’t significantly changed between Biden and Trump (or Bush and Trump, for that matter). Its all the same neoconservative think tanks writing variations on Project For A New American Century for the modern government.

      The idea that you were going to elect an anti-war president went out the window during the primaries. Vanishingly few federal office holders have shown opposition to attacking Iran. Less than what we had in 2003 against Iraq.

      Everyone from Richie Torres to Mike Lee seem on board with a brand new Holocaust in the Middle East.

    • ikidd@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Everyone knew he wasn’t going to be able to curtail democratic elections without the excuse of a war. This is on schedule.

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        I always thought Trump could curtail democratic elections without the excuse of war … by relying on a convenient terrorist attack instead.

        • Dogyote@slrpnk.net
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          3 hours ago

          Nah, a war in the middle east is normal. Nobody would accept a normal situation as justification to cancel elections.

        • JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml
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          5 hours ago

          I mean, Trump just illegally deployed the national guard and the marines in California. He needed the state’s permission (which he didn’t get) to deploy the guard and deploying the marines is on a whole other level of illegal.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          We’ve got an election in NYC right now, with a pro-Palestine Muslim threatening to upset Trump’s close friend Andrew Cuomo. Weird that nobody is claiming this election is being threatened by Trump, given that NYC has an enormous stock of Trump/Kushner accumulated capital.

        • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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          7 hours ago

          Unfortunately the republican run states will bend over whenever Trump tells them to.

        • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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          5 hours ago

          Not anymore. The SCOTUS ruled already that they must have their ballots approved by the Feds, and feds can overrule their ballots.

            • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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              4 hours ago

              So, Donald wasn’t allowed to appear on the Colorado ballot, being an insurrectionist?

              • RedditIsDeddit@lemmy.world
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                3 hours ago

                That’s a state issue, not a federal issue.

                Donald Trump was allowed to remain on the Colorado ballot despite the challenge based on the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause, because the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states lack the authority to remove federal candidates from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

                There is nothing about “approval” from feds, nor is there a process federally to approve such things. There’s courts. That’s it.

    • Bluewing@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      No US president is a peace dove. Between supporting proxie wars to police actions to declared war, they all end up getting people killed by bombs.

  • Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz
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    13 hours ago

    This is basic dictator playbook, problems in domestic politics, start a war and problems change to foreign policy.

    Putin has done this multiple times now, and Trump is following up.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Putin has done this multiple times now, and Trump is following up.

      The United Russia party has had a chokehold on Russian elections practically since the day the USSR was dismantled.

      There’s a lot more to their socio-economic dominance than Russia just starting new wars. RU controls the national media, they have deep roots in petrochemicals and finance and real estate, they’re mobbed up, they have control of the military across the officer’s corps, and they’re embedded all through local government.

      Putin could be the biggest peacenik hippie in Russia and that party wouldn’t budge from its perch.

      He’s doing these wars because he’s fascist. Not because he’s doing 11D politics chess.

      • Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz
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        6 hours ago

        Starting a war isn’t really 11D thing, it is more like “me big army, me attack” vibe. Even the orange orangutan can figure that one out.

        Russia has two exports, fossil energy and war. They know nothing else.

        Putin and his party are one and the same.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Russia has two exports, fossil energy and war.

          Russia is the only country left with a functioning space program. Also, one of the few remaining virgin steel manufacturers, in large part thanks to their domestic supply of iron and cheap energy. And, like Ukraine, it is a major regional breadbasket (one of the knock on effects of the war has been a one-two punch to cereal exports into Africa and the Middle East).

          They don’t have the manpower that China and India enjoy, so they never properly built up their high end service and manufacturing base, even in the Soviet Era. But the “Russia’s just an oversized gas station” line doesn’t hold up to any kind of close inspection.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              60% of their export is fossil energy

              China, India, and Turkiye have been ravenous in their demand for petrochemicals. These sectors have been growing at a breakneck pace.

              it is a banana republic

              Which large US business conglomerate is extracting fruit produce from Russia through armed occupation at below market rates?

              • Hotzilla@sopuli.xyz
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                2 hours ago

                https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

                “In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically and economically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resource.”

                They are so dependable on fossil fuel export that they try to sway all other nations to use fossil fuels and generate crisis on it to tie other nations closer to it’s only source of power in global market. Russia has less GDP than Italy. They are not super power anymore, and every nation should try to get away from their fossil fuels.

                • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                  2 hours ago

                  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company

                  it came to control vast territories and transportation networks in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia, and the West Indies. Although it competed with the Standard Fruit Company (later Dole Food Company) for dominance in the international banana trade, it maintained a virtual monopoly in certain regions, some of which came to be called banana republics – such as Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala.

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic#Etymology

                  In the early 20th century, the United Fruit Company, a multinational corporation, was instrumental in the creation of the banana republic phenomenon. Together with other American corporations, such as the Cuyamel Fruit Company, and leveraging the power of the U.S. government, the corporations created the political, economic, and social circumstances that led to a coup of the locally elected democratic government that established banana republics in Central American countries such as Honduras and Guatemala; No official apology has ever been done by any banana company or the U.S. with only the C.I.A. backed dictator of Guatemala apologizing in 2011

                  :-|

                  They are so dependable on fossil fuel export that they try to sway all other nations to use fossil fuels

                  Ah, Okay. I think I understand the problem here.

      • Zenith@lemm.ee
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        6 hours ago

        Everything you said is true of the GOP/American Right as well, and they do it the same way, through oligarchy, it’s just a matter of they having more time to ratchet it down where the US is just getting its official start, although it’s been working behind the scenes towards this for decades too

    • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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      13 hours ago

      This is why I say Canada, Greenland, and Mexico are not safe. Added to the fact that all 3 countries have lots of resources the US needs.

        • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
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          8 hours ago

          If the US ever try to take out the Panama channel it would fuck up bigly international commerce. Basically only the US military is going to use it because no insurance company is going to cover ships going through them, and without insurance ships can’t even leave port.

      • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 hours ago

        Wouldn’t this cause catastrophic domestic problems though. I think the US would tear itself apart trying to go to war with either of those three. Greenland perhaps less-so but still incredibly distasteful.

  • kayky@thelemmy.club
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    13 hours ago

    Time to waste hundreds of billions defending israel while our infrastructure crumbles and our citizens still go without healthcare.

    Again.

    • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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      9 hours ago

      Chicken Hawks who wouldn’t go when they were called, but will happily send everyone else’s children to die for their oil.

      As soon as HitlerPig starts his war, he’ll call for a draft. There is no way my son will fight in a MAGA War.

  • RadioFreeArabia@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    Trump is after Iran’s eggs, I guess. He promised the people of the US lower egg prices, he will get them from Iran.

    How can people in the US be okay with this? Their quality of life has only decreased since Bush 2 started his wars of terror. A propagandized population driven to hate others and rally behind the president.

    As unlikely as it may be, I hope the US loses quickly and decisively against Iran. Not in 20 years from now like in Afghanistan, but soon. I don’t know what cards Iran has, what leverage they may have, but I hope they have something that enables them to inflict pain.

    • Zenith@lemm.ee
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      6 hours ago

      I’m reading this book called Heartland that actually really deep dives into why so many Americans are ok with this, the fact of the matter is huge parts of the US have been living in abject poverty since basically always and it’s part of their culture to not need much, wanting things is looked down on as weakness, it’s a cultural part of long term poverty for huge swaths of the US, that living a hard life is the only way to live, there’s obviously many layers to this but it’s not a thing you can just think your way out of (because not getting educated is also part of this culture) since culture and identity are so deeply intertwined and you see that culture being actively promoted and spread via “trad culture” which is very much popular, especially with young men, trad is just code for poor

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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      7 hours ago

      The people of the US have never seen a brutal invasion of the middle east they didn’t support.

    • Berserker@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      Iran is defending, that’s why the americans cannnot win this war. They don’t have enough bombs to kill every iranian from the sky.

      • Deflated0ne@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        Can’t win a ground war. And they know it. Hence the 30 air tankers. Gonna be another shock and awe air campaign. Except half of the middle east or more will be taking part.

        Guess its time for the US to lose another war. We haven’t won one since the Soviets won WWII for us.

        • Bloomcole@crazypeople.online
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          7 hours ago

          They have hypersonic missiles, which the US or any western country fails to make.
          They can hit targets as far as the US base in Cyprus.
          Up to now they didn’t even use their best missiles against the genocider entity, and already the Iron Sieve is failing.
          F-35’s down etc…
          US pissed off when attacked even by Ansar Allah in Yemen. And jets happened to fall in the water a few times. LOL
          This will be no Afghanistan, this will hurt.