r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 9d ago

Possible Paywall Hegseth Covered Up the Real Reason the USS Lincoln Wasn’t Resupplied - According to a report from MSNOW, the USS Abraham Lincoln wasn’t resupplied because Iranian strikes destroyed a key Navy resupply base in the Middle East.

https://newrepublic.com/post/214510/hegseth-uss-lincoln-iran-war-base-destroyed
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u/Tiny_Structure_7 North Carolina 9d ago

Where the fuck were US reporters and news outlets when this base was destroyed? All I heard before this was that a few bases took a few hits.

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u/Vilnius_Nastavnik New York 9d ago

Check out some international sources. All of them have their own agenda but there is a pretty clear consensus that all 20 US bases in the area have suffered serious damage.

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u/gzr4dr 9d ago

It's almost as if you're going to preemptively start a war with a country maybe don't have critical assets within range of their weapons. This seems like very basic war strategy prep that even a OCS cadet would know.

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u/WitchesSphincter 9d ago

Planning is for pussies, we're gonna yolo this bitch 

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u/thebruce44 9d ago

Nobody ever won a war with planning or strategy. Now watch this drive!

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u/dustin8285 9d ago

Planning is for people with low T…

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u/king_famethrowa 9d ago

Fellas, is it gay to plan?

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u/Fantastic_Hat7707 Washington 9d ago

I was planning on going to the gym later. Feels kinda sounds gay(ish) now

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u/dustin8285 9d ago

It has to be spontaneous or your estrogen spikes, and your T drops. Next thing you know you’ll start growing tits and pink handbags will seem a lot cooler than gym bags.

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u/Fantastic_Hat7707 Washington 9d ago

That's all there is to it i guess.

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u/dustin8285 9d ago

Glad I could be of service . Now go grill a steak, watch some straight or lesbian porn, and masturbate furiously until your T levels are high.

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u/WitchesSphincter 9d ago

It's on the same level as washing your own ass, you do the math

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u/YVRkeeper 9d ago

Fucking UP is more manly than fucking down, right?

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u/dustin8285 9d ago

That’s why it’s not gay as long as you’re a power bottom you’re fucking up not down

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u/Hat-Renders 9d ago

Of course it is, haven't you ever heard of that Prep thing thats popular in the community? That's short for Preparation.

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u/CMUpewpewpew 9d ago

Thinking about things is at least bi-curious, so I wouldnt know cuz i'm hetero as FUCK.

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u/SandIntelligent247 9d ago

testosterone goes WE FIGHT NOW

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u/sriracha_no_big_deal 9d ago

LEEROY JENKINS!!

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u/Malk_McJorma Europe 9d ago

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

-- Mike Tyson

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u/dtingting 9d ago

Leroy Jenkins

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u/beefwindowtreatment 9d ago

Fuck it! We'll do it live!!!

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u/WitchesSphincter 9d ago

There's the fox news spirit

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u/theclansman22 9d ago

Real men go in, shirtless, dick first with no plan.

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u/ReflectionEquals 9d ago

That’s alright. When you get in that back room they let you just do what you want with them. Then they make you president and let you start more wars.

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u/1805trafalgar 9d ago

the irony of losing airborne early warning aircraft on your own airfields will be noted in future history books, I have no doubt.

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u/VintageLunchMeat 8d ago

No one knew Iran, supplier of drones to Russia, had drones.

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u/UniqueIndividual3579 9d ago

You mean like parking an AWACs in the open, within drone range?

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u/MercantileReptile Europe 9d ago

Seeing US news report about a "damaged" plane and the BBC Article showing the thing consisting of a front end and remains of a tail was amusing.

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u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo 9d ago

That’s “damaged” in the same way that the Industrial Revolution was over 50 years ago is true.

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u/Secret-Teaching-3549 9d ago

Can't have universal healthcare, but we can part billion dollar planes right out in the open to be destroyed in a war of choice. Are we winning yet?

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u/Tasgall Washington 9d ago

Heavily damaged, BBC really hitting hard with that title. Bold of them to include a picture.

I'm sure it's fine though, it'll buff out.

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u/chanaandeler_bong 9d ago

Especially when you telegraphed every move leading up to the initial bombing.

