Oct 15, 2023
US Navy/Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Brennen Easter/Handout via REUTERS
- The Pentagon ordered a second US Navy carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean.
- USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and several other vessels will join a group of ships already in the area.
- The US says its force posture is meant to support Israel and prevent the war with Hamas from spreading.
The Pentagon has dispatched a second US Navy carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean in a move that will deliver additional American firepower to the waters near Israel as fears mount that its war with Hamas could worsen and spiral into a regional conflict.
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group is moving into the area “as part of our effort to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas’s attack on Israel,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement on Saturday. The strike group includes the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea, and guided-missile destroyers USS Gravely and USS Mason.
“The increases to US force posture signal the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and our resolve to deter any state or non-state actor seeking to escalate this war,” Austin said.
USS Eisenhower and its accompanying surface ships left the US on Friday as part of a regularly scheduled deployment to participate in exercises in the US European Command (USEUCOM) area of responsibility which, in addition to Europe, includes parts of Asia, the Middle East, and the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.
Washington was reportedly considering sending the Eisenhower’s carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean earlier this week, but no formal decision had been made at that time.
The Eisenhower and its escort ships will join the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, which arrived on Tuesday after it was deployed to the region in response to last weekend’s brutal Hamas terror attacks in Israel. That strike group — a massive display of firepower — includes the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy, and the guided-missile destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, USS Ramage, USS Carney, and USS Roosevelt.
Israel’s war against the Hamas militant group — which has been going for a week now — has spread fears that the bloodshed could expand into a regional conflict and draw in Iran or another one of its proxies, like Lebanon’s Hezbollah (both Hamas and Hezbollah are designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the US State Department). White House and Pentagon officials have said that the movement of carrier strike groups is meant to prevent this from happening.
“The arrival of these highly capable forces to the region is a strong signal of deterrence should any actor hostile to Israel consider trying to take advantage of this situation,” said Gen. Michael Kurilla, the commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), said in a statement this week.
US Navy ships aren’t the only NATO military assets sent out in response to the Israel-Hamas war. The US has augmented existing airpower in the area with additional F-15, F-16 and A-10 aircraft, and Britain deployed several naval ships, surveillance aircraft, and a company of Royal Marines on Thursday to the eastern Mediterranean.
Tensions across the Middle East skyrocketed after the initial Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7, which killed at least 1,300 people — mostly civilians — and injured more than 3,200 others, according to the latest figures. In response to the attacks, Israel immediately began bombing what it has said are Hamas targets across the Gaza Strip, killing over 2,200 people and injuring nearly 9,000, according to the United Nations.
Israel’s military says the relentless aerial campaign — which has resulted in civilian casualties and turned entire neighborhoods to rubble — is a precursor to an imminent ground invasion of the coastal enclave as a means to completely crush Hamas. In preparation for this, the country on Thursday ordered everyone in northern Gaza to evacuate to the south.
UN and human rights organization officials expressed serious alarm and concern over the development and the offensive, urging immediate deescalation to prevent an already dire humanitarian situation from getting worse.
Ukraine gets mostly hand-me-downs as weapons, and this often too little and too late, despite fighting one of this planet’s most powerful militaries. Yet, Israel is getting TWO carrier strike groups, along with other military gear, against a group of mostly lightly-armed goat fuckers.
I’ll leave it up to the reader to make any sense out of Biden’s bizarre circus spectacle.
I’m afraid Biden and the rest of the appeasers are still giving mafia land too much respect. Putler only needs to mention nukes, and the jellyfish begin to wobble, instead of telling Putler we have enough nukes to level your shithole, and we know they work.
Beats me why we never turn the argument of nukes around to remind the rodent of our own arsenals. It’s cowardice in its purest form, I guess.
In my simple mind, this action is bullshit. Recall Bush called in the 7th Fleet when the orcs attacked Georgia. Outcome….squat diddly nothing. I’m personally tired of this chest pounding bullshit. I don’t believe Biden et al have the intestinal fortitude to do anything.
I agree with you. Not a single American warplane will do a single strike against hamas. But, such a show of strength in the Black Sea could’ve averted the grain blockage and maybe even the strikes on Ukrainian ports. Heck, we did diddlysquat after the roaches downed our drone.
So true OFP so true and yet these WH idiots can’t see it.
He didn’t send the 7th fleet. At least not anywhere remotely even near the Black Sea. All he did was strongly condemn and then left it the the EU, who sent Sarkozy. And the rest is history. Shameful history.
I really liked Bush 2 as a person. I was really disappointed on behalf of Saakash and Georgia when he did nothing. Especially as he had cultivated warm relationships with Georgia. He did nice things like donate fleets of police cars; which putinaZi tankers took great pleasure in smashing.
“The George Bush Highway” to Tbilisi airport is still there; a testament to a friendship that turned out to be fair weather only.
Sir Scradgel, it may not have been the seventh fleet but according to Karl Rove, his Chief of staff at the time….
“What the United States did was it sent warships to, to the Black Sea, it took the combat troops that Georgia had in Afghanistan, and airlifted them back, sending a very strong message to Putin that ‘you’re going to be facing combat-trained, combat-experienced Georgian forces.’ And not only that, but the United States government is willing to give logistical support to get them there, and this stopped them.”
Hardly a strong response. Frankly I voted for Bush twice and in retrospect don’t know who else I could have voted for but he was as useless as his two predecessors (Clinton, Bush 1) and everyone who followed.
Not quite the same – Ukraine is being given weapons; Israel is not being *given* those carrier strike groups. They’re being sent into the area, but they’re still US Navy ships.
(I just hope that none of our enemies were paying attention to what Ukraine has been doing to the Russian navy…)
Such a show of strength in the Black Sea would’ve helped.
Under the 1936 Montreux Convention, Turkey has control over warships entering the Turkish straits. And Turkey has closed off access to warships from *any* country.
https://news.usni.org/2022/02/28/turkey-closes-bosphorus-dardanelles-straits-to-warships
I know, but I think that Washington can convince Ankara to allow us to pass through.
Maybe; maybe not. Russia has become Turkey’s number one import partner, and Turkey is making lots of money by getting Russian oil, natural gas and coal cheaply and selling it higher. Saying that they’re neutral and not letting *anyone* through keeps the gravy train chugging along.
(That was me.)