Image is sourced from this Economist article.
Most of the information in this preamble is from the Cradle; notably here, here, here, and here.
The features of an effective American war (proxy or otherwise) is that it is a) against opponents with much less military power than you; b) with very low American losses; c) with victories you can visibly show off from time to time to justify involvement, and d) with a profit margin beyond merely giving money to military corporations. The war against Yemen was none of those; airplanes tumbled off aircraft carriers, and the navy complained of the hardest fighting conditions in decades. Conquering Yemen for its resources was inconceivable given the terrain, lack of good intelligence, and the strength of Ansarallah, and all that seemed to be visibly harmed were empty patches of desert and civilians.
Apparently, the ceasefire last month merely stipulated that they stop attacking merchant vessels in the Red Sea; it said nothing about attacking Israel. Therefore, Yemen is absolutely free to create a new blockade of Israel by just striking their airports and seaports, and all Israel can seem to do is try and bomb them in retaliation, a futile strategy which has failed to produce a military or political change in Yemen for the last decade when many other countries have tried it. And if America directly attacks them in response to attacks on Israel, the ceasefire is off, and expensive equipment will continue to be lost.
Across the strait from Yemen is an interesting array of countries. Egypt's position in this war is well-known, and Somalia is under a kind of US occupation under the guise of fighting terrorism (Trump withdrew most troops, but they were then sent back under Biden). The other three are Sudan, Djibouti, and Eritrea. All three are increasingly being drawn into the anti-imperialist camp, as they cooperate with Iran, Russia, and/or China. Sudan is undergoing a civil war, but the rebels fighting the government are famously backed by the UAE. Djibouti has refused to allow themselves to be a launchpad for US strikes on Yemen.
Eritrea has a fascinating history of flip-flopping between West and East over the past few decades, but has, since 2020, sided with the East. It was one of the five countries to oppose the 2022 UN resolution condemning Russia's war with Ukraine. Eritrea sends two thirds of its exports to China, and Iran has reportedly supplied them with military equipment. If a stronger link could be reforged, then Iran would have significantly less trouble sending military technology to Ansarallah, and to other friendly groups throughout the region.
Naturally, the lidless eye of the imperial core is shifting its gaze onto Eritrea. Meanwhile, Ethiopia - a country that has experienced frequent conflict with Eritrea - is part of BRICS+ and their economy is increasingly reliant on China (as is most countries' economies nowadays). If a permanent resolution between the two could be created, it would be a victory for themselves and the Resistance, and a defeat for America, which thrives on conflict and destabilization.
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.
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.
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news
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Part of “Operation Web” was also terrorist attacks on civilian targets such as the passenger train and Crimea bridges. No they don’t have a “right” to perpetrate terrorist attacks against civilians.
Fucking absurd there's people here arguing that the CIA has the "right" to do perfidious drone strikes inside of the sovereign territory of its enemies. Get a grip people before you become Bernard Sanders 2.0.
Edit: Actually even worse! I watched the clip and Hasan isn't saying that Ukraine has the right to do drone strikes against a military target they are at war with (a more reasonable take). No, he said "Do I think Ukraine are in the right to blow up some russian bombers? Hell fucking yes". He's expressing excitement and glee at NATO tactical victory, not saying that Ukraine has a legal right to fight. That gives me vaush and nafoid vibes.
While I vehemently disagree with the soft pro Ukraine takes he has,I won't shed tears over them losing some bombers.
Yes,it was a reckless escalation and a dangerous development,but I can also say fuck the Russians for being so corrupt and arrogant that they thought they wouldn't get this type of response from a state which is the manifestation of the hatred the west has for Russia,a weapon with which to dismember and damage it.
You can't tell me the onus is only on the west for striking and not on the crass incompetence for even making this possible on the Russian side.
I'm going to make this into a semi call-out post,so I do apologize for my combative tone,but I did ruminate this over some time, reading your takes on Russia.
First,I will never tarnish the valuable contributions of Russia to the fight against the West in the global south. Their support for the DPRK,Cuba and Traore is commendable in it of itself. Helping Syria and making it into an anti Israel bulwark was also an unequivocally good decision and I won't ever criticize their position of helping those who want to fight the west all over the globe.
Now,that being said,where my opinion differs from yours is what they do in their backyard. I am fully prepared to get shit on for being the average ungrateful post communist state dweller east European for some of these takes,but so be it. One,they are undoubtedly still a capitalist state.
Now,this absolutely doesn't mean they should be fractured, demilitarized or weakened,but at the end of the day,I will always keep them at arm's length until something changes radically in their political structure.