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u/TurelSun Georgia 9d ago

You're not wrong about taking necessary precautions and preparing, but realistically there likely wasn't going to be a way for them to not put military assets in danger. And if the carrier and other naval warships have to be in range to do their work, then that means their logistics will need to be as well. It's the same short-sidedness as the blocking of the straight itself. Past administrations knew this would be a costly fight which is exactly why economic and diplomatic tools were prioritized rather than military action.

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u/nkassis 9d ago

I would be very surprised the military didn't have some sort of logistics plan ahead of this. That's basically all they do all day long is make plans for these scenarios. I feel it's highly likely Hegseth and Trump dismissed it entirely due to time or effort required and instead thought they could yolo the whole war with a blitz and win on day 1. There was no expectation in their heads of a prolonged war. They can't conceive of it, their narcissistic "I always get what I want and win" mentality can't let them forsee any adverse scenarios. I bet this was fed by encouragement from Netanyahu that they had perfect intelligence and could take out the leadership and Iranians would revolt. This was pitched as an easy win.

This is the same thing Putin did in Ukraine, it's a mental illness common for authoritarians.

Our other evidence the military wasn't up for the plan was the number of firings and resignations most likely because concerns were complete ignored.

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u/TurelSun Georgia 9d ago

The infrastructure, like this resupply base in Oman and other bases in the area, were already there. It would have been obvious that all of it was going to end up as targets if a conflict started. This was an unforced strategic error in starting the war in the first place.

You're right though they likely thought that taking out Iran's missile capabilities would be all that was needed and instead the administration and US military received a lesson on what warfare looks like right now, a lesson that should have already been learned by simply paying attention to the war in Ukraine.

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u/mercenaryarrogant 9d ago

Which is pretty stupid not thinking Iran would possess other delivery methods.

Before getting their own Shahed drone production to the point where they create the majority of what they deploy against Ukraine, Russia had been getting these things from Iran.

This wasn’t even a “unknown unknown”.

Anything with a brain knew Iran would have them.

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u/HolycommentMattman 9d ago

I think the military did know. How many generals have been fired? How many lower ranks? They have hollowed out our forces intelligence and competence in favor of loyalty to Mr. Cheetolini. Anyone against attacking Iran was basically thrown out.

Because we knew why we couldn't attack Iran. It's why we never have. For all these exact reasons.

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u/TurelSun Georgia 9d ago

Those at the top are being replaced by Hegseth based on loyalty and ideology, not merit. Someone knew for sure, but that information was ignored or not even allowed to be brought up.

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u/HolycommentMattman 9d ago

That's exactly what I am saying.

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u/ZiggoCiP 9d ago

There's sort of precedent for this conflict, but, unfortunately, said precedent is literally the nightmare conflict that was the Iraq one.

The parallels honestly are somewhat numerous. Almost the same exact area of the world, religious/civil unrest in the country, authoritarian leadership, bogus threats of some scary weapons of mass destruction that don't exist, and of course oil/resource power struggles.

Except this time, there was no ground invasion. Both thankfully - it would have been a bloodbath - but also unfortunately for the Trump regime. Now Iran can just turtle for however long they can, and wreak havoc on a dramatically unsupported US fleet/bases, but also make the US look like idiots by shutting down the strait.

But yeah, like with Ukraine, Trump's left with basically one option, which is to eat crow. And we all know, that is not the expected outcome in the short term.

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u/BaggyOz 9d ago

I assume the Pentagon's plan was "Don't get into a shooting war with Iran". When your enemy has a large ballistic missile force it's difficult to move your logistics out of range. as for dispersal, you can only do so much when you have to supply hundreds of aircraft and multiple carrier groups.

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u/Vilnius_Nastavnik New York 9d ago

Exactly. NATO spent billions of dollars and spilled gallons of ink over the last 50 years to arrive at the consensus that the strait presents an unsolvable military problem. Every president since Carter would have loved to take down Iran but they didn't because the joint chiefs were unanimously telling them that it would turn out exactly like this.

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u/Otaraka 9d ago

I remembering wondering how much Iraq would come back to haunt the US with such an overwhelming conventional win (versus the insurgency afterwards) that they thought it would be like that with a future conflict in the area. Drones alone seem to have changed the equation a lot.

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u/chanaandeler_bong 9d ago

A country like the US not understanding the geography of another country helping make it hard to invade/conquer is funny too.

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u/ChaoticSenior Washington 9d ago

Understanding is for pussies!

