The USS Dwight D Eisenhower, (CVN 69) and its battle group took over for the USS Nimitz (CVN 68) in the Gulf of Oman. This is a regular rotation, and as such is not indicative of anything new. The swap is not standing alone, however.

The strike force also includes the USS Hue City, a Ticonderoga class cruiser with the Aegis missile system. Part of Obama’s recent Iran surge is to have Aegis systems on patrol at all times. The Iranian’s will not forget that it was a mishandled Aegis system on the USS Vincennes, in 1988 which shot down Iranian Air Flight 655 with 290 souls aboard. Nor will many Americans be oblivious to the irony of the name of the ship, Hue City, after an enormous battle in that city, 50 miles south of the DMZ, early in the 1968 Tet offensive, which, whatever the results of the battle, or the military outcome of the Tet battles, the US lost.

Improved Patriot missiles are being deployed in 4 Persian Gulf countries: Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait. Purely defensive say they, and their American patron. Not so say the Iranians. In fact, from their angle, these are the equivalent of Soviet missiles being parked on Cuba in 1963, and are likely linked to Israeli intentions and US blessings.

According to Debka, the on-line intelligence source, closely linked to Israel’s military, the preparations are to provide defenses against Iranian attacks, following US or Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Another on-line source, News-Armenian, carries a claim from a Turkish site that attack preparations against Iran are underway.

And Avatar? The popular 3-D war movie? [Review] It is making a special showing aboard the Eisenhower, with James Cameron himself, along with some of the stars, making an appearance. I’ll bet the message to the fly-boys of Carrier Air Wing 7 will not be how cool 3-D is.

The message will be hoo rah! Kill! They will be flying sorties over Afghanistan within hours of seeing the film.  They won’t be imagining lithe Na’avi on the ground when they pull the trigger;   below are only terrorists.  They won’t imagine themselves to be Trudy Chacon who turns her attack copter against the big gunship, even if Michelle Rodri guez herself has sent them off with a kiss.  They won’t have huge taloned Toruks but they will have lots of blow up stuff:

* M61 Vulcan 6-barrel rotary cannon with 520 rounds of 20mm ammunition is internally mounted in the nose
AIM-9 Sidewinder
AIM-7F Sparrow
AIM-120 AMRAAM
AGM-65E Maverick
AGM-84 Harpoon
AGM-88A HARM
MK82
10 CBU-87
10 CBU-89
GBU-12
GBU-24
JDAM
B-57 or B-61 Nuclear bomb