Two,they, no matter how much I understand and agree with their position,they are still a direct threat to me and to my livelihood. I can agree with their position and I certainly won't cry any tears if they strike a NATO base,but they still are indirectly a very real danger to me.
This isn't some fever dream of a liberal living in the west,I live right on the border with Ukraine and I saw Russian drone strikes from my house. If this gets ugly,me and my family are the first in the line of fire.
Of course,this would only happen because of NATO jumping the gun,but while my logical mind can tell me who is really responsible,I,like any normal person would have a hard time completely avoiding thinking anything negative of the people bombing you,no matter how much you know they're in the right.
This point is weaker,mainly boiling down to me being scared of them if NATO goes haywire,but it's my perspective as someone who's as close to this disaster as one can be without having their lives in danger.
Third,they did something I can never forgive this election cycle and backed the fascist candidate. Before you tear my throat for being a Russia gate style eurolib, I'm not talking about election interference,but something they said about the fascist candidate. They had the audacity to say he is like Traore and that he would free the country like he did.
Keep in mind this is a neo legionary crook football hooligan piece of shit who makes liberal use of slurs and even threatened a member of the Senate with SA.
The sheer cynicism of that move lays bare to me the fact that they dgaf about the consequences of what they do and that the good they do is just remnants of the Soviet past and favorable conjuncture.
And yes,this was reported on by the native pro western news,but even I can tell that shit was astroturfed from one direction, because no Romanian knows who TF is Traore and what he did. That is not to mention their opposition to the cancelled elections last year. Yes it was a filthy PSD power grab so that they could try to re rig the election into having their candidate get into the second round,but it also kept Georgescu,a rabid lunatic who sieg heils with the best of them and has eulogized the "national hero" Antonescu.
Idgaf if he's the only anti west guy, voicing your support for this human filth shows that you don't give a fuck about denazification when the Nazis say they want to follow "Russian wisdom".
I will never disparage the conduct of the USSR towards Romania,with the small caveat that the Moldovan SSR should've kept the Bugeac,but the shit the RF is attempting to pull here now is quite frankly appalling and makes me seriously doubt their commitment to to liberation and instead makes me think they only want to split the world like a cake and put the worst kind of fascist adjacent buffoons in their slice so that they can control them like puppets.
Do I think they will invade us?No.
Do I think they should win in Ukraine?Yes
Do I think they should be a counterweight to NATO? Absolutely
That all being said,I can't see them as anything more than a useful enemy of the west,with a cynical foreign policy for my slice of the world.
I do not care if it seems like I'm trying to say they are at fault for this (I do not) and that they are the quiet supporters of neo legionaries in my country (they are),I can't get over some of the more blatant running of defence for Russia even when they fuck up spectacularly and let shit like this happen. It's nice that they hold up a lot of the big opposition to the west in the global south,but them giving their soft backing to the neo legionary candidate is a bit too much for me. It's clear they have a vision for eastern Europe and I don't know if I'm in complete agreement with it.
I'm not reading that wall of text
you aren't responding to what i said. Ukraine targeted a civilian passenger train and civilian vehicles when destroying a civilian bridge over a railway. That was this same operation, done at the same time, by the same guys. They also launched yet more drones into the Crimean bridge, a purely civilian bridge. They are doing terrorist attacks.
Look,I'm not being combative, but it's alright,you don't wanna read it,fine
However,when did I say the Kerch attack was justified? Did I say I'm a crypto banderite? I realize I'm talking to someone called Zposter here,but some charity would be warranted. The attack on the military bases is both on Ukraine for attacking and on Russia for not preventing it,that's my point.
I think it's a little unfair how even the slightest criticism of Russia is enough to brand someone as a pro Ukr,pro NATO chauvinist.
The reason I'm so up in arms is because eastern Europeans get so much unwarranted shit here and it's been bothering me. Most of it is completely warranted,mind you,I find myself astounded at the servility of our compradors to the west and the depravity of our Russophobia.
What I don't appreciate is us being sandpapered over because of the historical and modern day pro west lackeys that held power in our area of the world and how we have to treat Russia like it's still the Soviet Union if we don't want to be branded as "pro NATO".
This area ping ponged between Russia and the west for two centuries now and even in the best of times, during the Soviet years,there was still a soft undercurrent of subordination to them.
So now we have to be completely uncritical of what they do because they saved us from fascism,even when the state that actually did that now decayed into a oligarchic semi dictatorship that stumbled ass backwards into being on the good side of history because the west got too greedy and didn't wanna share and because of the Soviet heritage. It's just a bit insulting to be treated as a punchline, "the reddit belt", when voicing even the slightest negative opinion towards them.