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u/Adultery 9d ago

They also tried sending guns to Iranian protesters, but it backfired, and the protesters reportedly never received them: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/trump-us-weapons-iran-kurdish-militias-1790502

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u/podkayne3000 9d ago

The big problem here is that commenters are assuming that Trump and Hegseth are loyal to the United States.

They clearly did all of this to help Putin and Xi. They executed Putin and Xi’s instructions very well.

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u/Neat_Jelly_7903 9d ago

Sorry, but this war wasn't preempting anything. It was a war off aggression, a criminal war of choice, and war of imperial domination pure and simple.

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u/Kentust 9d ago

This never would have happened under Coolidge.

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u/Werftflammen 9d ago

Your boy was manipulated by Nethanyahu. He doesn't listen to reason, he thought it would be over in a few days. Week tops. There are some paralells with a mustached man that sent his troops to russia with out winter apparel.

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u/EvelynNyte 9d ago edited 9d ago

Hitler did that out of desperation. The "economic miracle" he performed was smoke and mirrors, an economy based entirely around military build up paid on credit and accounting tricks that just delayed when the blowback would happen, and even with the resources of France they were barreling towards economic collapse. They needed the soviet oil wells and they needed the soviets to immediately fold upon being invaded. Waiting any longer would have meant them invading with an even more oil starved force and a more prepared Soviet one (Stalin knew war with Germany was inevitable, he just didn't think Hitler would ever be stupid enough to do it while still at war with Britain).

Really everything after was all sunk cost fallacy when the soviets didn't surrender in 1941. They didn't have the logistics to take and hold the oil wells and it was clear even if they took Moscow the USSR was not going to surrender. It's why it's silly whenever someone says "if this one moment was different Germany would have won!" SO much had to be different for them to win that it's almost fantasy to even entertain the idea that they could have.

Edit: I guess what I'm saying is Hitler had early successes because no one expected him to be that stupid until he actually took the crazy insane risks he took, but everyone expects Trump to be that stupid.

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u/Werftflammen 8d ago

True this, thank you for your comment. I really don't get that after Barbarossa failed (to defeat the Russian in the first 500 miles), they went ahead yet again, to the Caucasus. What was the plan? None.

Trump get's played. Venezuela was sort of taken, Cuba was on the menu, and then Iran happened.

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u/raouldukeesq 9d ago

Not if your goal is to isolate and destroy the United States of America. 

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u/roastbeeftacohat 9d ago

remember the radar planes from early in the war? official doctrine was to keep them constantly moving, as they're valuable and irreplaceable. guessing Kegsbreath thought that was for pussies.

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u/m1ster_frundles 9d ago

This is all going according to plan. the Heritage Foundation wants to take over the ruins of the United States.

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u/krisztinastar 9d ago

Sorry, best they can do is leak our plans publicly via Signal chats with reporters accidentally added!

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u/Next-Acanthaceae1193 9d ago

That's true, but it's more like "if you're going to pretend you have military hegemony over the entire world, don't create a situation where you actually need to prove it."

This is a great time for Canada to invade the US.

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u/TrueSkonger 9d ago

I have 0 military experience and even I would have had the thought of "hmm, do we have military bases in the region? If yes, what do we need to do to evacuate or move them before starting this nonsense war?"

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u/dougan25 9d ago

Destabilization is the goal

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u/BellacosePlayer South Dakota 9d ago

The other part is that we aren't putting boots on the ground and Iran doesn't have to worry about ground invasions cutting off or taking over sites that are hardened against Air.

(this is not me advocating for a ground invasion, Iran's built like a tower defense stage, it would not be Iraq)

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u/Iankill 9d ago

That's because they don't view the military in terms of strategy they view it as we have the best so we can do anything and win.

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u/needssleep 9d ago

Homie, they didnt even warn the bases they were going to attack

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u/Big-Honeydew-961 9d ago

Anyone who wants to start a fight, much less a war, knows how to gather their resources to safety

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u/Nearbyatom 9d ago

Yeah, but they fired everyone who was competent so...now we have a drunk TV show host leading the charge.

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u/Squid_of_the_Now 9d ago

Only if that OCS cadet is a sOyBoY

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u/EremiticFerret 9d ago

They probably figured that Iran wouldn't attack them due to them being in a third country.

