Fredster

@todd20006 @CENTCOM They have been killing Americans since day one, and swore death to America for 47 years china.usembassy-china.org.cn/the-iranian-re….

@CENTCOM When was Iran a threat to US soil

For decades, Iranian naval vessels have threatened and harassed global shipping in regional waters, but those days are over.

@RYboating Iran RN

U.S. Unleashes Uncrewed Sea-Drone Speedboats Against Iran — A New Era in Naval Warfare These are cool! They can be used to find mines, submarines and do surveillance/reconnaissance missions. As a person who spent most of her adult life working in the boating/marine industry, I really find this interesting. From the article: The United States has for the first time deployed autonomous, uncrewed drone speedboats in active combat operations against Iran, introducing a low-cost, asymmetric naval capability that officials say has already logged hundreds of hours patrolling key waterways under Operation Epic Fury. “U.S. forces continue to employ unmanned systems in the Middle East region, including surface drone assets like the GARC,” Hawkins told the outlet, adding that the platform has “successfully logged over 450 underway hours and more than 2,200 nautical miles during maritime patrols in support of Operation Epic Fury.” The deployment marks the first acknowledged use of uncrewed surface vessels by the United States in an active conflict, underscoring a broader shift toward autonomous systems designed to operate at a fraction of the cost of traditional naval platforms while expanding surveillance and strike capabilities. The vessels, built by Maryland-based BlackSea Technologies, are designed for intelligence, surveillance, and , but can also support mine countermeasures, communications relay, anti-submarine warfare, and the deployment of aerial and underwater drones. Each craft can reach speeds exceeding 40 knots and carry payloads of up to 1,000 pounds, according to manufacturer specifications, offering a flexible platform capable of supporting a wide range of maritime operations at an estimated cost of roughly $250,000 per vessel — a fraction of the roughly $2 billion price tag of a U.S. Navy destroyer. Officials have not indicated that the drone boats have been used in offensive strike roles, though their design allows for adaptation into expendable, one-way attack systems increasingly seen in modern conflicts. The Navy has maintained a growing unmanned presence in the region for years, including through its Bahrain-based Task Force 59 under the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which focuses on integrating autonomous platforms and artificial intelligence into maritime operations. The use of such systems comes as the United States and its allies confront Iran’s escalating campaign against commercial shipping in and around the Strait of Hormuz, where Tehran has effectively choked off normal traffic through missile attacks, drone strikes, and explicit threats against ships tied to countries it considers aligned with the United States and Israel. While U.S. naval forces have long operated unmanned systems in the region, the GARC deployment marks the first acknowledged use of this class of uncrewed surface vessel in an active conflict. Link to article/video in comments

@kimmagagal2 Ukraine is winning. They hit Russia hard, killed 1.25 million of them.. And they are developing a whole military industry making drones and counter drone tech. And they knocked out about 40% of Russias oil infrastructure.

Hmmm...I have questions

@goji175 @disparutoo Ferrell is 57. He is GenX.

@disparutoo Being Gen X and my interactions with family it really seems the "Boomer" generation are perhaps the single most greedy and destructive one,they literally do not care how broken things are they will fight to the death to keep it going and fuck later generations.

The boomer attitude that resulted in hating your own kids is bizarre. Gone are the days of wanting to leave the world in a better place than you found it so that your kids live a better life than you did. If you can't comprehend anything except yourself, why would you care.

@disparutoo Ferrell isn't a boomer. He is GenX

@nobleisawinner Not one damn bit, not for a single minute.

Real thoughts 💭 If you're white, have you ever suffered from white guilt even a little? 🤔

