Strait versus straight.

Strait: passage, channel, canal.
Straight: not curved, as in a straight trigger, and too many other definitions to list, but not the “Straight” of Hormuz.

Not directed at anyone in particular. I have seen the confusion many times here and elsewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

Strait versus straight.

Is the Strait of Hormuz curved?

^^^^^^
Dire straits in any case.
Especially when the sultans swing up there.

Awesome Straits of Hormuz word play trolling at last weekend's No Kings rally

https://x.com/Sassafrass_84/st...390972522414211?s=20

Yeah, the young cell phone addicted generation; They know everything until they don't!

If you believe that military action should be initiated only when an “imminent” threat exists, what would constitute such a threat? When would it be appropriate to initiate military action against a country like Iran?

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
If you believe that military action should be initiated only when an “imminent” threat exists, what would constitute such a threat? When would it be appropriate to initiate military action against a country like Iran?

This is the Iraqi WMD argument all over again. This is the Vietnam war argument all over again.

Fool me once, shame on you....

quote:

Originally posted by 2BobTanner:
The Senate et al would squawk if the US withdrew completely from NATO. But Trump as CinC of the US military could order home all the troops and yet still maintain membership in the Atlantic Council (the political side of NATO).

This is what DeGaulle did in 1966, which forced NATO to move HQ from Paris to Brussels. DeGaulle cited political independence and national security as his reasons for the “finger”.

You do realize that then Senator Marco Rubio co-sponsored a bill in 2023 that says 2/3 of the Senate must agree to the withdrawal?

“No U.S. President should be able to withdraw from NATO without Senate approval." - Rubio

We'll see if he stays true to his word or flip flops like with everything else.

quote:

Originally posted by AirmanJeff:

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
If you believe that military action should be initiated only when an “imminent” threat exists, what would constitute such a threat? When would it be appropriate to initiate military action against a country like Iran?

This is the Iraqi WMD argument all over again. This is the Vietnam war argument all over again.

Fool me once, shame on you....

He asked specific questions, which you failed to answer. The question is not whether Iran represents an imminent threat.

quote:

Originally posted by AirmanJeff:
This is the Iraqi WMD argument all over again. This is the Vietnam war argument all over again.

No, it is not non-existent, never-was and never-will-be Iraqi WMD, and it is not false Domino Theory.

We are talking about a nation which openly vows to destroy the state of Israel and confesses- brags, even- to having enough material to make nearly a dozen nuclear bombs, and which has been working on ICBM technology and has made significant strides in that direction. Left unchecked, Iran would eventually have nuclear-armed missiles capable of reaching Israel and much or all of Europe, and they would use these weapons against Israel the first chance they got, because they are religious fanatics who think nuclear war would lead them to paradise.

Though Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons, they certainly do possess such. Best estimates are somewhere between 80 to 400, and they have the capability to deliver these weapons via air or sea, in their Dolphin class subs, and once struck, Israel would retaliate with such force as to cause the deaths of millions of Iraqis, and then, all bets are off. The United States would be forced to become involved, and if Russia or China ally with Iran, the potential for global catastrophe becomes very real.

Forgive me for saying so, but anyone- and that includes members of this forum- who cannot see that President Trump's decisive actions against Iran are an absolute necessity, is stone blind. This is an investment in the future safety of not just the United States, and not just Israel, but the entire world. Open your eyes and try to imagine the devastating cascade of events which would alter our lives for the worse and forever, if Iran is not stopped. The Iranian regime is insane and they must be stopped. It's up to the United States and Israel. No one else has the capability, the courage, the foresight and the will to accomplish the task.

It is as simple as that.

quote:

Originally posted by AirmanJeff:
This is the Iraqi WMD argument all over again.

Not trying to start an argument, but I have an acquaintance, a Marine who served in the Second Gulf War, who suffers from sarin gas exposure that occured in Iraq. His team was investigating a bombed out Iraqi ammo dump.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

Forgive me for saying so, but anyone- and that includes members of this forum- who cannot see that President Trump's decisive actions against Iran are an absolute necessity, is stone blind. This is an investment in the future safety of not just the United States, and not just Israel, but the entire world. Open your eyes and try to imagine the devastating cascade of events which would alter our lives for the worse and forever, if Iran is not stopped. The Iranian regime is insane and they must be stopped. It's up to the United States and Israel. No one else has the capability, the courage, the foresight and the will to accomplish the task.

It is as simple as that.

Thank you for concisely stating what I wanted to post. And to add, this action should have happened years ago.

To my mind, any leader of any nation or any nations government that publicly states "death to America" or calls for Americans to die and actively pursues nuclear weapons and their delivery systems warrants an immediate military response to end those threats.
What is happening in Iran is long overdue.

quote:

Strait versus straight.