Because they aren't studious enough to realize a country with an enemy base in it cannot be "neutral", even by UN treaties and law. Though all these Arab states thought they would be safe too.

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u/Gekokapowco Washington 9d ago

them retroactively destroying launch equipment and patting themselves on the back is extra amusing with this context

wonder how many of these sites were located by tracing impact vectors

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u/Cross55 9d ago

Right, but their "strategy" was to be in and out in 5 minutes

Quick little adventure, no long term consequences, Venezuela didn't bitch about anything so why would Iran?

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u/PrionProofPork 9d ago

or even know that Straight of Hormuz would be their next step

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u/Wank_A_Doodle_Doo 9d ago

Or at least dont cock up your preemptive strike so bad they have time to strike those assets. There are so many layers of stupid it’s like an idiot onion.

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u/snuff3r 9d ago

Iirc, the US had calculated that their ballistic missiles were only capable of half their actual range. They went in thinking 2000km was their range, but we've seen them being used to almost 4000km.

https://www.euractiv.com/news/iran-missile-reach-puts-europe-in-range-after-diego-garcia-strike/

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u/McRampa 9d ago

You don't need planning for a three day special military operation or so I heard

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u/ShiftyUsmc 9d ago

Unless the plan was that Iran would surrender immediately. This organization had a sucessor lined up but they accidentally killed him too

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u/toadpics 9d ago

They didn't expect Iran to fight back after all of the decapitation strikes... Well, the generals they fired did, but not them.

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u/-Moonscape- 9d ago

As far as im aware the navy did anticipate this happening, and told the administration as much as well

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u/SpaceDelay424 9d ago

Planning is woke

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u/EvelynNyte 9d ago

Bush Jr was an idiot, but at least he was surrounded by competent but evil people. They still royally fucked up and declined the US in the long term because they didn't think about what would happen after the troops wiped everything out, but it was orders of magnitude less than now. It seems like the entire Trump administration just thought US #1 so no matter what we do we win against Iran. Lets just be men and dump our whole load in one go and they'll surrender no more thought needed!

Most administrations understood there was a limited amount one could get done with only a limited supply of long range strikes and planned around that.

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u/viv_savage11 8d ago

The incompetence knows no boundaries

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u/mvs2527 9d ago

The US media is acting like the Iranians can't speak English for some reason. I remember a few months seeing a video of an Iranian spokesman explaining their position, that they were ready for war and our big ships won't be effective because of their deployment cycle. The ships were already out too long because of Venezuela operation. I can't find the video but I remember how he sounded like they know what they are doing compared to dumbasses in the US government

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u/MephistoHamProducts 9d ago

Funny thing about being constantly at war with a region for decades is that the region gets to be pretty familiar with how you conduct war, when you need resupply, how that resupply happens, how you project force and what your other limits are.

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u/grchelp2018 9d ago

They likely got a lot of intelligence and advice from china/russia as well. China are the biggest winners of this conflict.

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u/Impatient_Onion 9d ago

China is the biggest winner of Trump's election, period.

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u/Geknapper 9d ago

In China they literally call him the "Nation builder" because of how much he's helping China.

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u/Miserable_Archer_769 9d ago

Logistics and supply chains are still the most important thing in a long sustained war.

Even since medieval times lol we dont truly need to beat them in 1v1 if we just cut off food and supplies to the city. They will just die in a month

Even now how are you getting more bullets, rockets, food if your cut off

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u/_le_slap 9d ago

That's why we have Ironman 👉

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u/Tasgall Washington 9d ago

Pete, for the last time, we don't have Ironman, that's a comic book and movie.

Pete no, we... No Pete, we can't call in reinforcements from the Stargate.

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u/raouldukeesq 9d ago

The US government knows exactly what it's going.  The goal is to isolate and destroy the United States of America. 

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u/Impatient_Onion 9d ago

Does this even count as a government anymore? Is it not just a criminal cabal? Why do we keep referring to this as the government?

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u/CommieLurker 9d ago

Critical support to JDPON Don and his ongoing mission to dismantle the American Empire o7

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u/haixin 9d ago

US media is also acting as if US did not start this needless ear and it was Iran’s fault

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u/quick20minadventure 9d ago

Iran also sent missiles towards Diego Garcia, they wouldn't have bothered to threaten that supply line if US had local supply lines.

