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 the USS Abraham Lincoln arriving at Thailand, looking worn after a very long deployment to the Arabian Sea.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preamble

To start briefly with Iran, there’s been two significant developments over the last week. First is that Iran is now beginning to put into practice its policy that allows preemptive strikes - a policy which was authorized by the previous Khamenei a while before his death but has so far gone unused - to strike at Kuwait, Qatar, and Jordan without a corresponding American aggression immediately beforehand. The second development is that Iran is now taking a firmer stand against the US Navy in the waters of the Arabian Sea, beginning by testing anti-ship ballistic missiles against the US fleet - so far without confirmed hits as of me writing this sentence - as it is obviously disadvantageous for Iran to simply not do anything against the blockade even with US logistics under strain. The US has attempted to dissuade these new strikes by striking Iranian oil tankers, to which Iran has responded by striking oil tankers aligned with the West. This is very much not a shooting war that the US wants to get into as oil stockpiles continue to decline and diesel prices are at all-time highs (though if adjusted for inflation, we still have a little more time before we hit absolute highs). The overall picture is of an Iran growing in confidence.

There’s also been some encouraging news out of Yemen, where Ansarallah has been conducting a ground offensive weaken the enemy occupation of the western coast, including some breathtakingly precise drone-drop operations combined with using recon drones to guide ballistic missiles at enemy formations. As far as I’m aware, the blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb to Saudi tankers has been very successful, although stopping Saudi tankers from heading north towards Suez has been understandably trickier. I suppose if push comes to shove, they can continue to strike the very immobile coastal oil facilities rather than trying to hit moving ships at a great distance.

The news out of Russia/Ukraine has been quite miserable for particularly Ukrainian civilians over the past month or two, with Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian logistics and warehouses being met with much greater Russian responses on Ukrainian civilian logistics and warehouses. Ukrainian ports are now effectively blockaded, making exporting agricultural products in the same quantities as before essentially impossible, and within the cities including Kiev, food suppliers are scrambling to find smaller warehouses to place goods in so that they aren’t as easily destroyed like the larger warehouses have been. I find it sincerely upsetting that the war has progressed to this point, though it’s always worth noting that, first, Ukraine had a few opportunities to sign pretty good negotiating terms with Russia; and second, in comparison, Western wars begin at the step of making a conflict about hurting civilians, even to the extent of it being a detriment to strategic goals by not solely hitting military targets (most famously in Gaza, but also e.g. during Obama’s term by bombing weddings and hospitals).

I will confess to not being as up-to-date on the situation in Europe, and especially Germany, in regards to the Ukraine War as I would like, but as a general statement, nothing I’ve seen over the last few years has demonstrated to me that Europe is capable of fielding a conventional force which would provide a formidable, let alone existential, threat to Russia at this stage. There’s been lots of embarrassing stories about European missile, drone, and shell production being well below standards in both quality and quantity. My thoughts are now that I think the age of the US/NATO posing an existential conventional threat to China, Russia, and probably Iran (and perhaps others like the DPRK?) is now conclusively over, with Western bases proven to be indefensible with existing missile defence programs, their logistics very vulnerable to disruption, and their aircraft not being safe to use over airspace at least as well-protected as Iran’s. The US can still do cataclysmic, nation-destroying damage to smaller, less defended countries like those in Latin America and Africa, but for the anti-US squad in Eurasia, the vast majority of the threat from the US is now a combination of financial/debt offensives and covert intelligence. We still have a long way to go on both those fronts, however - a minimum of a decade or two, I believe, even with Trump’s inadvertently anti-imperialist accelerationism.

Lastly for this preamble, the annual SCO summit took place on September 1st in Bishkek, with the leaders of China, Russia, Iran, India, Türkiye, Pakistan, and others in attendance. A lot of the usual statements were made: down with hegemonies, down with militarising space, down with unilateral sanctions, up with local currency exchanges, up with cooperation, up with peace, etc etc. The big proclamation this time around was the Bishkek Declaration, which reiterated all those points I just mentioned. Overall, it’s one of those documents where the content is mostly cool and indirectly jabs a lot at the US, but I find that paper is a generally ineffective barrier of protection against bombs and missiles, which is a pretty major avenue of… let’s say, “international communication” in the current day. And I would like to see some real contenders to the World Bank and IMF taking shape soon if we’re gonna truly start fighting hegemonism, but I digress.


