Through the Thin Words, 29th Day of Summer, 525 M.E. (Atlas): So now I'm apparently liveblogging the end of the world. Was that old expression, "That's the end-of-the-world news" or "That's the end of the World News?" Our father who art not in heaven. . . 

"Iran Fires Missiles at U.S. Base in Qatar" in retaliation for Trumps' bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities,  the Times reports. "Al Udeid Air Base, the largest American military installation in the Middle East," they tell us, "was the target of the strike. Qatar said its air defense systems intercepted the missiles. There were no reports of injuries." 

Of all the conspiracy theories I've seen of the internet about the U.S./Iran conflict, the one that seemed most far-fetched at first but is now sounding more and more plausible is that this whole thing was jointly staged by the U.S. and Iran, military theater for the mutual political benefit of both sides. 

Were the Iranians told in advance that the bombs were coming and given the time to remove their enriched uranium?  

According to Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), as unreliable a witness as any, U.S. intelligence has found that Iran did not move nuclear material from the Fordo site ahead of the attack. However, Israel, an equally unreliable source, says Iran did indeed move uranium stockpile before the strikes. The Economic Times reports that Iran claims it secretly moved 400 kilograms of enriched uranium to an undisclosed location before the attack, and some reporting claims "unusual activity" and trucks lined up at Fordo prior to the attack. We may not know the truth for some time.

But now I'm hearing that satellite images of the Al Udeid Air Base taken this morning shows it was nearly empty of aircraft immediately ahead of the Iranian missile attack. However, the images showed dozens of aircraft at the base through early June, before Israel began its bombing campaign against Iran on June 13. And now we learn that Iran gave the U.S. notice prior to attacking the airbase, and Trump publicly thanked Iran thanked for giving advanced notice, adding, “I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done. Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE.”

So we may have told Iran that we were going to make a show of bombing their facilities, giving them time to prepare, and they gave us notice they were going to "retaliate," giving us time to more planes and get the Qatari air defense ready. Nothing suspicious in any of that, right?