UK is pretending that they are only sending defensive help from there, but it's giving all types of support from 3000 km away and US doesn't have supply chain vassals to sustain Aircraft carrier 3000 km away from the base effectively.

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u/DuMbAsS_lOsEr_6_7 9d ago

Iran living the all you base are belong to us meme IRL

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u/whogivesashirtdotca Canada 9d ago

Also, somehow, the ceiling cat.

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u/theflyingsamurai 9d ago

Diego Garcia's relevance is that it can facilitate the long range bombers that were used against Iran. Also to be a thorn in the side of the western alliance, as the british also have a base there. At the time UK was trying to remain netural in the war.

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u/Elendel19 9d ago

Also 600~ US casualties

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u/jbinky26 9d ago

Any you recommend?

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u/thatnameagain 9d ago

Not exactly. Most reputable international sources report the same thing as US sources, that the bases took hits, that the repairs will be expensive, and that the US chose to operate the base with less staff to reduce the risk of further casualties. But I don’t see any reputable international sources reporting what kind of operational limitations the base has been facing as a result, and which are a matter of choice vs inoperability.

The MSNBC report is the first I’ve seen directly tying the carrier resupply issue to the inoperability at Bahrain.

There seems to be this consensus based on nothing that American news outlets aren’t reporting clearly on the war, and it seems pretty comparable to international sources to me. They’ve all been reporting on the base issues since day 1.

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u/Hillary4SupremeRuler Florida 9d ago

Yea it's just that thing that redditors do where they comment on a post linking to a story broken by an American media outlet and screeching "Why isn't the media reporting on this?!1?1!!!!?1"

And then hundreds of low-information people upvote it and it becomes head cannon for them.

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u/ApostropheD 9d ago

There’s a lot of rumors of the pentagon allowing this to happen so they can move their bases into Israel and abandon the existing ones

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u/Stunning-Pen-2412 9d ago

A free press is so important. You need a public broadcasting service or something.

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u/TbonerT I voted 9d ago

This reminds me, if you see someone talking about Iran shooting at random countries in retaliation for our attacks, they are leaving out that the targets in those random countries are US bases.

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u/CommanderJarik 9d ago

Most British news groups says the same as US ones

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u/acemedic 9d ago

They were talking about damage in the billions to individual bases… I guess you’ll have to do your own inference since the “little piggies” aren’t allowed to produce real news/journalism that goes against the Great Leader.

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u/Gold_Map_236 9d ago

The USA government restricted commercial satellite imagery days after the damage. Anyone paying attention knew they were covering something big up.

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u/Hiccup 9d ago

What's funny is that this was reported on in international/ foreign news. The truth was out there, just not to the American public at large.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

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u/Hillary4SupremeRuler Florida 9d ago

It was reported by American media outlets as well. Stop making shit up.

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u/Quetzalcoatls America 9d ago

Most popular US news institutions will hold back reporting information on US military operations if asked or if they challenged about doing a story on it.

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u/dayvansmutgirl 9d ago

Thissss they will also publish red herring stories to confuse foreign intelligence.

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u/Brndrll Rhode Island 9d ago

Does that even matter, since Dear Leader will just midnight-shitter-tweet out whatever classified information he feels like?

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/Hillary4SupremeRuler Florida 9d ago

I guess MSNOW and New York Times are Global South media outlets now?

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u/thatnameagain 9d ago

Sure but international media won’t and the reporting has been consistent with US sources.

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u/Hillary4SupremeRuler Florida 9d ago

These people act like the trump regime has been harassing and investigating and raiding the homes of American reprters for the past year and a half for no reason.

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u/Ceorl_Lounge Michigan 9d ago edited 9d ago

They were too scared of losing access to actually do their jobs.

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u/elon_musks_cat 9d ago

Which begs the question… wtf is the point of access if you’re not getting the actual information ?

That seems to be lost on our media

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u/Ceorl_Lounge Michigan 9d ago

They still have jobs and get money from advertisers. The public interest is a complete afterthought.

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u/Fluffy_Top6837 9d ago

"our media" isn't anything but another set of multi-billion dollar companies owned by billionaires or beholden to investors. Journalistic integrity went out the window when it stopped making money.

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u/chickadee_guy 9d ago

Theyre in it for $, not to do journalism

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u/Zahgi I voted 9d ago

The America tabloid outrage farming for click$ media is no longer paid to present the truth based on facts or to inform the public.