We need to use ordinance to reign them in.

As for the so-called parallels to Iraq and WMDs, there are none. Hussein denied he had them. UN inspectors couldn't find them. What happened to him reminds me of the unfortunate Mr. Kinney.



Iran is known to be enriching uranium to weapons-grade, beyond that which is needed for simple nuclear fuel. They openly brag about it. Contrary to their denials, they do (now did) have long-range missiles. There is no intention to take over and occupy Iran. All that is needed is to destroy, or at least delay for a few decades, their ability to manufacture and deliver a nuclear weapon.

Everything that guy (who is not a moderator) said, is exactly how I feel. (clicky thingy)

100%, dead on, balls accurate.

And I have history and knowledge.

This is worth the time it takes to read.

https://x.com/DrJStrategy/status/2040029898295632377

Trump, Hormuz and the End of the Free Ride

For half a century, Western strategists have known that the Strait of Hormuz is the acute point where energy, sea power and political will intersect. That knowledge is not in dispute. What is new in this war with Iran is that the United States, under Donald Trump, has chosen not to rush to “solve” the problem. In Hegelian terms, he is refusing an easy synthesis in order to force the underlying contradiction to the surface.

The old thesis was simple: the US guarantees open sea lanes in the Gulf, and everyone else structures their economies and politics around that free insurance. Europe and the UK embraced ambitious green policies, ran down hard‑power capabilities and lectured Washington on multilateral virtue, secure in the assumption that American carriers would always appear off Hormuz. The political class behaved as if the American security guarantee were a law of nature, not a contingent choice. Their conduct today is closer to Chamberlain than Churchill: temporising, issuing statements, hoping the storm will pass without a fundamental reordering of their responsibilities.

Trump’s antithesis is to withhold the automatic guarantee at the moment of maximum stress. Militarily, the US can break Iran’s residual ability to contest the Strait; that is not the binding constraint. The point is to delay that act. By allowing a closure or semi‑closure to bite, Trump ensures that the immediate pain is concentrated in exactly the jurisdictions that have most conspicuously free‑ridden on US power: the EU and the UK. Their industries, consumers and energy‑transition assumptions are exposed.

In that context, his reported blunt message to European and British leaders, you need the oil out of the Strait more than we do; why don’t you go and take it? Is not a throwaway line. It is the verbalisation of the antithesis. It openly reverses the traditional presumption that America will carry the burden while its allies emote from the sidelines.

In this dialectic, the prize is not simply the reopening of a chokepoint. The prize is a reordered system in which the United States effectively arbitrages and controls the global flow of oil. A world in which US‑aligned production in the Americas plus a discretionary capability to secure, or not secure, Hormuz places Washington at the centre of the hydrocarbon chessboard. For that strategic end, a rapid restoration of the old status quo would be counterproductive.

A quick, surgical “fix” of Hormuz would short‑circuit the dialectic. If Trump rapidly crushed Iran’s remaining coastal capabilities, swept the mines and escorted tankers back through the Strait, Europe and the UK would heave a sigh of relief and return to business as usual: underfunded militaries, maximalist green posturing and performative disdain for US power, all underwritten by that same power. The contradiction between their dependence and their posture would remain latent.

By declining to supply the synthesis on demand, and by explicitly telling London and Brussels to “go and take it” themselves, Trump forces a reckoning. European and British leaders must confront the fact that their energy systems, their industrial bases and their geopolitical sermons all rest on an American hard‑power foundation they neither finance nor politically respect. The longer the contradiction is allowed to unfold, the stronger the eventual synthesis can be: a new order in which access to secure flows, Hormuz, Venezuela and beyond, is explicitly conditional on real contributions, not assumed as a right.

In that sense, the delay in “taking” the Strait, and the challenge issued to US allies to do it themselves, is not indecision. It is the negative moment Hegel insisted was necessary for history to move. Only by withholding the old guarantee, and by saying so out loud to those who depended on it, can Trump hope to end the free ride.

F-15E down over Iran.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-u...l-gas-strait-hormuz/

After all the missions that have been run, hard to believe this may be the first CSAR. Area of attention is around the border region with Kuwait/Iraq.
Prayers out

https://x.com/sentdefender/sta...039337102807108?s=46



https://x.com/osinttechnical/s...059365189722249?s=46

Hoping it's fake news.

99% of the people talking about the Strait of Hormuz couldn't spell Strait of Hormuz a month ago. I spelled it Homez and I can spell Mackinac/Mackinaw and know the difference between the City/Island/Bridge/Strait. The one time it was on Jeopardy!, it was a Daily Double and the contest got it wrong.