Mastodawn

"...NPR has learned that hundreds of sailors were evacuated back to the United States from their base in Bahrain after the base was attacked by Iranian missiles and drones. In addition to the base in Bahrain, NPR has learned that there have been evacuations at other U.S. military bases in the region, though the exact details are unknown at this point..... Around 8,000 people were stationed at the base in Bahrain before the U.S. attacked Iran on Feb. 28....Sailors have been arriving in Norfolk, Va., home to the world's biggest naval base, since at least the middle of March. Several groups that provide aid to military personnel say that the sailors arrived with very little. A call went out to community groups, asking for basic supplies like hygiene products.

"The base was asking for donations of toiletries and different things for the sailors coming back, because they were coming back with nothing,""

https://www.npr.org/2026/04/03/nx-s1-5770491/evacuation-bahrain-norfolk-troops

#Iran #War #Bahrain #military

JustaJason 🦜Apr 4

@ai6yr i'm so tired of this.

AI6YR Ben Apr 4

@JustaJason007 So much winning

JustaJason 🦜Apr 4

@ai6yr AdNauseam

Ash-Miw-Re Apr 4

@ai6yr Not only chased halfway back around the world, but can't even resupply from the government's own resources. This is humiliating, and for nothing but a sick, stupid old man's ego.

Neil E. Hodges Apr 4

@ai6yr The US is a state that's failed so hard it's also failing its pride and joy: the military. :/

BakersRelay Apr 4

@ai6yr Have been watching this story. Bahrain wasn’t the only base with personnel evacuated under emergency circumstances…

From Robin with Love Apr 5

@BakerRL75 @ai6yr Sure is a challenge to dig out what’s really going on over there. I’m using about 10 different sources (and trying to vet for accuracy on each one).

Jeri Dansky Apr 5

@firefly @BakerRL75 @ai6yr And it's tragic that perhaps the least reliable source is the US government.

From Robin with Love Apr 5

@jeridansky @BakerRL75 @ai6yr
I trust them the least now.

@ai6yr So the US Military attitude really IS "No one would actually dare to attack us or shoot at our planes, so we don't need to really do anything of real meaning to prepare."

The entire Cold War was nothing but a Festival of Hollow Arrogance, but that only works against other superpowers.

BakersRelay Apr 4

@W6KME @ai6yr Vainglorious and ignorant leadership ahead of one of the largest military complexes in the world. Nothing to see here…

Dan KB6NU 🇺🇦Apr 4

@ai6yr The Trump administration's level of incompetence is just mind-blowing.

Brian Gordon Apr 5

I thought the US military took care of its own? This is like Russian families having to buy their son's gear.

"The base was asking for donations of toiletries and different things for the sailors coming back, because they were coming back with nothing,""

Magnus Ahltorp Apr 5

@elasticsoul @ai6yr It has been quite apparent for a while that the US likes to parade its veterans, but throw them to the curb in-between parades. So why not with active military personnel?

Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈Apr 5

@ai6yr sounds like Dunkirk...

@ai6yr Doesn't the US military have a fucking commissary system? Don't they have a huge, goddamned unauditable budget? Does the base contribute into those community groups when they have surplus?

Magnus Ahltorp Apr 5

@log @ai6yr Maybe it is *because* the budget is not audited? Audits tend to find bad practices.

@ahltorp @ai6yr The bad practice is right out there in the open. The budget goes to the contractor companies and privileged Beltway Barons of the military-industrial-congressional complex. None of that cash will ever do any good for the people of this planet, and is used almost exclusively to provide lives of ease and comfort to amoral assholes who make machines to be pointed at the brown people of distant lands. Fueled by oil. An audit would reveal how little of it goes to *actual defense*.

Magnus Ahltorp Apr 5

@log @ai6yr Yes, I agree, and I should have been clearer. What I meant by "bad practices" was from an internal logic sense.

@ahltorp @ai6yr Like how they pay the enlisted soldiers so little that their families have to shop at the subsidized commissary system in order to not go hungry? The folks that have to actually service and operate all those millions of dollars worth of materiel?

George Dinwiddie Apr 5

@ai6yr largest most well funded military in the world and the public is being asked to crowdfund basic necessities? SMH.

Stephen Bannasch (316 ppm)Apr 5

There’s this report from The New Republic dated March 26:

"Iran’s retaliatory strikes have rendered many of America’s 13 military bases in the Gulf region “all but uninhabitable,” forcing U.S. military service members to work remotely from hotels and office spaces, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Within the first two weeks of the war, Iran’s attacks on U.S. military bases caused an estimated $800 million in damage …”

https://newrepublic.com/post/208211/us-troops-abandon-military-bases-persian-gulf-kuwait-iran-strikes?utm_source

U.S. Troops Abandon Military Bases Amid Iran Strikes

Service members have been forced to work remotely.

The New Republic

AI6YR Ben Apr 5

@stepheneb 😬yikes

so considering that we aren't dealing with a "rational actor" here....

*He just replaced multiple top generals with more sycophants.
*Lots of "god talk".
*Lots of "armageddon" talk.
*russians evacuating Iran
*war in a stalemate with no end in sight and phenomenal pressure to resolve asap.
*ground war a non-starter.

what to do?

I feel he is prepping for a nuclear strike on Iran. and, as with Hiroshima, it will be justified by "saving american lives from a protracted costly invasion."

Dark Phoenix 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇬🇱🇵🇦🇵🇸🏳️‍🌈Apr 5

@kitkat_blue @ai6yr FUCK

@kitkat_blue @ai6yr

And what will the United Nations do about that?