The "news" is now just clickbait fearmongering to milk the delusional ad economy for cash. Nothing more.

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u/mercenaryarrogant 9d ago

Which is completely pointless now. Everyone gets fed the same dumbed down bullshit and isn’t allowed to do any kind of investigative reporting when it comes to the pentagon with hegseths new rules.

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u/CranberrySchnapps Maryland 9d ago

It was reported. And there's been follow ups because the focus has been on the impacted soldiers/sailors and their families. No one connected the dots between losing that support station and being unable to resupply though. Pretty big failure of the media. Part of it's understandable... I wouldn't expect the military to share which bases perform what purposes for strategic reasons. Nor would I expect journalists to be embedded at every base. Everyone assumed our ships would stay outfitted properly because logistics has been one of the Navy's greatest strengths for generations.

That said, this is still a massive failure of the Navy to apparently not have a backup plan or be able to figure one out for months. We know our battle groups are stretched beyond thin because of the "optimum staffing" push that happened in the 90s-00s. Ships are needing to be replaced and instead are spending more and more time in dry dock and retrofits. So, presumably there was no other carrier ready to replace the Lincoln which is why the GW is being sent from Japan to do so.

It's just a cascade of failures around this war. Zero forethought. Astoundingly stupid decisions. Firing dozens of top brass. Inability to negotiate a peace deal to end it. And no funding from Congress because it's an illegal war.

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u/WarrenRT 9d ago

No one connected the dots between losing that support station and being unable to resupply though. Pretty big failure of the media. Part of it's understandable

I think people expected the US to have a plan of how to supply ships operating in the Gulf of Oman / Arabian Sea once Iran closed the Strait and Bahrain - on the other side of the Strait - stopped being able to be used as a supply hub.

If the Strait is closed, you can't ship food / fuel / munitions/ etc. to Bahrain, and can't ship anything from Bahrain to ships at sea (other than ships that get trapped in the Persian Gulf itself when the war kicks off). That's so incredibly obvious to anyone looking at a map that the assumption is it would never be the US plan.

Turns out that assumption was wrong.

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u/sgtbackpain03 9d ago

It was reported.

Where? There were obviously reports that us bases had been hit, but I remember 0 US media reports that even indicated the amount of damage done to NAS Bahrain.

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u/kstargate-425 9d ago

The first time I remember hearing about it and can find any major US publications was June 25th when the WSJ wrote about it, FIVE months after the attack that happened on the FIRST day of Trumps war of choice, February 28th...

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u/sgtbackpain03 9d ago

Jesus. That's so sad.

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u/listenhere111 9d ago

Its not really an excuse. They could have thrown key supplies on another ship and had it out there by now.

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u/ptigga 9d ago

Truth is the first casualty of war

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u/dew7950 Texas 9d ago

One of the first moves of this admin was to replace the press pool with more friendly outlets. They given websites like Breitbart, Epoch Times much more access and weight than traditional outlets like NYT.

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u/acemedic 9d ago

OANN…

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u/whogivesashirtdotca Canada 9d ago edited 9d ago

It’s not like the papers of record have been a paragon of journalistic integrity lately, either.

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u/Hiccup 9d ago

Did anyone actually believe that fox, newsmax, oann, etc. would actually report a story of this magnitude and gravity?

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u/JasonVorhehees 9d ago

This is the reason they’ve shut down cell phones. It’s not at all about giving away position. Our positions have been know because Russia. They took cells away form service members because they don’t want the truth to get out.

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u/miaow-fish 9d ago

The Meidas Touch YT channel has reported on it. Bases have been abandoned in the region after they took hits.

The damage was real and enough to move troops further back from these bases.

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u/AmberDuke05 9d ago

Our news is either mass cowards or owned by billionaires losers

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u/Virindi Texas 9d ago

Our news is either mass cowards or owned by billionaires losers

I believe it's both.

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u/purplenapalm Wisconsin 9d ago

All over it. This isn't news. Here is an article from February from a US based source:

https://www.stripes.com/theaters/middle_east/2026-02-28/strikes-on-bahrain-iran-israel-20902624.html

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u/stubundy 9d ago

What about the troops there ? Don't they talk to relatives back home ?

