A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like “in Minecraft”) and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of Iranian speedboats spotted by a satellite in the Strait of Hormuz.


Not terribly much has happened in the last week. The main two developments is the very much expected resumption of fire in Lebanon as the ZIonists are famously agreement-incapable, and the continuing supply of equipment to the Middle East, including the George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier. This means there are now three aircraft carriers in the general vicinity, and while I’m uncertain how much of a role the burnt-out Ford and the increasingly exhausted Lincoln will ultimately play (they were rather ineffective during the first round), there are also a good ~20 destroyers and however many submarines that are carrying their own munitions. I have a couple more paragraphs of exposition below, but it’s unlikely to be major news to anybody here, so I’ve spoilered it.

spoiler

On the one hand, it feels like a resumption of the war for the US at this point would be complete madness. We are getting article after article from even the Western media admitting to US standoff+interceptor missile shortages, as well as detailing the extensive damage to US bases. The Zionists are also getting ever more mired in Lebanon, with Hezbollah’s unjammable fibre optic drones playing an ever more prominent role in causing substantial long range damage to invading forces. On the other hand, it is very unlikely that most of the US’s remaining firepower is being brought to the region on a mere bluff. For its part, Iran and their allies seem to have their finger on the trigger, with their own extensive repairs, upgrades, resupplies, and adjustments having been made for round two.

Assessing the overall global economic situation is difficult, not least because of a degree of financial manipulation that is almost admirable in its sheer scale and recklessness - to quote Ghalibaf: “Their frontline is the yield curve.” Multiple countries are now facing real and desperate shortages, including major economies like Japan. Diesel prices continue their record rises, and reports about the potential impacts to all sectors of the global economy are streaming in, with famines around the world now very likely. While the US is profiting from the rise in oil prices, it seems like it will be unable to meaningfully increase production for at least a year or two, and so the US will certainly not be replacing the massive oil barrel deficit to create an energy hegemony, as some have suggested. In contrary: this is the best opportunity in a generation for China, Russia, and Iran to collectively make economic decisions that could cripple entire pillars of American hegemony. However, if the response is lacking - and we’ve all seen before over the last four years how China’s responses to crises have been on the lacking side - we could see a (albeit temporary) strengthening of the US’s financial power, as this global crisis will almost certainly result in debt climbing even higher as Western financial institutions grant loans en masse to struggling countries in the developing world. It’s very uncertain times.

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.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on the Zionists’ 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.

Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.

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.


  • Tervell [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    16 hours ago

    @CyborgMarx@hexbear.net some potential explanation for why Algeria doesn’t seem to be doing much in Mali, since I remembered you wondering that in the previous thread and just came across some details while reading the article in the post above https://archive.ph/qlBa4

    Regarding the possibility of broader contacts and agreements between the Malian authorities and Azawad structures, Sergei Balmasov notes that Algeria’s position could hinder these. Although Algerian media advocates a diplomatic resolution to the crisis, Malians do not fully trust Algeria

    According to the expert, Mali openly claims that Algerian intelligence services are attempting to facilitate the secession of the north of the country by providing various logistical support to Azawad separatists, which could be used, among other things, to purchase weapons. The expert cited the issue of fuel supplies as an example, noting that Algeria could be one of the few possible sources of supply. Malian military and intelligence officials have previously observed a coordinating role for Algerian intelligence services, during the 2024 battle near Tinzaouaten , when Tuareg separatists also allied with jihadists. For Bamako [capital of Mali], any agreement on Algeria’s terms would mean a serious loss of sovereignty. Algeria has traditionally viewed the Sahel as its primary area of ​​influence and seeks to cement its status as a key regional power, similar to Turkey. In such a scenario, Mali’s room for full sovereign maneuver would be significantly reduced. Balmasov sees Algeria’s interests in “selecting the Sahel for itself,” which for Algeria, “as a CIS zone for us, is perhaps even more important.”

    it is in Algeria’s interests to inflict a limited defeat on Mali, but the Algerians are not interested in the defeat of the Malian army

    Moreover, not all groups within Azawad’s structures are aligned with Algeria. "Some of them warn that Algeria is essentially ‘preparing a noose for us with our own hands,’ and that they will never allow the existence of an independent Tuareg state due to the Tuareg problem within Algeria itself," the expert concluded.

    • mkultrawide [any]@hexbear.net
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      15 hours ago

      Interesting. I’m far from a Sahel understander, but my first guess as to where weapons and supplies are coming from wouldn’t have been Algeria. JNIM makes most of its money selling gold to the UAE, Turkey, and Switzerland, and parts of their territory also directly borders Mauritania, one of the few Sahel countries with an active JSOC presence wherein the US is engaged in a 127e “counterterrorism and border security” operation in partnership with the Mauritanian military.

      • Tervell [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        14 hours ago

        I think this is specifically about the Azawad groups (the guys in green on the 1st map), who do indeed border only Algeria (although the Tuareg-populated region as a whole does also border Mauritania and Niger)

    • CyborgMarx [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      8 hours ago

      Goddamn that is some terrible state policy, a genuine crabs-in-a-bucket mentality

      Southern Algeria has always been unsecured territory and Algiers wants to make it worse? While a collapsed Libya sits on their eastern border and a hostile Morocco looms to their west, literally boxing themselves in with chaos incarnate and for what? More barren desert on a map? Braindead ultranationalism

      • not a lot of the claims are sourced, it could be just as likely that the supply chain goes from Libya through Niger, Algiers also made peace talks between the government and the Azawad groups back in 2015 that were broken a few years ago.

        The AES countries also tried to make Algeria as “state sponsor of terror” in the U.N.

        • AlHouthi4President@lemmy.ml
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          9 hours ago

          Yes. I don’t believe that Algerian government arming al Qaeda and its allies in the Sahel unless we get some substantive evidence.

          • it’s not in the favour of Algeria to support any side in the conflict because it has a substantial Touareg population in its borders. if it supports the FLA and they succeed they will fund separatists in Algeria, if they support the Mali government then the Touareg population will be mad too and would rebel.