Special - Iran War: U.S. Jets Down, Gulf Oil Targeted, Lebanon Combat (Preview)

You're listening to American Prestige, to listen ad-free, you can subscribe at AmericanPrestigePod.com.

Find the link in our show notes.

Unfortunately, we had actually planned to take the day off, but things are proceeding even quicker than we had feared.

Derek, let's start with the planes that have been shot down over Kuwait,

which I think give an indication about the United States and its war-fighting capabilities at least at the moment.

Yeah, or something else.

This is a very strange story.

Like, three F-15s were shot down over Kuwait, supposedly mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defense batteries.

None of the crew were apparently injured or killed, I should say,

the sent comms says all six of them, because F-15s are two-seaters, all six of them were able to eject and came down safely.

They've been recovered, they're in stable condition, is the statement from sent comm.

The Kuwaitis have acknowledged that it was their fault for shooting them down or that their air batteries were responsible for shooting them down, supposedly, again, according to sent comm.

It's just a very strange incident.

I mean, for one, U.S. aircraft to be shot down by Allied air defenses.

I mean, admittedly, there's somewhat chaotic.

The Iranians are firing missiles. Everybody's on alert. Everybody's on edge.

There is a war going on. I get all of that.

For one U.S. F-15 to be shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses, which were U.S. made almost certainly.

I don't know the exact, they were probably patriots. I don't know anything else that the Kuwaitis would have that would be able to shoot down in F-15.

So for that to happen one time would be somewhat surprising, though not completely out of the question.

For it to happen three times in a day, something is wrong here.

Something's either wrong with the Kuwaiti systems. If we want to take everything at face value, something's wrong with their radar systems or their air defense systems.

Something's wrong with the operators that they're making this kind of error repeatedly.

Or this is something else. And I don't want to get deep into a rabbit hole here trying to figure out what else it could be.

I mean, the obvious thing is they were shot down by the Iranians.

But it's just something that needs to be investigated about this. This is a deeply strange thing.

It feels like a lie to have it happen.

It does kind of feel like a lie.

Yeah, it does kind of feel like something you would say to cover up something else.

It feels like a lie.

But you know, I don't have any evidence of that. It's just a very strange, strange thing.

It doesn't rest well with me.

Yeah, it doesn't indicate anything positive about the US capacity to wage this war.

I mean, even the story that we're going with on face value suggests that there's been some deep degradation of air defenses in the region.

Not that they were, you know, doing so well in the first place given that the Iranians have been able to hit targets all over the GCC states over the last three days.

But man, I mean, yeah, something if this is what actually happened, something is seriously wrong with these systems.

That's a good transition into the state of the air war.

I know Israel has claimed that it essentially controls the air.

I believe over to Ron.

Iran has certainly sent ballistic missiles to Israel.

And it seems from what I gather that it's unclear the exact amount of damage that has been done to Israel.

But, Derek, what do we know in terms of confirmed reports about the state of the air war, the damage done, all that stuff?

I mean, US and Israel have killed over 550 people.