3 weeks ago I argued the US goal in Iran is to seize the global oil spigot. Venezuela in January -> Iran in February. Neutralize every supply channel outside the dollar system within 90 days. Achieve a compliant successor government and complete energy dominance. The oil thesis was the obvious layer. However, when you zoom out & view the last four years as a single sequence rather than isolated geopolitical events, the architecture of the grander US plan becomes visible. 1st was Europe, which laid the groundwork. The Ukraine conflict provided the justification for sanctions that collapsed Russian pipeline gas from 150 billion cubic meters to 40. Then Nordstream was destroyed, which rewired the entire European energy system permanently. The US went from supplying 28% of Europe's LNG in 2021 to 58% by 2025, exporting a record 111 million MTs, the 1st country in history to break 100 MT. Europe was transformed from a customer with options into a captive market now purchasing its survival in USD. 2nd was Syria. The fall of Assad severed the critical node connecting China's Belt & Road Initiative to the Mediterranean. The trilateral railway linking Iran, Iraq & Syria, designed to bypass Western maritime chokepoints, was completely destroyed. This isolated Iran geographically & cleared the path for what came next. 3rd was Venezuela. In January the US effectively took control of the world's largest heavy crude reserves. The US Gulf Coast has the most advanced refining complex on earth, specifically built for heavy sour crude. Phillips 66, Valero & the rest are now positioned to process hundreds of thousands of barrels of Venezuelan crude daily. The US captured a massive strategic reserve & solidified its position as the dominant exporter of refined petroleum products, an industry worth $110 billion in 2025 alone. Venezuela & Iran were the two major oil supply channels that existed outside the dollar system. Both produce heavy crude sold primarily to China & evaded US financial supervision. Both now being neutralized within 90 days, which leads us to.. 4th is Iran & the Middle East energy shock. Israel struck Iran's South Pars gas field, the world's largest natural gas reservoir. Iran retaliated against Qatar's Ras Laffan, the single largest LNG facility on earth, responsible for a fifth of global supply. QatarEnergy's own assessment is that 17% of export capacity is gone and recovery will take up to 5 years. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. European gas prices spiked 70%. Asian spot prices doubled. The only remaining scaled supplier? The United States. If Iran falls & a successor government is installed that the US controls or influences (the Delcy model described weeks ago) then roughly 40 to 45 million barrels per day of global production out of 103 million is effectively under US control. OPEC becomes irrelevant because the US coalition is now the marginal producer. Now add the gas dimension & it goes beyond oil. This war is solidifying the petrodollar system as it evolves into a hybrid petro/LNG-dollar. The old system was built on Saudi crude priced in USD. The new system is built on American crude plus American gas from the Gulf Coast, with no alternative supplier of comparable scale. The dependency is deeper because LNG infrastructure requires long term contracts & regasification terminals that lock buyers into supply relationships for decades. Europe & the Pacific allies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.) cannot pivot away as there is nowhere left to pivot to. They're now locked into the US energy system. The market confirms this. DXY went from 96 to 101. Gold down ~20% from its January all time high. Bitcoin down 20% on the year. Brent above $100. European & Asian institutions are liquidating precious metals and crypto to buy dollars because they need dollars to buy the only remaining scaled energy supply. The world is selling its gold to buy American energy in American currency. The dollar is now being weaponized through energy dependency. The structural repricing is happening regardless of how the conflict resolves. But the US grand strategy goes deeper.. Artificial intelligence is a physical industry. It runs on power and chips. Data centers require massive uninterrupted baseload electricity, primarily provided by natural gas. Semiconductor fabrication requires helium & rare earths. By choking the Strait of Hormuz & crippling Middle Eastern LNG & helium production, the US is systematically degrading China's ability to power its data centers & fabricate semiconductors at scale. The US is energy self sufficient, especially with newly captured Venezuelan reserves & expanding Gulf Coast capacity running on domestic gas. On the other hand, China is import dependent & every joule it imports effectively now transits chokepoints the US Navy controls.. Iran was the Belt & Road's overland energy bypass, the corridor that allowed China to mitigate the Malacca Trap. With Iran neutralized that corridor is severed. China faces a world where its compute infrastructure competes for scraps on a depleted global LNG market, while American data centers run at full capacity on domestic energy. Russia is next in the sequence. A post-war Iran reopening under US influence competes directly with Russia for the same refineries in China & India at lower cost. Iran's production costs are lower. Russia loses its last structural advantage in heavy crude & its economic lifeline. Additionally, under the Iran war cover, Ukraine has been opportunistically destroying Russian energy infrastructure & all signs point towards Russia being at the end of the line. The message from Washington becomes very simple: we dismantled two regimes in three months, your economy is about to get crushed, sign the Ukraine deal. Then Trump sits down with Xi holding every card. Complete energy dominance. The hybrid petro/LNG-dollar fortified, Iran cleared, Russia cornered, & China facing the Malacca Trap fully closed with no remaining energy bypass. Israel & the GCC are absorbing the kinetic cost of a conflict whose primary beneficiary, counter to the mainstream narrative, is actually America (First). Qatar offline for 5 years reprices the entire global gas market in favor of US exporters for the remainder of the decade. The Gulf states face years of rebuilding. Europe faces its 2nd energy crisis in four years. Sure, the average American might face temporary moderate inflation & higher gas prices. But if you are the architect of the US empire & you view the rise of China & Chinese ASI as an existential winner takes all scenario, the collateral damage is acceptable cost. Whoever controls the energy corridors controls the monetary system. Whoever controls the monetary system & the energy supply simultaneously controls the compute infrastructure that determines which civilization builds ASI first. The US is seizing all 3.

@tweettruth2me Why? Where are you getting that bulkshit from? Who is going to drop the bomb? Guaranteed it won't be Iran.

We are closer to a nuclear war today than we were before we bombed Iran.

@_HenryBolton Things the UK needs from the US: protect it from invasion and buy 22% of it's exports Things the US needs from the UK:

Let me put this very simply. The UK does not have a system to defend its cities from ballistic missile attack. We rely on the United States under a NATO framework. That is the reality.

@klara_sjo "This is my still, keep off the grass"

Can anyone speak drunk redneck? I need a translation.

@TiffanyFong Oddly they found these men had wallets as fat as their bellies in that study.

@SpaceLordMoFx @janninereid1 Thats the skin the plastic "surgeon" uses to make women into trans men in their "bottom" surgery phase.

@asteroidsfred @janninereid1 Honest question: what happened here?

Guys? 🤔

@jondelarroz It has a second season so it wasn't stopped hard enough IMO

Did we really kill Starfleet Academy? Good job, chuds.

@FreckledLiberty Main character syndrome personified

then she’d complain about being objectified.

@LangmanVince Women have a long , long history of doing that. x.com/i/status/18711…

Why do women keep degrading themselves on stage like this?

@ThrillaRilla369 You won't know until afterward.

Even if an intruder is unarmed, should you still be allowed to shoot them for breaking into your house?..

@FakeFollower247 @janninereid1 The parent that said that

@asteroidsfred @janninereid1

@TrumpsHurricane Canada? This racist prick! What's wrong with Mexico? It is a socialist country. It has free speech. Free Education, free Healthcare!

This Liberal man says he has left America and moved to Canada because of President Trump What is your advice to him ??

@defense_civil25 Darwin award winner for the year

🚨Update: Officer Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who fatally shot Antifa terrorist Renee Good in Minneapolis Minnesota after she hit him with her car, will NOT face charges for his self defense action! 🇺🇸

@Richie_Jackson I think everyone is over all the bullshit "stunning and brave" posts about what people do in their bedrooms in 2026 Nobody cares anymore even of you wear a badge on your sleeve

Being gay takes fortitude and true grit, and in order to have these superpowers, you have to embrace the marvel that you are. GAY LIKE ME is a celebration of gay identity, and a powerful warning for gay men and the world.