Image is of destruction and damage inside Israel, sourced from this article.
Iran and Israel have struck each other many times over the last few days. There has been a general focus on military facilities and headquarters by both sides, though Israel has also struck oil facilities, civilian structures and hospitals, and in return for this, Iran has struck major scientific centers and the Haifa oil facilities.
Israel appears to have three main aims. First, to collapse the Iranian state, either through shock and breakdown by killing enough senior officials, or via some sort of internal military coup. Second, to try and destroy Iranian nuclear sites and underground missile cities, or at least to paralyze them long enough to achieve the first and third goals. And third, to bring the US into a direct conflict with Iran. This is because the US better equipped to fight them than Israel is (though victory would still not be guaranteed depending on what Iran chooses to do).
Iranian nuclear facilities are hidden deep underground (800 meters), far beyond the depth range of even the most powerful bunker busters (~70 meters or so), and built such that the visible ground entrances are horizontally far away in an unknown direction from the actual underground chambers. Only an extremely competent full-scale American bombing force all simultaneously using multiple of the most powerful conventional (perhaps even nuclear) bunker busters could even hypothetically hope to breach them (and we have seen how, in practice, American bunker busters have largely failed to impair or deter Ansarallah). There are several analysts on both sides who have concluded that it is entirely impossible to physically prevent Iran from building nukes.
I fully expect the US to join the war. I believe the current ambiguity is a deliberate invention of the US while they work to move their military assets into position, and as soon as they are ready, the US will start bombing Iran. After that, Iran’s leadership must - if they haven’t already - harden their hearts, and strike back with no fear, or risk following the path of Libya, Syria, and Iraq, either into either surrender, occupation, or annihilation. Every day where they do not possess a nuke is a day where lives are being lost and cities are being bombed.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Okay fair enough but look where the socialism in one country shit got the USSR, and where it will get China when it’s wondering why their strategy of letting the US go super saiyan just out of frame hasn’t magically returned Taiwan.
Surely if China wants to play the “we just want peace and dont want to get dragged into anything” strategy they’d not have half a dozen contested borders over uninhabited mountain ranges, let alone the glorified US naval base that is Taiwan
I also feel many times frustrated with the way China chooses to conduct itself, and that it could lead to its own demise. I have two criticisms: Sometimes I feel (also for myself) that part of the western left, in order to overcome emotionally how bad things are for the left at home, use the CPC as psychotherapy, projecting to it expectations and hopes that are unreasonable. China is not going to save us from the upcoming fascism at home, regardless. This is on us. Secondly, I doubt that the government of China is completely blind to something we can see as possibilities. I think the Chinese also understand that the trajectory of the USA leads to a hot war with China. Maybe they are preparing in a way they see fit. Maybe they have wishful thinking that it can be avoided. History will judge the CPC with how their fight against fascism goes, but for now it’s still ongoing.
Heard this a million times, “just trust those on the ground they know what they’re doing”. Turns out they didn’t know and they sat around getting picked off and lost and I was right the whole time. What’s the point of analyzing anything if we instead just throw out our analysis for “just have faith in those in the struggle”. I don’t have faith. I have rational cause-and-effect analysis that they should have too, but for some reason, they never act on.
The news mega in Hexbear is not going to persuade Xi Jinping to change his course of action no matter how many times we complain. As I said I also get frustrated with China sometimes, and I express it but from a point onward this becomes counterproductive. I am not saying to have faith. I am saying we should do what we can, with what resources we have, to push things to the direction we think is best (and I am saying the Chinese are probably doing the same). This doesn’t mean that we should not be critical of the CPC or that we should not try to work with comrades around the world (and in China) and cooperate. But I think dooming about an ongoing struggle to this degree is counter-productive.
Well not with that attitude. I imbue every
I post with psychic energy directed straight at Zhongnanhai
China has peacefully solved the vast majority of border and maritime disputes it found itself with at the establishment of the PRC. And they had that many to begin with because they were constucting and uniting a national and geographic entity that spend the previous 100+ years as a warlord and imperialism free for all with little centralized authority of formal border treaties with any of their neighbours while at the same time the entire region saw massive nation building and anti-colonial transformations around them. Even for the contested borders or claims it still has, its ignorant to mention it in this context.
China wont pre-emptively invade taiwan and never would, even under most of Mao’s reign. They dont expect Taiwan to be magicaly reunited. They will fight for, defeat the US over it and reunify the momment the US or Taiwan instigates an actual independence or military stationing related crisis and not over Pelosi visiting or whatever. If you dont believe they would or that they wouldnt beat the US to do it when push comes to shove because they didnt keep assad in power or because they wont fight a proxy war in Iran (where iran didnt and doesnt even want them to), whatever you are free to do so.
People talk about China being encircled as if we didn’t see a country bordering China flip from being a US client state to a pro-ish China country less than 5 years ago. If China is considered “encircled” now, then what do you call what China was during the 70s lol
China actively resolved most of these contested borders btw. If India isnt interested in a peaceful solution then what else will the PRC do? In fact one of the reason the PRC acts so “docile” is because they dont want the “international troublemaker status” - which Iran kinda holds right now (undeserved but listen to the UN speech lol, even guyana was both siding iran and israel). So that there is less issues when they move to deal with Taiwan.