Probably just as well from a safety of troops perspective. The only reason we knew so much about the recovery of downed pilots was because photos of the aircraft were made public by some journalists in Kuwait. Have we seen anything at all with SEAL Team, Delta Force? Hard to imagine those guys sitting on the sidelines for this long with the strait card being played by Iran.
Dept of State legal adviser release on OEF and International Law.
Warning: Posting it here so those not in the Politics room can read it, but discussion in this forum would need to stick to the law, and not devolve into partisan bickering or bashing.
CNN reporting that the majority of US bases in the region have been damaged by Iranian attacks. To what extent is likely unknowable to anyone outside the Pentagon. I would imagine it’s difficult to impossible to defend against all attacks in these locations.
Project Freedom, eh? Two more destroyers pass not in escort but rather to show the way? I’m sorry but does that not indicate that we know of a channel that is clear of mines? No mention of mine clearing efforts to date, nor have there been reports of mine explosions, only drones and missiles and small gunboats.
ADM Cooper
“What I will say is, over the past several weeks, we’ve used low-observable capability to clear that path, and we validated that in multiple ways. And then we took the risk by using U.S. flagships [sic] to go first, setting the example. Since then, we’ve had great communication with industry, as I mentioned, and ships, multiple ships, are already heading that way.”
So in other words ADM, Surface and subsurface drones cleared a channel of mines. The specs on that cleared channel are being shared and while I won’t call our efforts as escorts, we are responding to inbound threats and probably communicating with those vessel’s captains in real time.
Thanks. I feel a bit more positive about our efforts than before.