Armada of British Naval Power Massing in the Gulf as Israel Prepares an Iran Strike
September 16th, 2012Via: Telegraph:
Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.
Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world’s petroleum traded by sea.
A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf.
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most congested international waterways. It is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point and is bordered by the Iranian coast to the north and the United Arab Emirates to the south.
In preparation for any pre-emptive or retaliatory action by Iran, warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will today begin an annual 12-day exercise.
The war games are the largest ever undertaken in the region.
They will practise tactics in how to breach an Iranian blockade of the strait and the force will also undertake counter-mining drills.
for a quick scan of news headlines, i like to go to http://deoxy.org/news/
ordering the list of sites by newest first, i saw cryptogon and clicked it, which brought up it’s latest headlines in the adjoining pane to the right. this article was newest. i clicked it and grabbed the gist of the news -huge story. wow.
i backpage back to deoxy to see what AP or yahoo or google news or whomever have to say about this big story. bupkis. nada. zero. zilch.
well, of course.
what was i thinking?
Deoxy is a fun place. Cryptogon has been listed over there for at least eight years, maybe longer.