I will never criticize the heroic efforts of the Soviet Union nor the measures it sought to implement in the liberated nations.
However,I hold no such reverence for the RF,no matter of how beneficial they are to the global south,they have a vision for this corner of the world that is fundamentally incompatible to what it would look like if it was truly liberated and I believe that is not a chauvinistic thing to believe at all.
Interesting perspective. Mostly commenting to say that I've read your comments. It is much to digest.
I just have no idea what any of this has to do with this conversation or why it's relevant.
Hasan supports some terrorist attacks, I say "hey that's chauvinist bullshit" and you decided to lore dump on me about your unrelated gripes.
Well,fair enough,but it was cooking in my mind for a while
Also,I don't know if he said anything about the bridge attacks,all I recall was the military bases being attacked being commented on
No him and all other pro-Ukraine chauvinist talking heads don't mention the attacks on civilian targets that happened concurrently with Operation Web. That's the point. It just further proves my point that he talks as if it never happened
Yeah,that I think is irresponsible
Overall I still think he does more good than harm,but he's way into "anti war-ism" on the Ukraine issue
Anti-warism is an idealist, radliberal position that poisons the brains of westerners
This isn't true at all. Leftism is inherently anti-war. Hence, "no war but class war".
The problem is where the anti-war stance is misrepresented. Unless it is coming from someone inside of Russia (and possibly countries positioning themselves as allied to Russia), who has a chance of possibly affecting Russia's ability to carry out the war through direct action and other political involvement, the stance that the solution is for Russia to back down is not an anti-war position; it is the exact opposite; it is the pushing of the "de-escalation through escalation" bullshit. It is a chauvinistic "our side will never back down" death pact.
The stance of people in Ukraine, the U.S., any NATO country—anywhere that potentially has influence over the Empire, really—must be to push Ukraine to back down in order to be authentically anti-war.
There's also the more controversial leftist argument over whether states can be authentically anti-imperialist. But that's really going to be a matter of whether you support the position I alluded to above for people who have potential political influence over nations which some people would consider "anti-imperialist nations" (due to the intermeshing of imperialism and class conflict, and also the fact that the Empire inherently has more power over, and responsibility toward, the prosecution and ending of wars than its targets). Like, that more controversial position comes up in the rarely seem question of whether Russian leftists should be cheering on and supporting the Russian military in nationalistic zeal, or trying to get Russia to negotiate and back down with as much fervor as Western leftists try to do so with U.S./NATO/Ukraine. We should all be able to agree, at the very least, that those who have the slightest chance at influencing the Empire to back down should do so. And that 100% includes Hasan Piker, who lives, acts, and practices social punditry within the U.S.
Class war is war, so this sentence is contradictory. We are pro-class war. We are also pro-wars of decolonization and fighting imperialists. Would you go up to a PFLP fighter and tell them “stop fighting Israel, no war but class war”? Ultras do that, and ultras are the primary anti-warism idealists. That is the strain of the westoid left we are talking about.
Russia’s war against Ukraine is not imperialist, it is in fact anti-imperialist. Even those inside of Russia should not attack Russia’s capability to wage war, which is the correct position of the Communist Party of Russia. Just like those inside Syria, Iraq and Libya should not have attacked their respective (capitalist) governments while they were under siege and invasion.
No, it's not. Not in the sense the anti-war movement is talking about. Class war is not a war waged by nation-states, but describes the struggle of the global working class against capitalists and their system of capitalism.
And PFLP isn't waging such a nation-state war; it is fighting colonialism and colonialist genocide. I would tell them to keep on fightin'.
The bit about whether those in Russia should oppose its war-making in Ukraine is what I mentioned at the end of my comment, where leftists may differ (but rarely even comes up). I intentionally didn't launch into the sectarianism like you did; I just acknowledged and described it. Again, either way we should be able to agree on whether Hasan—a pundit, resident, and political actor in the U.S.—should push for the Empire (U.S./NATO/Ukraine) to back down. He should.
So when a nation state is targeted by imperialists it should not resist? Those in Iraq, Libya and Syria should not have fought the invaders?
For the second time you are going sectarian. I will state my position and you can fuck off with that shit: I am an anarchist; I don't consider anything any nation-state does to be legitimate. Period. I have already stated quite clearly that I understand leftists may differ in this.
Now, back to the point: the anti-war position, where Hasan Piker is concerned, is being completely misrepresented. It is not anti-war for a USian to say Russia needs to back off. That is the opposite of an anti-war stance.
You did not answer the question. Should someone in the Iraq army in 2003 have fought against America?