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.
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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.
Not to be spiteful, but if they weren’t feeling the pressure before, then they weren’t actually paying attention to the way the political winds have been blowing. They would kidnap people all the fucking time. Of course, it wasn’t ‘kidnapping’ it was ‘legal detention’ in Guantanamo and the charges would be different (“terrorism”), but the result is the same. The same goes for any LGBTQ individuals and communities. The Democrats only adopted them into the federal coalition less than 20 years ago, they can and will be kicked out just as easily if it suits the Dems, they are already posturing towards it. Different states will serve as safer havens for them, but that is the way it has always been.
They have been “emboldened” for the last 60 years. It’s not any different, people are just pretending it’s different because the mainstream media is now actually reporting on it the way it should be reported. Just because you are just now reading about it doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening. Hell, we threw the Chinese immigrants who built the national railways out, you think anyone in law enforcement around here ever actually gave a shit that you ‘just overstayed your visa’? The only reason they ever let anyone go was to save themselves the paperwork, now the Biden administration has minimized the paperwork, legal standing of immigrants, and supercharged the processing. The information leading to these current immigration raids was likely gathered during the Biden administration.
Trump is just as predictable as Biden, in that he usually does whatever the news is telling him to do. He is not actually that erratic, as presidents go. In this case, the news is telling him not to go to war with Iran, but everyone around him is telling him to do it, except probably for the beautiful generals who are giving him ‘the options’, hence his waffling. We will see what comes of it, the military-industrial complex may just pull this one off. However, unless the news and everyone tells him to ‘nuke Iran’ he is not going to ‘nuke Iran’. When the news starts actively saying that, that is when I will start to worry. He is literally the meme of ‘Turning the racism dial and looking back at the crowd to make sure they approve’. Terrifying given the general bloodlust of the American public, sure, but not some sort of erratic madman.
Just to correct this bit it seems Fox news is hawkish and that is his main source(ex 1, ex 2). This is the major difference from the Bolton era when Tucker at Fox was IMO one of the most important voices that convinced Trump against it.
I’ve not been watching Fox too closely, mostly because I have been incredibly busy with work as of the last three weeks, when I was seeing it there was a little more trepidation, but based on those articles it would appear to have switched to being more hawkish as of late. That said, I don’t think Trump ever really reads the articles, it’ll be whatever talking head opinion is on in the morning.