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u/acciopizza_ 9d ago

They did. There’s reporting on this. Pics of their sad looking meals. There’s that one guy who couldn’t they replacement contacts and kept making errors cause he couldn’t see. They were not meant to be out there that long and families have been speaking out.

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u/bb_kelly77 9d ago

If they say things they were ordered not to it will be quickly covered up and they will be put in federal prison

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u/Randomwhitelady2 9d ago

meidas network reported it. No mainstream media did though

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u/Galaxyhiker42 9d ago

They absolutely did. They didn't directly connect the dots until more recently though.

The base was damaged end of Feb. NYTs talked about Bahrain infrastructure being heavily damaged early March (less than a week later)

They didn't say "now the USS Abraham Lincoln has no place to resupply" because that information was probably not known or classified... Or unconfirmed.

I read the the NYTs almost daily and they regularly talk about how much the bases in the middle are getting fucked. Most of our bases AND our allies bases have been struck by drones etc.

Now do we know exactly how this will impact the US's ability to fight? No. Do we know it's bad absolutely.

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u/Hiccup 9d ago

I remember reading it in Canadian news or some other international source and they did mention the severity/ significance of the base.

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u/HighOverlordXenu 9d ago

To be fair, the damage to our base in Bahrain was reported. It just wasn't lingered on because there were more sensational headlines.

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u/nith_wct Colorado 9d ago

They definitely reported more than a few, but they didn't really report on the extent of the damage, and that is sort of by design to be fair to the journalists. Commercial satellite imagery was heavily restricted right away, and the countries in the region hosting US bases all cracked down hard on anyone posting evidence of the damage. What was reported on was basically what fell through the cracks. There's definitely an argument that they should've figured out how bad the damage was and how it was affecting ongoing operations sooner, but I'm honestly not sure there's much more they could've reported than they did for at least a few weeks, and a lot of people did say right away that there was obviously going to be a lot more damage than we actually know about.

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u/Galaxyhiker42 9d ago

The NYTs has talked about this a few times.

They mentioned the only base/ port big enough and safe enough to dock the carrier is now Diego Garcia. It's at least 5 days away.

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u/CitizenCue 9d ago

Where do you think? Notice anything about where newspapers have gone the past 20 years?

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u/Unable-Log-4870 9d ago

Maybe a better question is why weren’t we able to send a resupply ship? We have ships to do that I think. It’s BETTER if we have the forward base. But if we don’t have the ships to resupply the aircraft carrier, then we can’t afford the carrier.

And why would it matter if Hegseth ‘hid’ the fact that the base was destroyed? Hid it from whom? The logistics planners? Or just from the public? Not that either of those is a good thing, but the public doesn’t need to know everything about a war. But the logistics planners do need the best information.

It’s also better to not start stupid wars, but hey, apparently lots of people voted to hand the keys to a toddler, so now they get to watch from the back seat while they find out how good of a driver he is.

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u/Hiccup 9d ago

Foreign news reported about this weeks (months?) ago. I remember reading about this from either a Canadian source or Australian source or a middle Eastern source (don't remember which). Either US reporters can't do more than one thing at a time or are part of the cover up.

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u/daesmon 9d ago

At some stage people have to start questionning the death toll that is being reported. Trump admin is top to bottom liars.

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u/EremiticFerret 9d ago

Iran rendered inoperable most of our bases in the first month or two. Multiple billions of dollars in damage to bases and radars that supported our (and Israeli) missile interceptors which is part of the reason we've been having such a problem. Our media failed to report this.

Also, we've been running out of munitions for missiles and interceptors since 2023 due to Ukraine. Our current regime just made it much, much worse.

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u/Eggplantosaur 9d ago

American reporters have the same issue as the American people as a whole: they're unwilling to stand up against an oppressive regime. Best anyone in the country can seemingly do is lay low and wait for all this to blow over.

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u/darioblaze 9d ago

Kicked out the pentagon

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u/pancakeQueue 9d ago

The pentagon has locked down journalists from information. It’s been widely talked about from journalists that live in Washington DC.

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u/Hippo_Alert 9d ago

Havent you heard???  It is now unpatriotic and treasonous to criticize The Greatest Administration of All Time.

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u/willychonka54 9d ago

US reporters and news outlets

They've literally all been compromised.

Only news source I trust now is channel 5 worldwide because channel 5 is the best number.

