this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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Image is of one of the six salvos of the Oreshnik missile striking Ukraine.


The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range ballistic missile that appears to split into six groups of six submunitions as it strikes its target, giving it the appearance of a hazel flower. It can travel at ten times the speed of sound, and cannot be intercepted by any known Western air defense system, and thus Russia can strike and conventionally destroy any target anywhere in Europe within 20 minutes. Two weeks ago, Russia used the Oreshnik to strike the Yuzhmash factory in Ukraine, particularly its underground facilities, in which ballistic missiles are produced.

Despite the destruction caused by the missile, and its demonstration of Russian missile supremacy over the imperial core, various warmongering Western countries have advocated for further reprisals against Russia, with Ukraine authorized by the US to continue strikes. Additionally, the recent upsurge of the fighting in Syria is no doubt connected to trying to stretch Russia thin, as well as attempting to isolate Hezbollah and Palestine from Iran; how successful this will have ended up being will depend on the outcome of the Russia and Syrian counteroffensive. Looking at recent military history, it will take many months for the Russians and Syrians to retake a city that was lost in about 48 hours.

Even in the worst case scenario for Hezbollah, it's notable that Ansarallah has had major success despite being physically cut off from the rest of the Resistance and under a blockade, and it has defeated the US Navy in its attempts to open up the strait. Israel has confirmed now that their army cannot even make significant territorial gains versus a post-Nasrallah, post-pager terrorist attack Hezbollah holding back its missile strike capabilities. In 2006, it also could not defeat a much less well-armed Hezbollah and was forced to retreat from Lebanon.


Please check out the HexAtlas!

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Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli 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 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.


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[–] [email protected] 60 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

I don't think so? I think the situation is still relatively okay and I'm optimistic about the future of the Resistance. The massive damage done to Israel isn't suddenly reversed because a bad thing, even a very bad thing, happens. That's simply not how material conditions develop. It's a race to the bottom; as Israel internally decays, it must take increasingly brazen and risky actions to survive. The South Africa model is being followed to its inevitable conclusion. Destabilize surrounding countries in the hopes that everybody else will fall before you do. It won't work, but ideologically, there's no other way for Israel to go.

What happens next will be defined by Iran and Russia's response. The ball is in their court. If there has been no strategic developments or recalculations within the next few months or so then we can infer a lot of things from that.

You can have hope, or you can say that actually, the Resistance never had a chance anyway and swear that you'll never predict any good event ever happening ever again: the internal emotional state of internet commenters doesn't matter to anybody actually fighting against Israel. You're obviously allowed to have strong emotions about it, it would be kinda weird if you didn't, but your opinion of events cannot influence them. My goal here remains the same; to observe and understand how anti-imperialists act, and respond to actions, by a decaying neoliberal hegemon. I'll be here as long as there are anti-imperialists in this world, which means I'll be here indefinitely, because there will always be those who oppose the ruling order. Regardless of what happens in the Middle East, as communists, we (including myself) should aim to do at least a little better than defeatism. It's why I admire @[email protected]; they might be rather pessimistic on the whole, but they don't just show up and bleat about how it's all hopeless and there's no way for China or Iran or Russia to win, they are reading and studying to understand the geopolitical situation and what avenues exist for imperialism to be defeated if China is willing to do X, Y, or Z. To take a section from this essay I recently summarized and posted:

The Demiurge Does Not Exist; or, the Problem With Pessimism:

This is a frequent problem in political media, or media in general: simply depicting a problem is not enough. Portraying or pointing to the inequalities and abuses of capitalism has to come with the practical solutions to these problems, otherwise it is an exercise in despair – an informed despair, yet despair nonetheless.

This is critique as exposure, shining a light on the problems as opposed to demonstrating the fallibility of these problems. Something missing from documentaries and books [like war exposes] is the premise that despite the overwhelming power of the U.S Empire, it is inevitable that it will fall. The brilliance of a work like Marx’s Capital is that it demonstrates the sheer power of capitalism, its ability to extract immense quantities of wealth and social control, while simultaneously showing the power of labour, the protagonist who will break its chains and bring in the next necessary stage in human development.

...

The power of capitalism, the appearance of an all-powerful Demiurge, is undone when we are able to recognise the world as changing over time; this is the Hegelian and Marxist notion of “History”, a dynamic process based on interconnected and material struggles, rather than “history”, a collection of isolated events with no underlying logic.

Without an understanding of how quantitative changes turn into qualitative changes, it is easy to see small wins as isolated, without their transformative potential in aggregate. A lack of process thinking creates “Messianism”, the belief that the world should be changed in one fell swoop; this binary logic is endemic to Western thought and a major factor in the pessimism seen among the Left. A combination of intense pessimism towards the construction of socialism in the short-term, and an intense utopian optimism that the revolution should arrive “all-at-once”, is a fundamental issue that prevents a grounded understanding.


Sorry to reveal my inner LOTR nerd, but quite possibly my single favourite quote in all of media is Aragorn's words after losing Gandalf in Moria:

“‘We must do without hope,’ he said. ‘At least we may yet be avenged. Let us gird ourselves and weep no more! Come! We have a long road, and much to do.'”

I'm now imagining Assad with a long white beard and wizard hat, which isn't a happy thought. Nasrallah fits that look better.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I’m coming to the conclusion that many news mega users prefer to wallow in assuming the worst in every development and “blowing off steam” instead of analyzing each situation with the rigor that being materialists demands.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I am analyzing the situation. Assad's Syria has been toppled and replaced with NATO proxies. Hamas is contained and Gaza is virtually uninhabitable. Hezbollah's leadership is decimated. Iran is losing allies left and right, and they realize it. I don't think "the worst" (whatever that means) is going to happen. Just that the Resistance, as it was understood even just two years ago, is crippled. October 7 was Sinwar throwing the stick at the drone sent to execute him. A desperate, defiant act. I'm sure it will live on in some form or another. But I think in the near-to-medium term, the Resistance has been defeated. I don't see how it can be viewed any other way without flat out lying to oneself.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Hezbollah literally just defeated the Israeli army, what on god green's earth are you talking about

if Netanyahu was currently getting a tan in Beirut I could understand this position, but they couldn't even take Khiam. The Resistance is not only not defeated, it's actually still stronger than Israel and has more achievements under its belt. It's taken over a year for Israel to achieve two meaningful goals (collapse of Syria, detach Gaza and Lebanon fronts) while the Resistance has been knocking out Israeli air defense and military sites and tanks and vehicles and causing untold economic and social damage to Israel since October 7th, and now suddenly it all means nothing? All those tanks magically repaired, all that tourism money replenished, all the Zionist soldiers risen from the grave, all those air defense missiles un-fired?

We aren't at the end of the war. We're not even at the beginning of the end. We're at the end of the beginning, and we have years to go yet. Strap in.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Russia is a major supporter of Israel.

It's basically just Iran alone now.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Always has been, just Iran and north Korea, the only 2 not bad countries. Now we have Yemen.