British Defence Secretary. Signed the requisition orders that interned American airmen at Lakenheath.
Host nations revoke diplomatic clearance for American tanker sorties at Ramstein and Mildenhall, and close western European airspace to any aircraft staging toward the Arctic.
British sappers cut the barrier interlocks at Gate 2 and 1,150 American airmen are interned in their own base housing. Paris activates Article 42.7. A second Vanguard leaves Faslane in the dark.
I have about $40k in savings. It took eleven years to get there. I am not rich and I cannot afford to be clever. Yesterday the EU froze US government assets. Today my banking app looks exactly the same as it did on Friday. I do not know whe…
Every US tanker track out of Mildenhall and Ramstein has gone dark this morning. Not rerouted. Gone. Host nations have pulled the diplomatic clearances. No tankers means no Atlantic air operations from Europe. That is the whole game.
In coordination with allies, the United Kingdom has suspended diplomatic clearance for US offensive staging and aerial refuelling operations from UK territory. Support for NATO eastern flank rotations continues unaffected.
Note the second sentence. Nobody is thinning the eastern flank to punish Washington. Not one government has been willing to make Moscow the beneficiary of this. That restraint is the most impressive thing anyone has done this month.
They have closed their runways to us. Their runways — which we paid for, which we built, which we have defended since before their parliaments existed in their current form. So we'll fly out of Maine. It's further. It costs more. Every tanker crew in this coun…
People keep saying "the Germans closed the runways" like it is a headline. The man who closed the runway coaches my son's football team on Wednesdays. He came round on Sunday with a cake. He looked absolutely wretched about it. None of this is happening betwee…
The Americans have come into my bakery every Saturday for eleven years. The big one always orders wrong and laughs about it. Today two of them came in and nobody said anything except the order. Eleven years and we could not find a sentence. I gave them the bre…
"We'll fly out of Maine." Sir, I have loaded those aircraft. Flying out of Maine means a tanker crew doing fourteen hour cycles in Arctic weather to put gas in one fighter, every day, forever. They will do it. They will not complain. Somebody should say out lo…
Everyone in Brussels is very brave this week about the Americans leaving. I live four hundred kilometres from Kaliningrad. My yard has cranes and my grandfather had a very different flag over this shipyard. You may all be right about the principle. Please unde…
Marek, from Tartu: yes. Every word. The people posting "good riddance" tonight all live at least a thousand kilometres further west than we do. It is very easy to be principled about a shield when you are standing behind two other people.
I am 47, I work in a dental office, I have never followed foreign news in my life. My son is 19 and enlisted in August. Since Monday everyone keeps saying words like NATO and Article 5 and asset freeze and I nod and then I go and cry in the…
There are army trucks on the Brandon road going up to the base. Lots of them. Somebody at the shop said they have closed the gates from the outside. My kids went to school with their kids. This is not a place where this happens.
Breaking: British forces have requisitioned RAF Lakenheath, Mildenhall and Fairford. Around 1,150 US personnel have been disarmed and confined to base housing. Seventeen US aircraft seized.
The word being used is "internment," and it is the correct one. These are the armed forces of a state now in armed conflict with the host state, on the host state's territory. Eleven days ago they were allies with base passes. The law changed the moment the mi…
They have shut the gates from the outside. Twenty-two years those lads have been in my pub. There is a bloke called Marcus who taught my daughter to throw a football on the green out the back. He is behind a fence this morning and my army put him there. I have…
Everyone in this thread has an opinion about international law and I have an opinion about Marcus, who is 24, from Ohio, and who fixed my generator for free in the storm two winters ago. He is behind a fence this morning. That is all the law I have got in me t…
The Prime Minister to the House of Commons: "American arms have shed British and French blood in an unprovoked, illegal act of war on sovereign allied territory. The alliance that stood for eighty years has been torn apart from Washington. We will defend this …
He is fine. He rang for ninety seconds on a landline and said he is fine and they are being correct with everyone. Our neighbour Sue brought a lasagne round at half seven this morning. She did not say anything about any of it. She just handed me the dish and s…
Le Président active l'article 42.7 du traité sur l'Union européenne. Les intérêts vitaux de la France sont indissociables de l'intégrité du sol européen. President Macron activates Article 42.7 TEU. France's vital interests are inseparable from the integrity o…
This morning the British Army entered three American airbases, cut the gates, disarmed United States airmen and locked one thousand one hundred and fifty of them inside their own housing. — Written statement, the White House
Two independent European nuclear deterrents have just been placed under a single combined wartime command for the first time in their history. A second Vanguard has sailed from Faslane. The French have dispersed nuclear-armed Rafales to secondary runways at fi…
1,150 Americans. Held. By Britain. I have listened to six weeks of lectures about norms from people who are now holding American kids in a fenced housing block. Every single one of you owes this country an apology and none of you will give one.
"There is no war." There has been an armed attack by the forces of one state on the forces of two others, on the sovereign territory of a fourth, with fatalities. The legal threshold was crossed at 02:40 on 9 February and it does not depend on anybody using th…
Eleven hundred and fifty Americans interned by Britain. I want everyone posting "they had it coming" to sit with that number for one minute. Those are 1,150 people who did not vote on any of this, who were sent there, who have kids in Suffolk schools. You can …
Two days ago American forces killed nine French servicemen and captured 154 British and French soldiers on the territory of a third ally. I am genuinely not trying to score a point, because I think you are right that those 1,150 people are innocent. But "held"…
Half of Cork spent tonight explaining to the other half that Ireland is not in NATO and never was. The other half's answer, universally: "and what good is that to us if it kicks off in the Irish Sea?" Nobody had a reply. Least of all me.
My husband is one of the 1,150. You are both right and it does not help me. He is innocent AND it happened second AND he is still behind that fence AND nine French families are burying people. There is no arrangement of those facts that lets anybody win this a…
I will say this once and then I am muting the replies. Do not post guesses about where the boats are. Do not post fishing fleet reports, do not post "my mate at Faslane," do not post sonar hobbyist charts. The entire value of the deterrent is that nobody knows…