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 smoke rising after Iranian missiles impact a US military site in Bahrain.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preamble

After a few weeks of both diplomatic and military manuevering - mostly over Iranian control of Hormuz - we have hit the hottest phase of military exchanges since at least the MoU period began. The US has generally focussed on striking southern Iran, although they have also sporadically hit transportation infrastructure elsewhere, which was repaired in less than 24 hours. Meanwhile, Iran has struck a wide range of targets, with an interesting focus on Jordan, but has, up to the time of me writing this, so far relented on striking the Zionist entity. The US and Iran have had little periods of mutual military strikes during the “ceasefire” before, and so it’s hard to tell for sure whether this yet another temporary spat or if it represents a full return to the pre-ceasefire conflict.

A complicating factor in this conflict is that Ansarallah has become increasingly active, and seems eager to start to break the siege it has been put under by threatening to attack Saudi Arabia and Saudi-aligned forces. This has put Iran in a somewhat awkward spot. On the one hand, it has greatly helped Ansarallah resist foreign attackers and has even recently sent civilian airplanes into Sana’a to begin to break the siege. On the other hand, Iran has, with China’s help, generally desired to improve its relationship with the Saudis over the years. While in this latest war there have been a major dispute between them over whether Iran is “allowed” to strike US military infrastructure located in Saudi Arabia, the Saudis strike me as considerably less anti-Iran as the UAE, let alone the Zionists, and did send a delegation to Khamenei’s funeral. I guess we’ll just have to see what happens next, but I strongly suspect that Iran is going to help Yemen over the Saudis.

And finally, Lindsay Graham has died of a sudden heart attack a suspiciously short time after visiting Ukraine. He was a true enemy of civilian populations all the way to the end of his life, and he seemed to particularly despise children. He advocated for using nukes against Gaza and the total annihilation of anybody and everybody who had even the meekest criticism of Zionism. If God (and, more pertinently in this case, Satan) does exist, I hope Graham is extended the exact same level of courtesy and respect in the afterlife that Graham extended to all Palestinians.


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:

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.


  • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    5 hours ago

    Private credit companies are doing so well that they are openly talking about creating a private credit CDO (the main thing that made the 2008 crash so big).

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    6 hours ago

    “I don’t understand how Iran has the capabilities to fight this way.”

    Fox News host Maria Bartiromo is confounded by Iran attacks because “the U.S. has obliterated Iran’s military, and the president continues to reiterate that.”

  • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    5 hours ago

    The Iranian Revolutionary Guard thanked the Jordanian people and army for their accurate information, which contributed to the targeting of the Mofak al-Salti base…

    They are probably just messing with them, right?

  • Lovely_sombrero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    8 hours ago

    Dumb war update: I guess we can call this the new baseline “normal” now. Iran strikes Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and Iraqi Kurdish areas. A ship is on fire in the SoH. The US strikes western parts of Iran, but with nowhere near the intensity of the first 6 days of attacks. So very similar to yesterday, at least so far. Talk of some strikes on the UAE, I guess that is a bit different. [edit] Now US strikes seem to be more intense than the last day.

    WaPo article:

    “The U.S. is planning for a wider war,” said one U.S. official familiar with internal administration discussions, adding that the Pentagon was increasing the number of military aircraft in the region. But the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, cautioned that the expansion of U.S. operations will be limited by dwindling stockpiles of air defense and long-range munitions and the ability to surge more troops and aircraft into the area because of battle damage.

    “We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that,” the official said. Military experts have said that in addition to the toll taken on U.S. equipment and munitions stocks, the U.S. is unprepared for possible ground operations inside Iran that Trump last week refused to rule out. “I think it would be a mistake to put ground forces anywhere in islands in the strait or onshore,” said Seth Jones, who heads the defense and security department at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, referring to the Strait of Hormuz. “I don’t think U.S. forces are prepared for standoff strikes from Iranians.”

  • thelastaxolotl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    11 hours ago

    Argentina vs Spain is about to start

    lol they are playing Aserejé in the water break

    they are singing some gringo song ew, if i remember right i think this game was going to have a halftime thing which is ew, also Tom Cruise was doing a speech lmao

    here is a stream https://envivo.tvazteca.com/

    i agree with his

    I want a Spain win but the pure unadulterated tears on socials if Argentina won would feed me for days

    Cool the muppets are there in the midtime thing also BTS too? Nerds didnt you heard your country died in the group stage

    Esta culero el medio tiempo no voy a mentir

    Red Card for Argentina, Fernández is out

  • Tervell [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    https://x.com/ripplebrain/status/2078878309815812562 (privated account so you may not be able to open it)

    This is the issue with limited air war against a real country capable of domestic industrial production and complex engineering tasks


    https://xcancel.com/benuyork/status/2078880819548951028

    The irony is if we hadn’t sanctioned them so much they would not have had to build as much internal capability

    https://xcancel.com/raymackmelon/status/2078880070106759388

    The comments on those posts are so funny. Its like “Well we’ll just have to blow it up again won’t we!” The war will get to the point where the US did 5,000 more sorties and half of them are on the same bridge.

    peltier-laugh

    we’re gonna have to start handing out Crimea Bridge medals to Iranian infrastructure too now

  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netM
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    The US attacked the Darkhovein nuclear power plant site, in Khuzestan, Iran The US fired several missiles hitting the site of the Darkhovein power plant, under construction, at around 3:39 AM today. (Fars)

    • Middle East Spectator
  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.netM
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    16 hours ago

    Satellite imagery released by Iranian state media shows damage to the electrical substation at a Batelco data center in Bahrain. Iran claims the facility functions as a U.S. military command-and-control and AI data processing hub. The imagery appears to show damage to the power substation, while the data center building itself appears to have remained intact.

    • Middle East Spectator
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    16 hours ago

    The interview that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was supposed to give to American television network FOX News was canceled at the last moment.

    • Middle East Spectator