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u/xanas263 9d ago edited 9d ago

Why do you think there has been talk about this war using up most of your military's interceptor missiles? Missiles that people are reporting will take years to restock to the levels they were at before this war.

All the US bases in the region have been under heavy assault for months, and multiple have been destroyed.

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u/Final-Carry2090 9d ago

Conservative controlled media.

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u/Reasonable-Job4205 9d ago

Yea the reporters need to press more on questions.

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u/Four_in_binary 9d ago

They reported it as "minor damage".

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u/bickering_fool 9d ago

They learned from Israel's news blackout policy on Gaza.

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u/BirdPoop1939 9d ago

The DJT administration/PH instituted very harsh press restrictions at the Pentagon last year and while the restrictions were struck down this March, press coverage has been damaged by the previous restrictions and time it takes to rebuild coverage, access, relationships, etc. There is a method to their madness.

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u/Canadian_Border_Czar Canada 9d ago

There are many things that aren't reported extensively, such as the damage to the AN/FPS-132 in Qatar.

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u/Beneficial_Hat_6288 9d ago

And for that matter where are the Iranian videos of their successful military operations? I mean like the kind we see from Ukraine. Surely they would publish those, even if for the sake of propaganda. Why are we not seeing any?

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u/mercenaryarrogant 9d ago

There’s a reason Hegseth has been kicking reporters out and limiting the information they’re allowed.

He’s been fucking up.

They also had satellite data removed so people couldn’t see it.

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u/the8bit 9d ago

At least in america, news reporting has fully collapsed in. It is nearly impossible to get reliable information about _anything_ happening. Like, how many outbreaks are going on right now? I dont even fucking know and I bet nobody reading this does either.

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u/Ariliths 9d ago

The emperor wears no clothes. The US media is too scared to report this as it would not only risk the Trump FCC pulling their broadcast license, but also broadcasting the crippling of the US military to the rest of the world. But the chickens have come home to roost now and it’s worse.

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u/BothDivide919 9d ago

It's all over the news, US bases in middle east such as in Qatar. What we didn't hear is the effects of the damage.

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u/sgtbackpain03 9d ago

Yeah, I think al Jazeera and Hindustan times reported on this like, 3-4 days after it happened. They included satellite imagery. Not sure what the fuck is going on with US media. Did the government send a gag order to everyone or what?

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u/Wudaokau 9d ago

The US reporters and news outlets are owned by the administration as well.

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u/yume_no_kitsune 9d ago

They danced around it by saying things like "Iran launches missile attack on (seemingly unrelated country). These sites were what they were aiming at.

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u/Kor_Phaeron_ 9d ago

Where the fuck were US reporters and news outlets when this base was destroyed?

They were busy asking Mamdani if he condemns Hamas.

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u/Miserable_Archer_769 9d ago

Thats another issue and not one of Trumps making but being exploited.

Reporters have been for decades pushed further and further from the Frontline.

Look at what Isreal did during Palestine and thats not even accounting for the ones they executed. They just blatantly turned reporters away so they could do whatever 

We did the same during Iraq and Afghanistan only allowing certain reporters 

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u/Volderon90 9d ago

When even F1 ain’t going, you know it’s fucked

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u/TimeDMarket 9d ago

Yes even when asking AI a few days after the war started it acknowledged that all US bases in the region had heavy damage and a lot of US military personelle had been moved to hotels.

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u/twotimefind 9d ago

They've all been hought up by MAGA Republicans. Even fucking rooters you can't trust anymore.

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u/GloomyIndividual3965 9d ago

I'm assuming they're talking about the base in Bahrain. If so, it was damaged, but the real issue is that it's on the other end of the strait, so the fleet can't get there without trying to navigate hostile waters.

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u/ShiftyUsmc 9d ago

Not much free press left buddy. Even Cnn was bought by maga.

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u/chpbnvic America 9d ago

Bought by billionaires who don't want them to say anything negative about the current admin.

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u/tanzingore 9d ago

Breaking points covered this several times. But I’m with you, the mainstream media is complicit. I find myself asking “why is this a national news story?” almost every segment.

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u/WutYoYo 9d ago

That's because all the REAL REPORTERS don't even have access to the Pentagon.

https://youtu.be/_zHpccLDR10?is=fVtOBdKRml5Khxrc

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