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.


  • Champoloo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    11 days ago

    To put any current or future rumors to rest, we now have an official clarification from Abdallah Al-Na’imi, a member of the Ansarallah Politburo:

    “There are no intentions whatsoever on the part of the Sana’a government to enter the southern governorates. Saudi media will not succeed once again in misleading our brothers in the South and recruiting them into its malicious wars. Everyone has now come to understand the true nature of this American-Zionist regime and that it is the common enemy of us all.”

    https://xcancel.com/aldnmarki/status/2098589155492049329

    • demeritum@lemmygrad.ml
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      11 days ago

      A mistake born out of idealism. The UAE and Saudi will not grant them the same decency. Their puppets will never seek reconciliation.

      Our enemies know war and enslavement, they have forgotten to live in peace.

    • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      11 days ago

      This is a mistake. They’re in a superior position right now both in manpower and materiel. They could take total control and unite the country permanently. It’s like, 5 towns and 2 cities.

      • ashinadash [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        11 days ago

        Seems Ansrallah is not interested in forcibly unifying:

        There will be no push toward Aden. Sana’a will be seeking a peaceful reconciliation with the South, whose legitimate grievances since 1994 must be taken seriously and resolved through negotiation, not force.

        That is the current Ansar position toward Aden & Southern Yemen.

        The sight of “northern” tanks rolling into “southern” Aden is a gruesome image deeply embedded in the South Yemeni consciousness, and that is something that must not be repeated if Yemen is to be at peace.

        https://xcancel.com/aldnmarki/status/2098117470674362681

        To put any current or future rumors to rest, we now have an official clarification from Abdallah Al-Na’imi, a member of the Ansarallah Politburo:

        “There are no intentions whatsoever on the part of the Sana’a government to enter the southern governorates. Saudi media will not succeed once again in misleading our brothers in the South and recruiting them into its malicious wars. Everyone has now come to understand the true nature of this American-Zionist regime and that it is the common enemy of us all.”

        https://xcancel.com/aldnmarki/status/2098589155492049329#m


        Remember to enable JPEG-XL support in your browser, even on your phone!

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          11 days ago

          Well if this turns out to be true (I still think it’s a mistake when they’re capable of doing it right now) it does not rule out a move on Taiz. I do believe Taiz would be easier if Aden were first though. But I guess the calculation here is not upsetting UAE and expecting them to stay out of it?

          • orlando [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            11 days ago

            i’m not their dad, but i would push into saudi arabia with the military they have now if they can convince the south to stay out of it.

            • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              11 days ago

              Interesting idea for a fantasy map, Yemen takes the entire mountain range all the way up to Jeddah. You could even go further since the mountains do truly continue all the way to Jordan, just take the entire coast of the strait?

              Completely unlikely but it’s a funny map idea. Particularly interesting if you look at population density:

              I think population density is a bit misleading in this case though, there’s probably some low density places of immense value in this oil country.

          • ashinadash [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            11 days ago

            I want to do more research about it, I meant to go look on like thecradle or electronicintifada or smth about it. I also thought the south was just a puppet thing, so the news surprised me too. Given that as of yesterday we’re hearing news of mercs pulling out of Aden Idk if that factors into it.


            Remember to enable JPEG-XL support in your browser, even on your phone!

      • TheLastHero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        11 days ago

        it could be possible that Ansarallah needs to take some time to reorganize and regroup now. Even though they took minimal losses in this offensive they’ll have to set up a new administration in the captured territories, take stock of captured equipment and POWs, and get their troops back in order. It sounded like AA didn’t expect their counter offensive to be this rapid and successful so they may be already somewhat overextended, but they are just playing it off as magnanimity. Maybe it will win some southern tribes over, probably not, but might as well if they need to stop anyway.