Anything?

Mason Loring Bliss Apr 5

@kitkat_blue @ai6yr We can't let that happen.

Wulfy—Speaker to the machines Apr 5

@ai6yr @kitkat_blue

If there is a nuke on Iran
I suspect Russian will deliver a couple to drop on Israel.

KanaMauna Apr 5

I know Trump and company are complete idiots for starting this war, but Iran just didn’t beam down to the planet surface. We’ve had a very long time to think about this event. What the hell has the military been doing in the region for the past 40+ years?

7leaguebootdisk𓅽 Apr 5

@KanaMauna @ai6yr Not provoking Iran too far. Certainly we were unhappy with Iran, there was the Iran/Iraq war, Soviets in Afghanistan, Iraq invading Kuwait, and that just gets us though 1990 or so.

KanaMauna Apr 5

@7leaguebootdisk @ai6yr

True. It just seems like if you’re gonna have a war in that neighborhood every decade or so maybe, just maybe, you harden your bases a little bit.

Orrock LXXXVI XLVII Apr 5

@KanaMauna @7leaguebootdisk @ai6yr See #julianKtrescott

Magnus Ahltorp Apr 5

@KanaMauna @ai6yr The American military payed good money in the ’50s and ’60s to be able to read Russian *cleartext*, by funding research in machine translation.

Instead of, you know, having personell learn Russian.

The treatment of Arabic and Pashto translators and interpreters has been really bad.

The cultural incuriosity is systemic.

Starraven Apr 5

"Best military" can't supply soldiers with soap and toothpaste. Hilarious.

salguod, man 🍂🍁 lazysupper Apr 5

@ai6yr So they... ran away?

Mary Margaret 🇨🇦🌈🇺🇦 ☮️ 🍸Apr 5

The US can't afford hygiene products for the navy??????

Michael Wyman Apr 5

@Babcia54 @ai6yr @samiamsam something something should be left up to the states because we’re busy fighting a war argle bargle

eswillwalker Apr 5

@Babcia54 @ai6yr Reflects complete lack of planning. Trump has no idea what his “poke with a stick” will do because he can’t imagine others’ mind and he won’t listen to those who can.

Paul Chambers🚧Apr 5

@ai6yr Begging for shit paper. SMDH

It's Trump's version of the Fall of Saigon... Only there are multiple bases in multiple countries... All to change the news cycle from Epstein and fulfill some kind of Holy War fever dream of his evangelical right supporters, donors, industrial war machine, far-right Israelis, Project 2025 folks, and Lady G.

Soon, We will have Trump's version of the Bay of Pigs when he goes for Cuba. No one can tell me that for the last 60 years or so that Cuba hasn't been preparing for that again... even if it is rudimentary, old warfare tactics and weapons...

David. Don't be fooled by imitators 🇨🇦Apr 5

@[email protected] I read else where this is also happening. There are troops headed for the middle east. https://mstdn.ca/@[email protected]/116347401962386871

David. Don't be fooled by imitators 🇨🇦Apr 5

@[email protected] Oh I forgot, after reading the article it kinda made sense. I don't know what the population of the Virginia base is but it just increased several thousand. They were probably caught unprepared and reached out to the local communities.

Chris Moorehead 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇬🇱Apr 5

@ai6yr So what’s it like to discover, after spending more on your war machine in the past 50 years than the next 20 countries in the world combined, that this war machine is in fact absolute garbage and can’t fight its way out of a wet paper bag? #USpol

Orrock LXXXVI XLVII Apr 5

@ai6yr Maybe send them to an ICE detention center?

Pete's Mom 🍉 🇺🇦 ☮️Apr 5

@ai6yr
Wow. Abondoning bases and sending soldiers onto the streets to beg for their basics.
The Republican Party / GOP / MAGA support our troops like they support children - especially pre-pubescent children who are girls.
And alot of these same soldiers fucking consistently can be counted on to majority vote for these 🫏🤠🤠🤠
🤦‍♀️

Grumble 🇺🇸 🇺🇦 🇬🇱Apr 5

@ai6yr As a former sailor, I have to wonder what these folks were doing in Bahrain that, now that we're in a shooting war, is no longer needed?

I mean, at some point, it was very important to the Navy that 8000 sailors should go to Bahrain to do X. But now that there's a war in Bahrain, those 8000 people must flee to Norfolk (which is an awful base, and I feel bad for them and anyone else stationed in that East Coast ass crack).

Maybe they were counting the ships that transited the Straights of Hormuz?

me_valentijn Apr 5

@grumble209 @ai6yr
Getting out of the way in anticipation of Israel nuking everything they can reach?

Serge 🔻Apr 5

@ai6yr the most expensive military in the world is incapable of supplying toothpaste to its own soldiers. Goes to show how most expensive isn’t synonymous with best.

Matt Hall Apr 5

I have _never_ understood stories like this.

The fucking BX/PX is _stocked_ give them vouchers or better yet go get the shit they need and give it to them.

As the organization responsible for their health and safety... Fucking act in the interests of their health and safety.

TC Won't Give In To Lies Apr 5

This is what real journalism looks like. Well done, #NPR

Most media takes the easy route and just pushes out a story on what "Trump said". Doing little more that gov propaganda.

#MediaMustDoBetter

AI6YR Ben Apr 5

@TCatInReality Oh yeah, the number of "T***p says" articles with no background and no actual reporting is TERRIBLE.

Phil Thane ✅Apr 5

@ai6yr 'Home of the brave'? Start a war thousands of miles away for no clear reason, then run away. Well done USA.