iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Twitter account Rich Tedd, who posts in depth tracking of UAE armament of the RSF and other UAE involvement in east africa posts DMs he received offering to pay him to post pro-UAE and anti-Sudanese Armed Forces content, followed by other threatening DMs.

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And frankly all it takes is one little drone getting through to destroy a bomber, and setting up such an operation would not be especially easy but nor would it be unusually difficult. The threat is real.

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And while structures could be erected capable of deterring such drone attacks, it's not easy to fully remove the risk, and would likely take some time to build and prepare.

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The American bombers at RAF Fairford are, like the Russian bombers above, parked on the tarmac. They have been visible on satellite imagery as well as this view from a news helicopter. There are no shelters at RAF Fairford capable of housing a B-1 or B-52.

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At the right moment, the tops of the containers popped open and the drones launched towards the bases, controlled remotely by Ukrainian operators. The flew the short distance to the base and landed on whatever Russian bombers they could find, destroying a huge number.

Camera view from a drone approaching a Russian bomber which is already on fire from a previous drone hit.

Satellite view of 3 Russian bombers that were destroyed in this attack.

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For those who don't remember, Operation Spiderweb involved Ukraine infiltrating numerous containers pre-loaded with small explosive-laden quadcopter drones. The containers were placed within a short distance of a number of Russian air force bases that housed Russian strategic bombers.

Modified truck container containing the explosive drones.

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Travis @someforeignfield.bsky.social · 23h

This is what I was thinking. The evacuation of the B-1s from the UK in the aftermath of the weird van situation (which may or may not have been a real attempted attack) is likely some combination of "oh wait they could Spiderweb us" and the new UK gov thinking "this isn't worth the trouble"

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I believe in mandatory national service but it's for USFS/BLM land management and wildland fire service

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Travis @someforeignfield.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It comes as a shock to a lot of people that Iranians dont want their country forcibly dismantled and pushed into permanent civil war. The Islamic Republic persists because, at least for now, it prevents that fate.

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Singapore is buying US-made and designed artillery systems but they're "Israeli" products because Elbit gets to slap their name on the final product.

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Putting the final nail in the coffin of American cultural hegemony via Hollywood because it's seen as insufficiently deferential to Trump and Israel. No more good movies, just Yellowstone spinoffs directed by Taylor Sheridan and written by Bari Weiss stomping on a human face - forever.

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Also noteworthy that Iran has been test firing anti-ship ballistic missiles (apparently for the first time) against US navy ships in the Gulf of Oman, and appear to have presented enough threat for those ships to withdraw much further from the Iranian coast than usual

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Which means the global Patriot stockpile quietly drops every time the Houthis fire something at an Aramco facility or RSAF base - which is more or less every day for the last few weeks.

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While Iran-US fighting has been quiet for a while, thus pulling news away from our defense missile stockpile, the Yemeni front has not. Saudi Arabia appears to have expended enough interceptors so as to require (at minimum) deployment of 1 Greek and 2 US Patriot batteries to defend KSA assets

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Exactly, like Iran sees that lately they largely own the escalation ladder. Whether they choose to use their leverage is up to them, and the pre-Feb "strategic patience" (indecisive inaction) doctrine died with Khamenei. Or at least, that's what it looks like.

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So while Iran is probably not "clearly winning" this pseudo war of blockade and escort, nor are they as "clearly losing" as American establishment media, which is extremely chauvinistic and largely supportive of Trump, would have you believe in the month before the midterms.

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This also ignores what appears to be the regular flights from the UAE to Tehran that stop in Tehran just long enough to offload a large pallet of cash. Ball knowers recognize that the only way to get money into iran if you're visiting is to bring, in cash, all the money you need for your trip.

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That being said, Iran is still hitting a lot of ships with missiles, this escort mission is extremely expensive, and global energy prices are not dropping yet, and stockpiles are largely wiped out. And crude is only one of the many economic outputs of the Strait.

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A lot of media really trying lately to create a facade of US victory in Hormuz. Yes, it seems the (extremely resource intensive) escort mission is successfully getting a lot of crude out, the precise volume of which is still tbd. It is easy to forget that crude exports are not what the war was about

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They entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Lamerd, Minab, Sirik and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and then they reaped the whirlwind

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That's why our assets at PSAB MSAB etc weren't dispersed until days or weeks into the war. We were smart enough to evacuate Al Udeid and Kuwait etc for the most part but didn't think the more distant bases were at much risk, at least at first.

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Well this was the inevitable result of war with iran. We had to stage most of our assets close to iran or else we couldnt bomb Iran. The problem is not that our shit got bombed, it's that our top dogs thought we'd win on day one and not have to incur any actual risk.

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-Iran has low resolution spy satellites capable of identifying targets as large as an E-3 -they have local HUMINT -various publicly available low and high-resolution satellite images such as Sentinel 2 All of the above would be sufficient without Russian or Chinese support.

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And then the left liberals act shocked when huge chunks of America's normie class (across the political and racial spectrum) decide Tucker is more genuine and has better ideas.

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Apparently a RSAF RE-3A spy plane, similar to the US RC-135 Rivet Joint, was severely damaged at Prince Sultan Air Base by an Iranian strike. Only three such aircraft were ever made, as far as I can tell.

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American Chinese food is good as fuck and only tasteless haters disagree

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Ice Cube - It Was A Good Day

Got a good job offer which means finally moving to Los Angeles, cooking local California salmon rn, and an ice cream maker is currently churning homemade ice cream with mint from the neighbors garden

youtu.be

YouTube video by IceCubeVEVO

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motherfuckers been out of office for nearly two whole years and we're still getting "fuming Biden asymptotically always about to cut off Israel but never quite doing it"

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Just realized I put a list that is just (a) and (c) That is on purpose to highlight the mysterious (b) that didn't even happen

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And as always, Israel can't drop bombs it doesnt have.

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Threatening to cut off aid indicates an understanding that the leverage existed. Not using it in that context is actually worse.

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I need yall to understand that US-origin weapons were delivered not yearly, not monthly, but *daily* or even multiple times a day If Netanyahu temporarily believed Biden had cut off aid, he was disabused of that notion very much immediately

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The only real examples we have of Biden "using his leverage" are (a) briefly pausing specific deliveries of some bombs (other deliveries of same bomb type continued and those packages were eventually delivered) and (c) maybe threatening to cut of aid but crucially not actually doing so.

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I've got a few ideas on how to handle uppity campus groups that dont do what administrators want! Luckily we've got experience doing this to students quite recently.

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The bottom line is basically this: -the US had a legal and moral obligation to suspend military aid to Israel in late 2023, and didn't -israel can't drop bombs it doesnt have

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I mean we just sent a canopy and a weapon bay door to China via UPS I kind of feel like this isnt a huge risk lmao

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Sorry I dont negotiate with terrorists.

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New bit: we have to provide unconditional military assistance to Israel because otherwise they'll give F-35s to China. Sounds like a great reason to put a few dozen GBU-28s into the F-35I shelters at Nevatim as a precaution. We should know their weaknesses - after all, the US built them.

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So we have to provide unconditional military aid to Israel under all circumstances because of technological blackmail? On top of the fact that Israel's primary intelligence threat vector is precisely that unconditional support, ie we let them in every room without question.

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Nobody else is going to pass a legal requirement to provide Israel with a Qualitative Military Edge over everyone else in the region. It's why Israel is crashing the fuck out about Turkey possibly reentering the F-35 program

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